col dal preview 11317

AVALANCHE (22-16-3) at STARS (24-16-3)
9 p.m. ET; FW-SW, ALT, NHL.TV

Each team is coming off a six-day break after winning last Saturday.
Colorado last won six games in a row from March 25-April 5, 2014. Dallas is seeking its third win in a row.
Dallas goaltender Ben Bishop will start for the 11th consecutive game. He is 6-2-0 with two shutouts in his past eight decisions. Jonathan Bernier will start for Colorado and is seeking his fifth straight victory.

Players to watch

Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon has 12 points (three goals, nine assists) during a five-game point streak.
Stars defenseman John Klingberg has eight points (two goals, six assists) during an eight-game point streak.

They said it

"That'll depend on how long [Semyon Varlamov] is going to be out, which is unclear at this point. (Bernier) has been real patient, he's been a real good teammate, hard worker, and has kept himself ready and when [Varlamov] has been out [Bernier] has stepped up and done great. So we're going to treat him like our starter now. If he plays well he'll continue to go, and if he struggles we'll probably give him a chance to bounce back just like we would with [Varlamov]." -- Avalanche coach Jared Bednar on how much he plans to play Jonathan Bernier
"Momentum is huge. It's the extra player on your team. I don't know that (if there's a way to bottle momentum). I don't know that yet. I would say that's hard to gauge, we're going to find out, but there was good energy today, so it wasn't like we were starting over. We had a meeting this morning that was very brief, we made some adjustments, a couple things technically on our team that we want to see better." -- Stars coach Ken Hitchcock on carrying momentum after a six-day break

Avalanche projected lineup
Stars projected lineup
Status report

Varlamov is expected miss at least two more weeks. Compher and Andrighetto didn't travel to Dallas, but Compher could play Monday against the Anaheim Ducks. … The Stars placed Methot on injured reserve retroactive to Jan. 4 and recalled Heatherington from Texas of the American Hockey League.

Stat pack

Rantanen has eight points (three goals, five assists) in his past three games. Landeskog has 13 points (six goals, seven assists) in his past 10 games. … Radulov has six points (two goals, four assists) in his past two games. Seguin has six points (three goals, three assists) during a four-game point streak.