What to watch for as Stars continue California trip at Ducks

ANAHEIM, Calif. --The Dallas Stars will be looking to move on from one of their most disappointing performances of the year -- a 5-2 loss in San Jose on Sunday -- as they square off against a surging Anaheim Ducks team tonight at Honda Center.
Here's what to watch for.

A start, a start, my kingdom for a start

The Stars gave up goals to San Jose on their first, third, fourth and fifth shots of the game Sunday. That's not good. And they've given up the first goal in eight of their last 10 games. That's not good either.
And so, after a day off on Monday and a vigorous practice Tuesday, followed by a heavily-attended optional skate this morning, the expectation is that the Stars will get back to the form that saw them jump into third place in the Central Division in recent days for the first time since early November.
"If you took the read on our team after practice, you'd say, 'Man, are we ever going to play?' Because I've never coached a team that practices this well in my life," Dallas head coach Ken Hitchcock said. "This team really goes at each other in practice. We practice very well. I think, sometimes, our starts are we put too much pressure on ourselves to have to score rather than manage the game properly, and so, we get back involved in track-meet hockey, and I think the track-meet hockey has hurt us."
One area that the team has focused on between Sunday's loss and this first meeting of the season with Anaheim was positional play, which has slipped in recent games.
"The part I don't like is I don't like our positional play checking-wise, and that's what we cleaned up," Hitchcock said. "We worked hard -- we showed video (on Tuesday) and we worked hard at practice at cleaning up our positional play."
Captain Jamie Benn said it's critical the team find a way to reverse the current trend.
"It's huge," Benn said Wednesday. "Obviously, it's no secret we haven't been having the best starts, and it's tough to play hockey these days when you're chasing from behind all the time. We've got to use what seems like a lot more energy, even if we're all playing hard and trying to win a hockey game. But it's a lot easier when you can play with the lead."

Mix and match

In an effort to coax more offense from the group, Hitchcock has once again split up the team's big line of Benn, Alexander Radulov and Tyler Seguin.
The Stars have scored four times in their last three games and been outplayed in all three, even though they managed to sneak out a 2-1 win over St. Louis at home last week, thanks, almost solely, to the play of netminder Ben Bishop.
In practice Tuesday, Seguin centered Mattias Janmark and Devin Shore, while Benn centered Radulov and Remi Elie. Part of that was to guard against the unknown of Martin Hanzal's availability for these back-to-back games with Anaheim and Los Angeles on Thursday.
But even with Hanzal, who continues to battle soreness related to ongoing injuries that have limited his playing time all season, expected to play between Jason Spezza and Brett Ritchie, Hitchcock said he'd like to try Benn at center, something he's done periodically this season when the big line has run dry for a period or when the rest of the lineup has failed to generate chances.
"We would like to try that to get some balance, but necessity puts us in a different situation sometimes," Hitchcock said. "There's a lot of heavyweight center-ice positions over the next four games that we're going to be involved in and the balance would do us good."
Specifically, Hitchcock said he likes Benn in the middle to help combat the Ducks' depth down the middle.
"We're going to need the same kind of depth to play against them," he said.
Benn said there's little adjustment to moving to center from the left side.
"You do the same things and prepare the best you can, whether it's watching video or mentally getting ready for a game. I do the same thing every game," he said.

Leaders lead

We'll refer to a comment after Sunday's loss from Seguin, who suggested the Stars' leaders need to take a look in the mirror and help the team get back to its recent high level of play.
Seguin noted that it begins with him -- his counterpart San Jose captain Joe Pavelski scored the first goal of the game 27 seconds in on Sunday after the Seguin line turned the puck over on the rush and couldn't regain possession in the Dallas zone -- but it's been a struggle for all three of the team's top forwards recently. Seguin has one power-play goal in his last 19 games. Benn has one goal in his last 10 games -- none at even strength -- and Radulov has one goal in his last 10 games.
With back-to-back games against playoff-worthy Anaheim and Los Angeles, and a home date Saturday with Central Division-leading Winnipeg looming, the time for leaders to lead appears to be now.
Anaheim head coach Randy Carlyle was asked Wednesday morning about the big three Dallas forwards and he offered an all-encompassing assessment of how all teams' important players have to play.
"They're talented hockey players. They've played and had success in the league for a number of years. They're part of the face of their franchise -- not any different than we have players that fit that mold on our hockey club," Carlyle said. "And your big guys got to lead, and your big guys got to get it done.
"It's part of the responsibility of being put in that positon if it's a captaincy or a leadership role. Those are the things that have to take place. Everybody preaches the same thing and you're going to go as far as your big guys take you."
Truth.
"I think that's the way you win," Hitchcock added. "They've got to lead the charge, otherwise it's a little bit like competitive chaos. We've had a couple of off times here, and now, it's time to get back on board."

Ducks on the rise

Strange that Dallas is about to play Game 60 of the regular season and tonight marks the first time the Stars and Ducks will tangle.
Both teams have gone through a significant metamorphosis in-season. With the Ducks, they had to weather a litany of injuries at the start of the season to key personnel to finally get back on track. While former Star Patrick Eaves is still out long-term and starting netminder John Gibson was injured in the Ducks' last game -- a 2-0 win over Vegas -- and isn't expected to play Wednesday, the Ducks are playing their best hockey of the season.
They're 5-1-1 in their last six games and have allowed just 14 goals over the stretch.
Carlyle, by the way, was having none of the statistical talk as it related to their stellar defensive play of late.
"I never mention or talk about those kind of things because as soon as you talk about it, it usually comes back and bites you," Carlyle said. "So I'll let you guys do all the commenting on what the statistics are. I just know we have to play a stout defensive game. I don't think there's any team in the league that's not going to preach anything different."
Hitchcock said he's been predicting the return of the Ducks to prominence for some time now, and he's seen it reflected it in the play of top players like Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, whom he knows well from Canadian Olympic teams.
"I said to people two weeks ago, I said there's light at the tunnel, watch the top boys play, and that's exactly what I've seen," Hitchcock said. "I see the top boys are dialed in. Having so much experience with those guys, with Getz and Perry and those guys, you knew when they saw light at the end of the tunnel. They'd go up to another level and that's what they've done.
"All these teams -- San Jose, Anaheim, Los Angeles -- are all experienced, winning programs, and now, all these three franchises see that the playoffs are right on top of them, and now, you're getting their best. And that's what we're going to get. So we've got to be at our best."

Back to Bishop

Interesting stretch of hockey for tonight's starter Bishop, who stole a win for the Stars against St. Louis last week that vaulted the Stars into third place in the Central. But sandwiched around that performance were two games -- at home against Vancouver and Sunday's loss in San Jose -- in which he allowed eight goals on 25 shots and played 42:01 in total in taking the twin losses.
Hitchcock has consistently said that the goaltending tandem of Bishop and Kari Lehtonen, who will start Thursday against the Kings, has been the story of the year for the Stars.
Against two heavy, rolling Western Conference teams, no better time than now for that storyline to be retold.
This story was not subject to approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.
Scott Burnside is a senior digital correspondent for DallasStars.com. You can follow him on Twitter @OvertimeScottB, and listen to his podcast.