Stars at Coyotes preview

STARS (21-14-4) at COYOTES (21-15-4)
8 p.m. ET; FS-A, FS-A Plus, FS-SW, NHL.TV

The Stars, who play the Nashville Predators at Cotton Bowl Stadium on Wednesday, are 2-3-0 in their past five games after going 4-0-1 in their previous five.
Each teams is playing the second half of a back-to-back. The Stars won 3-2 in a shootout against the Colorado Avalanche at Pepsi Center on Saturday; the Coyotes lost 4-1 to the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena.
The Coyotes, who have lost their past two games and three of four (1-3-0), are trying to establish a home-ice advantage to match their success away from home. They are 1-4-0 in their past five home games and 8-9-1 at Gila River Arena compared to a 13-6-3 record on the road.

Players to watch

Stars forward Alexander Radulov has 10 points (two goals, eight assists) in his past seven games and has seven goals in 15 games against Arizona.
Coyotes defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson has six points (two goals, four assists) in his past five games after not having a point in 15 of his previous 18 games.

They said it

"There's a little different feel out there [than before the Christmas break]. I expect [Sunday] will be even better. It's a back-to-back and we'll see how it goes. These points are huge right now." -- Stars forward Joe Pavelski
"You've got to have a short memory [playing a back-to-back] but you've got to learn from it. You just can't erase it from your memory, you've got to learn from it." -- Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet on the loss at Vegas

Stars projected lineup

Jamie Benn -- Tyler Seguin -- Alexander Radulov
Mattias Janmark -- Roope Hintz -- Joe Pavelski
Andrew Cogliano -- Radek Faksa -- Blake Comeau
Denis Gurianov -- Jason Dickinson -- Corey Perry
Jamie Oleksiak -- John Klingberg
Esa Lindell -- Miro Heiskanen
Andrej Sekera -- Roman Polak
Anton Khudobin
Ben Bishop
Scratched:Justin Dowling, Taylor Fedun
Injured: Stephen Johns (post-traumatic headaches)

Coyotes projected lineup

Taylor Hall -- Christian Dvorak -- Conor Garland
Clayton Keller -- Carl Soderberg -- Nick Schmaltz
Lawson Crouse -- Derek Stepan -- Phil Kessel
Michael Grabner -- Brad Richardson -- Vinnie Hinostroza
Oliver Ekman-Larsson -- Jason Demers
Jakob Chychrun -- Alex Goligoski
Jordan Oesterle -- Ilya Lyubushkin
Antti Raanta
Adin Hill
Scratched:Aaron Ness, Christian Fischer
Injured: Niklas Hjalmarsson (leg)

Status report

Hjalmarsson, out since mid-October, is expected to return early next month.

Stat pack

The Stars and Coyotes are playing the first of three games against each other. … Seguin has five goals in his past seven games. … Khudobin is 1-2-0 with a 3.74 goals-against average in four games against Arizona. … Schmaltz has seven assists in his past five games. … Keller has six points (three goals, three assists) in the five games since Hall joined the Coyotes in a trade with the New Jersey Devils.