Stars at Avalanche preview

STARS (11-9-1) at AVALANCHE (10-8-1)
9 p.m. ET; ALT, FS-SW+, NHL.TV

Denver-born goalie Ben Bishop is expected to start for Dallas after making 29 saves in a 3-1 home win against the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday. However, the Stars are 0-3-1 in their past four road games and 3-7-1 this season.
Goalie Jonathan Bernier will start back-to-back games for the Avalanche for the first time because Semyon Varlamov is ill. Bernier made 21 saves Sunday in a 4-3 overtime win at the Detroit Red Wings. Colorado has won four consecutive games at Pepsi Center by a combined score of 22-11. They are 6-1-0 at home this season and have outscored their opponents 34-19.

Players to watch

Stars right wing Alexander Radulov has three points (one goal, two assists) in his past two games and 16 points (six goals, 10 assists) in the past 12.
Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon has seven points (two goals, five assists) in his past three games and 17 points (six goals, 11 assists) in his past nine.

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They said it

"We've got to win division games if we want to be a playoff team. We've got a rested opponent, an opponent who's been sitting home for the last four days, and that's going to be a significant challenge for us. We're going to have to go in there and play well." -- Stars coach Ken Hitchcock
"The last few years we haven't been very good at home. It's fun winning in front of your fans. All the good teams in this League win at home and have dominant records at home usually, so hopefully we can follow that trend and continue to do that." -- Avalanche defenseman Erik Johnson

Stars projected lineup

Mattias Janmark -- Jamie Benn -- Alexander Radulov
Devin Shore -- Tyler Seguin -- Jason Spezza
Antoine Roussel -- Radek Faksa -- Tyler Pitlick
Remie Elie -- Gemel Smith -- Brett Ritchie
Esa Lindell -- John Klingberg
Jamie Oleksiak - Stephen Johns
Dan Hamhuis - Greg Pateryn
Ben Bishop
Mike McKenna
Scratched: Kari Lehtonen (personal), Curtis McKenzie
Injured: Martin Hanzal (hand), Marc Methot (knee)

Avalanche projected lineup

Gabriel Landeskog -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Mikko Rantanen
Colin Wilson -- Alex Kerfoot -- J.T. Compher
Matt Nieto -- Carl Soderberg -- Blake Comeau
Gabriel Bourque -- Dominic Toninato -- Nail Yakupov
Samuel Girard -- Erik Johnson
Chris Bigras -- Tyson Barrie
Nikita Zadorov -- Mark Barberio
Jonathan Bernier
Andrew Hammond
Scratched: Sven Andrighetto, Andrei Mironov
Injured: Vladislav Kamenev (broken arm),Anton Lindholm (broken jaw), Patrik Nemeth (lower body) , Semyon Varlamov (illness)

Status report

The Stars recalled McKenzie from Texas of the American Hockey League and reassigned defenseman Julius Honka ... Hammond was recalled from Belleville of the AHL where he was on loan since Nov. 5 when he was acquired from the Ottawa Senators in the Matt Duchene trade.

Stat pack

Seguin needs two goals for 200 in his NHL career ... The Avalanche are last in the NHL in face-off percentage (42.6).