Golden Knights at Stars preview

GOLDEN KNIGHTS (38-27-5) at STARS (37-28-5)
8 p.m. ET; NHLN, SN360, SNE, SNO, FS-SW, ATTSN-RM, NHL.TV

The Stars are tied with the St. Louis Blues and are six points behind the Nashville Predators for second place in the Central.
Dallas, which has won two straight and is 6-1-0 in its past seven games, is without goalie Ben Bishop, who left the game Thursday wihth a lower-body injury sustained at 6:33 of the second period during a 4-1 win at the Minnesota Wild. Anton Khudobin finished that game and will start Friday; the Stars recalled goalie
Landon Bow
from Texas of the American Hockey League.
The Golden Knights, 6-1-0 in their past seven games after going 1-5-1 in their previous seven, are in third place in the Pacific Division, four points ahead of the Arizona Coyotes.

Players to watch

Golden Knights goalie Marc-Andre Fleury is 5-0-0 with a 0.80 goals-against average, .972 save percentage and two shutouts in his past five starts.
Stars forward Roope Hintz can become the third rookie in NHL history to score the winning goal in three straight games, joining Patrik Elias of the New Jersey Devils (Oct. 27-Nov. 1, 1997) and Andrew Cogliano of the Edmonton Oilers (March 7-11, 2008).

They said it

"People would always assume we're the rested team so we should have more energy. That's not always the case. When you're coming off a back-to-back, it's easier to get in the game early." -- Golden Knights forward Max Pacioretty on Vegas playing its first game in five days
"If [Bishop] might need to miss a couple more games -- this might the third or fourth time -- Khudobin goes in, he does the job." -- Stars coach Jim Montgomery

Golden Knights projected lineup

Jonathan Marchessault -- William Karlsson -- Reilly Smith
Max Pacioretty -- Paul Stastny -- Mark Stone
Tomas Nosek -- Cody Eakin -- Alex Tuch
Ryan Carpenter -- Pierre-Edouard Bellemare -- Ryan Reaves
Nate Schmidt -- Deryk Engelland
Brayden McNabb -- Shea Theodore
Jon Merrill -- Colin Miller
Marc-Andre Fleury
Malcolm Subban
Scratched: Brandon Pirri, Valentin Zykov, Nick Holden
Injured: Erik Haula (lower body), William Carrier (upper body)

Stars projected lineup

Roope Hintz -- Tyler Seguin -- Alexander Radulov
Jamie Benn -- Jason Dickinson -- Joel L'Esperance
Andrew Cogliano -- Radek Faksa -- Blake Comeau
Valeri Nichushkin -- Jason Spezza -- Brett Ritchie
Miro Heiskanen -- John Klingberg
Esa Lindell -- Ben Lovejoy
Taylor Fedun -- Jamie Oleksiak
Anton Khudobin
Landon Bow
Scratched: Julius Honka, Mattias Janmark, Roman Polak
Injured: Stephen Johns (upper body), Marc Methot (lower body), Martin Hanzal (back), Tyler Pitlick (upper body), Mats Zuccarello (arm), Ben Bishop (lower body)

Status report

This is the 12th game Bishop will miss because of injury this season.

Stat pack

Smith has four points (two goals, two assists) during a four-game point streak. … Radulov has 10 points (seven goals, three assists) in his past nine games.