Stars look to make most of time at home during key stretch

Stars (34-19-6) vs. Coyotes (30-24-8)

DALLAS -- Two things that seem to help the Stars this season are rest and playing at home.
To be fair, they are 17-10-4 on the road and 7-3-2 on the second night of a back-to-backs, but they have their looked their best when they are coming off two days rest or when they are playing on home ice.
They have that situation tonight. Dallas had a day of rest Monday, a full day of practice Tuesday and will start a three-game homestand tonight against the Coyotes. That's important, because the team was a bit sloppy in a 4-3 OT loss at Ottawa on Sunday.
"We had seven out of nine on the road with a lot of travel, and what happens is your practice time goes away and your rest time is not what you want it to be, and some bad habits creep in … which we saw against Ottawa," Stars interim coach Rick Bowness said after practice Tuesday. "So it's important that we have a good practice, which we did, and now it's important as coaches that we manage the schedule so that there is plenty of rest between all of these games coming up."
Dallas plays eight of the next 12 at home, and like most teams, it is better on home ice.

The Stars are definitely more themselves at home, playing much more structured hockey and much better defensive hockey. Dallas allows 2.84 goals per game with a .915 save percentage on the road. It allows 2.18 with a .927 at home. It outshoots the opposition 33.6-29.9 at home. It is outshot 27.7 to 33.5 on the road. It kills 85.9 percent of penalties at home. It kills 76.6 on the road.
The only place the team is better on the road is offensively. It scores 2.64 goals per game at home and 2.74 on the road. It converts 19.8 percent of its power play chances at home and 22.2 on the road.
But while that hint of extra offense is nice, the Stars say what they control best is defense.
"That's who we are," said captain Jamie Benn. "We play good structured defense and the defense leads to offense. That's how we have won games this year, and that's how we want to play."
That's why there will be a push to return to that style tonight. As much as a 2-0-1 road trip was fun, they were outshot by Toronto 31-19, they got down against Montreal by three goals and rallied back, and they were outshot by Ottawa 46-39 in the kind of game they almost never play.
"It's the same issues we've dealt with all year -- we're spending too much time in our zone and not enough time in the offensive zone," Bowness said. "So (Tuesday), we put the focus on let's forecheck properly and make sure the neutral zone is good. The defensive zone, if we're in good structure coming in, we're fine. It's when we're scrambling because the neutral zone is bad that we're struggling in our defensive zone. It affects coverage, it affects breakouts."

Stars 'expect another physical game' from Coyotes

These two teams played a passionate game Dec. 29 in Arizona. Dallas was out-shot 22-5 in the first period, Taylor Hall had a knee-on-knee hit against Mattias Janmark, and Jamie Oleksiak leveled Derek Stepan with a huge check. Dallas then rallied back and took a 4-2 win.
"It was a character win," Benn said at the time. "We made a big group effort."

The guess is there will be some residual emotion in this one.
"We expect another physical game from them," Bowness said. "They took some runs at us, and that's part of the game, and we responded. They kind of woke us up with their hits and we started to play really well after that."

Radulov ready to return

Alexander Radulov will return after missing three games with an upper-body injury. Radulov has one assist in his past five games.

The Stars have been rotating their sixth defenseman, so Andrej Sekera comes in after a healthy scratch in Ottawa. Sekera played 16:25 Saturday in Montreal. Polak played 14:56 in Ottawa on Sunday
Ben Bishop is in net. He is 7-1-2 in his career against the Coyotes with a 2.65 goals against average and .908 save percentage.

By the numbers

101

The Stars rank 20th in power-play opportunities at 173, but 101 of those have come in 28 home games, while 72 have come in 32 road games. Dallas is among the leaders in home power-play opportunities.

10-1-0

Dallas is 10-1-0 in its past 11 games against Arizona, and also has won 12 straight home games against the Coyotes. That home streak is tied for the second longest against an opponent in franchise history (the record is 16 against Minnesota).

385

Coyotes defenseman Alex Goligoski played 385 games for the Stars, tallying 187 points (32 goals, 155 assists).

He said it

"Our whole group plays better when we're emotionally involved. As the game went on, we kept banging bodies out there and it paid off."
-- Benn after a 4-2 win at Arizona Dec. 29

Stars projected lineup

Roope Hintz - Tyler Seguin - Corey Perry
Mattias Janmark - Joe Pavelski - Alexander Radulov
Jamie Benn - Jason Dickinson - Denis Gurianov
Andrew Cogliano - Radek Faksa - Blake Comeau
Esa Lindell - John Klingberg
Miro Heiskanen - Stephen Johns
Jamie Oleksiak - Andrej Sekera
Ben Bishop
Anton Khudobin
Scratched:D Roman Polak, LW Joel Kiviranta
Injured: C Justin Dowling (lower body), C Martin Hanzal (back)
Join the Stars for Hockey Is For Everyone Night when they return home to take on the Arizona Coyotes at American Airlines Center tonight at 7:30 p.m. Get your tickets now!
This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.
Mike Heikais a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter @MikeHeika, and listen to his podcast.