What to watch for as Stars look for home cooking vs. Boston

The Dallas Stars begin their final eight-game stretch of the regular season tonight with the first of four remaining home games, desperately needing a win over Boston to stay in the hunt.
Here's what to watch for at American Airlines Center.

The skinny

As noted, the Stars have eight games remaining in their schedule and are coming off a disheartening 0-4-2 road trip in which they had chances to win or collect points in the third period of each game, but could not get it done. Or at least not in a fashion that allowed them to stay in the top eight in the Western Conference.
The Stars have 84 points and are now in 10th place in the conference, four points out of the second wild-card spot with two teams to jump over (on this day, those teams are St. Louis with 85 points and Anaheim with 88 points, although Anaheim and Colorado are tied with 88 points for the two wild-card spots).
What does that mean? Well, simple math suggests the Stars need to go 6-2, and even then, that might not be enough, but it's a good place to start. And since they have played well at home (24-10-3), it behooves them to get the job done at American Airlines Center before considering the four remaining road games, which are all against playoff teams -- Minnesota, San Jose, Anaheim and Los Angeles -- and the last three of those in the final week of the regular season.
In other words, it starts tonight if it's going to start at all.
"There's times in the season you just got to trust the process. Look, if we weren't playing well, there'd be major concerns, but we're playing awful well," Stars head coach Ken Hitchcock said Friday morning.
"I really like a lot of things we're doing. We're competing like heck. We're working properly. We're paying really sound, team hockey. We're playing against good teams and playing well, just like the one we got tonight; it's a good team. We got to trust that all of the stuff that we're doing.
"If we continue to do it, good results are going to be in the end."

History lesson

The storyline has been well-established that if the Stars are going to make the playoffs, they will do so led by veteran netminder Kari Lehtonen, given the absence of starter and franchise netminder Ben Bishop, whose twice-injured left knee will be re-evaluated on or around April 1, the start of the last week of the regular season.
For us, one of the most important games Lehtonen played this season was against Boston on Jan. 21 when the Bruins were one of the hottest teams in the NHL.
The Stars were coming off a desultory 4-1 loss to Colorado that marked their first game after the bye week. Looking at a four-game road trip east, the game against Boston loomed large and Hitchcock raised a few eyebrows in starting Lehtonen in the matinee. But Lehtonen was excellent, making 30 stops on 32 Boston shots, and the Stars won on a Tyler Seguin goal in overtime to begin a 9-2-1 stretch over their next 12 games.
Just saying.

A long rope with lots of room to grab it

One of the concerns from Hitchcock after the 4-3 loss to Washington on Tuesday was that he wondered if his top players are maxed out.
Tyler Seguin, Jamie Benn, John Klingberg and Alexander Radulov have carried the bulk of the offense for the Stars the entire season, and the lineup's top-heavy nature was never more pronounced than it was on the road trip when the team could not find enough depth scoring at critical times to earn critical points.
Those four players collected nine goals and 15 assists on the road trip, during which they scored a total of 15 goals.
"You can't really dwell on the past with this race that we're in and where we've fallen right now," said Seguin, who will once again face the team that selected him second overall in 2010.
"We got to take every point we can."
Jason Spezza won't be part of the mix for the next couple of weeks at least while nursing a bad back, so that shines the light even brighter on youngsters like Remi Elie, Devin Shore, Mattias Janmark, Jason Dickinson and Brett Ritchie. Ritchie was playing his best hockey of the season before suffering an illness and/or injury that cost him two of the last three games.
Curtis McKenzie, called up from the American Hockey League prior to the game in Washington, will get another chance, and, in fact, looks to take a roll on a revamped second power-play unit along with Radek Faksa.
"This is the first time this group's been on the ice as a power-play unit," Hitchcock said of the second unit. "Just based on who's in and who's out, we've had to make major change there, so we're really going to keep it simple."

Bruins still in hunt for top spot

While so much of the talk in the Eastern Conference has focused on the Tampa Bay Lightning, who have basically led the Atlantic Division and the conference from the get-go, the Bruins have quietly made quite a race of it for top spot in the East and home ice advantage through to at least the Stanley Cup final.
The Bruins are 8-2-2 in their last 12 and are six points back of Tampa Bay with two games in hand. This in spite of the fact the Bruins have been playing without some of their best players.
One of the game's top two-way centers in Patrice Bergeron (foot) is out. Top young defender Charlie McAvoy, captain Zdeno Chara, Jake DeBrusk -- another of the many impressive youngsters in the lineup -- are all sidelined, as well. Even Rick Nash (acquired at the trade deadline from the New York Rangers), Torey Krug and David Backes have found themselves shelved by injuries.
Only Krug is hopeful to return to the ice against Dallas.
In short, if you're the Stars, this is perhaps the optimum time to be catching the Bruins, even as they continue to pile up points regardless of who is in their lineup.
One player to watch? U.S. Olympian and former collegiate star Ryan Donato, who has two goals and two assists in his first two NHL games since joining the Bruins at the conclusion of the Winter Games in South Korea.
"I think you play the game in front of you and they're fighting to get in," Boston head coach Bruce Cassidy said. "We happened to get in the other night. We're ahead of the curve that way, but we're missing some key players. But what it does, it helps us better evaluate the players we do have in the lineup -- how can they match up against Benn and Seguin's line, whoever we decide to match up -- because that's normally Chara and McAvoy and Bergeron.
"So other people are seeing more important roles, so it's good for our club in that way to assess."

Methot set to rejoin lineup

The Stars will welcome back Marc Methot after the veteran defenseman missed the last four games with a hand injury when he suffered a cut while blocking a shot on the second game of the road trip.
The hand issue follows two long stints on the disabled list for Methot, who also dealt with a knee injury for much of the season.
"It's been tough for him, and it's been tougher on us," Hitchcock said of Methot's prolonged absences this season. "We just need him to keep it simple and stay healthy, and we're at our best when we spread out minutes, so if we're able to spread out minutes and kind of divvy it a little bit more between the second and third pair, it makes us a much better team.
"We've leaned on some guys awful hard."
Specifically, Methot's return should help Greg Pateryn and Dan Hamhuis, who shoulder a huge burden killing penalties.
"I think just bringing enthusiasm to the arena. Even this morning, we had a good, lively group out there (during) pregame skate -- that's where it starts," Methot said of getting back on track.
"And then, obviously, with tonight, we got a lot of guys that have played quite a few games and are very vocal in the room. So, I think it's just a matter of making sure everyone's kind of settled in and managing maybe those first couple shifts when the butterflies are there."
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.