Stars hope to take advantage of home-heavy stretch

After playing eight of their last 11 games on the road, the Dallas Stars will spend a lot more time at home over the next few weeks, playing nine of their next 10 games at American Airlines Center.

It's an important stretch for the Stars who are in the middle of a tight race for the two wild-card spots in the Western Conference. Through Sunday's games, five teams in the wild-card hunt were separated by just three points. And now the Stars can gain some traction in the race playing a lot at home where they have fared well this season, posting a 10-4-0 record and ranking top 10 in the league in both goals for (3.43) and goals against (2.43).
"It's a huge stretch for sure," said defenseman John Klingberg. "We are right in it on the wild card. We've got nine out of 10 at home, so it's going to be huge. We've been playing pretty good at home. It should be fun, and it's some serious competition for us because we are playing a lot of top teams."
The stretch begins with a three-game homestand that will take the Stars into the NHL's holiday break, and the opponents are Washington, Chicago, and Nashville. The Capitals are 10-2-0 in their last 12 games and currently sit with the second-best record in the Eastern Conference. The Stars swept the Blackhawks in a home-and-home series two-and-a-half weeks ago, but the Blackhawks have turned things around lately and are on a five-game winning streak. The Predators already have beaten the Stars twice this season and are 16-2-2 over their last 20 games and sit on top of the Western Conference.

"Yeah, it's going to be a tough stretch, but we are going to be at home, so we should take advantage of it," Klingberg said.
The Stars are coming off a solid road trip through the Eastern Conference that saw them go 2-1-1 and collect five of a possible eight points. That trip wrapped up a stretch of 11 games in 19 days -- eight on the road -- and the Stars went 6-4-1, a pretty good record during a pretty tough piece of scheduling.
Now, they'll try to take advantage of some favorable scheduling with nine of 10 games at home over a span of 26 days.
"It's going to be, maybe, the most important stretch so far," said Klingberg.

Notes: Methot Practices

• Stars defenseman Marc Methot, who underwent knee surgery on Nov. 20, practiced with the team Monday afternoon in Farmers Branch. It was Methot's first time skating with the team, but he didn't make it through the full session and Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said the veteran defenseman is not close to returning.
"He's not ready to join us on a full-time basis," Hitchcock said. "He might join us for (Tuesday's) pregame skate, but he hasn't gotten through a practice yet, so I can't give you an exact date. He was to go a little bit longer today, but he wasn't able to. We'll review it and start again (Tuesday)."
• Ben Bishop will get the start in goal Tuesday against the Capitals. As for the rest of the week, Hitchcock said that is still up in the air.
"Ben (Tuesday) and then we'll just see from there. We'll see how we do," Hitchcock said. "Both [Bishop and Kari Lehtonen] are playing awful well right now, so that's a really good sign. We've got confidence in either guy. These are heavyweight teams we are playing that are on real long hot streaks right now, so goaltending is going to be a major factor if we are going to win some of these games."

Stars Practice Lineup

Remi Elie - Jamie Benn - Marc Methot
Mattias Janmark - Tyler Seguin - Devin Shore
Antoine Roussel - Radek Faksa - Tyler Pitlick
Gemel Smith - Martin Hanzal - Jason Spezza/Brett Ritchie
Esa Lindell - John Klingberg
Dan Hamhuis - Greg Pateryn
Jamie Oleksiak - Julius Honka
Marc Methot - Stephen Johns
Ben Bishop
Kari Lehtonen
Mark Stepneski is an independent writer whose posts on DallasStars.com reflect his own opinions and do not represent official statements from the Dallas Stars. You can follow Mark on Twitter at @StarsInsideEdge.