What to watch for as Stars try to snap skid vs. Flyers

The Dallas Stars will try and stop the longest winless streak since the team moved to Texas with a victory over the playoff-hopeful Philadelphia Flyers tonight at American Airlines Center.
Here's what to watch for.

Faint hope clause

Let's start with a little glass-half-full discussion.
Okay, maybe a quarter full.
Having gone 0-6-2 in their last eight, and having won just once in their last 11 games, it's not a surprise that the possibility of a playoff berth is, well, minimal for the Stars. But hope springs eternal, and with six games to go and a possible 12 points to collect, the Stars woke up Tuesday morning six points back of Colorado with the Avs also having six games remaining.
Complicating matters (okay, so maybe the glass is one-eighth full) is that the Avalanche are likely going to own the tie-breaker (regulation and overtime wins), so the Stars will need to gather seven more points than the Avs over the final six games. And there's the no small matter of the St. Louis Blues, who also sit between Dallas and the eighth spot in the Western Conference, five points ahead of Dallas with a game in hand.
But there you have it -- the math tells us it's not over. Not yet at least.
And the climb has to start somewhere if it's going to start, and that means an inspired effort against a Flyers team that looks headed to the postseason after a tumultuous season in Philadelphia.
"We're going to focus on this game today. We're up against a solid team that's got a lot of firepower, so we got to go the extra inch," captain Jamie Benn said Tuesday morning. "We've got to focus one day at a time. You can't worry about what's going on in the past. We got a big game tonight.
"If we can get a win tonight -- obviously our goal -- we can put this one behind us and keep moving forward."

Pride on the line

Okay, let's acknowledge the chances Dallas can mount a late-season charge to the playoffs are slim at best. So, then what?
Well, in the locker room after Sunday's disheartening 4-1 loss to lowly Vancouver, the players talked about approaching these final six games as professionals. And to be candid, this isa team that has throughout this epic winless streak never looked like a team that had thrown in the towel in terms of their effort and their approach to games.
We have seen teams that have mailed it in waiting for the offseason. This isn't one of them.
That's not to say there haven't been critical breakdowns or that they have seen their confidence stripped with each successive loss. There have been breakdowns, and as John Klingberg noted Sunday, the team's confidence is at a low ebb.
But these final games represent a test on a number of levels, not the least of which is putting aside whatever frustration exists in the dressing room -- and it is significant -- and playing with pride and discipline and a commitment to trying to win, just as if they had a 10-point cushion on a postseason spot.
In the scheme of things, it doesn't really seem like a lot to ask.
"You have no choice. We have to start by winning one game," said veteran center Jason Spezza, who is hopeful of returning to the lineup after missing three games with a back injury. "It's been a difficult stretch for us. All we have to do is really just come out and have a good first two periods and set ourselves up for a chance to win the game in the third again. That's just the nature of where we're at with how things have gone. You just collectively, as a professional, you get yourself ready and you get prepared that it's going to be a tough game tonight.
"They're a desperate team, too, and we have to just come out and have two good periods to give ourselves a chance in the third."

How about those Flyers?

If there is a team that should be a shining example of perseverance and resilience for the Dallas Stars -- and, frankly, any other team outside the playoff grid looking in -- it's the Philadelphia Flyers.
Remember back in mid-November when the Flyers went winless in 10 straight games? And the talk was whether head coach Dave Hakstol would last the season? Ha, ha -- nope. We don't either. That's because GM Ron Hextall didn't fire Hakstol and the team got better and better, and as recently as a week or so ago, was challenging for top spot in the Metropolitan Division.
In their past 50 games, the Flyers are 30-14-6. The 46 goals from Philadelphia defensemen are tied for second-most in the NHL and reflects a very aggressive game plan that Hakstol likes employ.
The Flyers have a load of offensive weapons, but none more impressive than captain Claude Giroux, who has had a bounce-back season with 91 points -- fifth in the league. His 65 assists are tied for first and he was named the Flyers' nominee for the Bill Masterton Memorial Award.
Tuesday morning, the Flyers were tied with Columbus for third spot in the Metro, but they're still just four points up on ninth-place Florida. In other words, as far as they've come, the Flyers haven't gotten where they want to go.
"They just try to overwhelm you with pressure -- pressure on the forecheck and pressure in their ability to bring numbers on the attack," Stars head coach Ken Hitchcock said. "They're very good at it, and they've got really good balance in their top three lines. They spread out the wealth a little bit."

So, how to go about it?

Let's leave the confidence and the emotion of being in a dire playoff predicament out of it for a moment. In terms of what has to happen on the ice for the Stars to have success, it's relatively simple.
They have to stay out of the box, and not just because the Flyers boast top-end offensive talent (they're 5-for-21 in their last seven games), but because during this eight-game winless streak, the penalty kill has allowed goals at critical times that has disrupted the flow of games and momentum within contests.
That said, they had been perfect on the PK in five straight games before allowing a power-play goal 30 seconds after Mattias Janmark had given the Stars a 1-0 lead with a shorthanded marker en route to Sunday's loss.
The penalty kill becomes a focal point because the Dallas power play has been very much hit and miss -- with the emphasis on the "miss" part of the equation.
In nine of the last 15 games, the Stars have failed to score with the man advantage. In those nine games, the Stars have drawn just 23 power-play opportunities, which suggests that players aren't using their footspeed and the team isn't possessing the puck nearly enough to draw more power-play opportunities.
Getting contributions from someone other than the big line of Alexander Radulov, Tyler Seguin and Benn will be key, and frankly, netminder Kari Lehtonen has to be better as he continues to soldier on with Ben Bishop sidelined with a recurring left knee injury.
The Canucks' third goal, by Jake Virtanen on a routine shot from a bad angle midway through the third period Sunday, made the score 3-1 and sucked the life out of the Stars.
As for the confidence issue, Hitchcock said he'd wished he'd never commented on the team's lack of it after Sunday's loss.
"That's the worst word in sports and it's a word that I hate," Hitchcock said. "To me, confidence comes from the ability to go further than the guy you're playing across from, and that's how you gain your confidence. If you're willing to go deeper physically, emotionally, confidence isn't an issue.
"And I should have never reacted to it, but I did, and we've addressed it and we'll move on from there."

Spezza a surprise game-time decision

In spite of ominous predictions from Hitchcock as recently as Sunday that Spezza was at least a week away from returning to the lineup, there he was this morning taking line rushes with Jason Dickinson and Remi Elie.
Spezza acknowledged it was important to him to be in the lineup, given the team's current predicament. And let's be honest, would there be better storyline than if he came back to help spark the Stars to a much-needed win after a difficult season?
Other than that, the projected lineup for tonight looked exactly the same as Sunday's with the Stars' big line of Benn (sans facial hair for the first time in recent memory), Seguin and Radulov still intact. They were dynamic through the first half of the game, but could not find the back of the net against the Canucks.
Although some will wonder at keeping players like Gemel Smith, Curtis McKenzie, Dillon Heatherington and Julius Honka on the bench, it seems the message is clear: it ain't over 'til it's over, and so, Hitchcock will roll out the lineup he feels gives this team the best chance to win as opposed to creating a playing-for-next-year dynamic.
"Yeah, (I) feel good," Spezza said after moring skate. "We know where we're at in the season, and (I) felt good today."
This story was not subject to the 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.