What to watch for as Stars begin road swing against Sharks

SAN JOSE, Calif. --The Dallas Stars will be looking to keep a good road thing going as they begin a three-game West Coast trip with a visit to the "Shark Tank" tonight against San Jose.
Here's what to watch for.

Road is where the points are

The good news is that the Stars seem to have put behind them their significant road woes of the first third of the season and have become a formidable opponent away from American Airlines Center. They are 5-0-1 in their last six road games and have moved their season road record to above .500 at 13-11-3.
Dallas head coach Ken Hitchcock said the team has gotten into a habit of playing looser at home, and they play with more structure on the road. That's a good thing, provided that trend continues as the Stars will play 14 of their last 24 games on the road.
They finish the regular season with another three-game swing through San Jose, Anaheim and Los Angeles, and Hitchcock said he'd like to throw some doubt into those teams on this trip.
"We check better. We're checking much better on the road than we are at home," Hitchcock said. "Our tenacity one-on-one, positional play, reloads -- everything we talk about, we're checking a lot better than we are at home. We're dug in on the road. We're winning games we deserve to win because we're limiting the other team, and because of that, we're getting lots of chances on our own. So that's a real good sign."

Keeping it tight

Dallas has not allowed more than two goals in any of the six games in this 5-0-1 road stretch. And in spite of last Sunday's home debacle -- a 6-0 loss to Vancouver -- the Stars continue to rank fifth in the NHL in goals allowed per game. That remains an impressive mark given that they existed in the high 20s league-wide for much of the first third of the season.
That doesn't happen without stellar goaltending, and that has been delivered on an almost nightly basis by Ben Bishop and Kari Lehtonen.
Bishop was the undeniable star of Friday's important 2-1 win over St. Louis as he stopped 28 of 29 Blues shots, including a number of terrific saves as the Stars had to kill a John Klingberg double-minor in the final 4:18 of regulation.
The win was important on a number of levels as it marked a nice bounce back for Bishop, who was pulled in the Vancouver loss, and his play Friday helped propel the Stars into third place in the Central Division for the first time since early November.
Look for Lehtonen to get one of the starts later this week as the Stars are in Anaheim on Wednesday night and Los Angeles on Thursday before returning home for what should be a grand rematch with Winnipeg on Saturday in Dallas.
Lehtonen has won five straight starts and seven of eight.
"I think all the guys understand how challenging it's going to be," Hitchcock said of this western swing. "But these are teams that we're going to have to stay ahead of if we expect to make the playoffs."

Sharks meeting adversity

The Sharks currently hold down second place in the Pacific Division, even though they have two fewer points than Dallas -- yes, you're going to hear more about the NHL's bizarro playoff structure in the coming weeks given how strong the Central Division is. But credit head coach Pete DeBoer for keeping his squad competitive in spite of injuries to key personnel.
The Sharks are 5-3-0 in February and have won three of four, even though center Joe Thornton is out long-term, and Joel Ward and Tomas Hertl have both been sidelined by injury.
The paucity of forwards led DeBoer to briefly move defending Norris Trophy winner Brent Burns to forward, although that experiment lasted less than a period in a win over Vancouverm and the expectation is that Burns will line up in his usual spot on the San Jose blue line tonight.
Neither the Sharks nor the Stars skated this morning with the 5 p.m. local start looming, but the expectation is that Martin Jones will start in goal for the Sharks.
There was a period when it appeared Jones, who helped guide the Sharks to the 2016 Stanley Cup final, would be usurped by Aaron Dell. But Jones has played better of late and it will be a major surprise if he isn't the goaltender of record as the Sharks try and hold onto what would be home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs if they can stay in second spot in the Pacific (first is out of reach with Vegas holding a 12-point lead).

Speaking of really good defensemen

Tonight's clash in San Jose features the two top point-producing defenders in the game with Burns facing Dallas' emerging Norris Trophy threat, Klingberg.
Burns has shaken off a slow start to the season -- he had no goals and 17 assists in the Sharks' first 19 games -- to put some real heat on Klingberg atop the defensive point scoring ladder. Klingberg, of course, has been a revelation at both ends of the ice this season and his 53 points in 58 games remains the standard bearer among NHL defenders in terms of point production -- three more than Burns, who has 50 points in 58 games.
With both teams looking very much like playoff teams heading down the stretch, it's fair to assume that both Burns and Klingberg will be getting lots of attention from hockey writers, who vote on the Norris Trophy as the league's best defenseman.
Worth noting -- and we get that plus/minus is a bit of a mug's game, especially when it comes to comparing players on poor teams versus good teams -- is that Klingberg has a plus-13 rating, while Burns is minus-19. Burns is ninth among all defensemen in average ice time per night -- 25:22 -- while Klingberg, who doesn't play as much on the penalty kill, is at 23:35 -- 29th among NHL defenders.
The stats suggest that one, if not both, of these players will have an impact on the outcome of tonight's game.

This and that

If the Stars are going to continue to collect points while on the road, they'll need to bring some more offense to the table than they've shown in their last two games.
They were shut out by Vancouver a week ago in one of the team's worst outings of the season, and then, coming off a four-day break, they managed a season-low 16 shots on goal against St. Louis. It was enough against the Blues, thanks to Bishop's play, but the offense, led by the team's top line of Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin and Alexander Radulov, will need to be more a factor this week for the Stars to be successful.
On the other hand, the Stars can point to stalwart penalty killing as the catalyst to their win over St. Louis. And as Hitchcock pointed out after the game, you can maybe make the playoffs without a vibrant power play, but not without your penalty kill being effective.
In their last six road games, the Stars have allowed just two power-play goals.
As for lineup decisions, the availability of Antoine Roussel still seems fluid as he skated prior to his teammates in Frisco on Saturday -- and with the primary group for part of the main skate -- as he tries to come back from a back injury.
If Roussel can't go, look for Hitchcock to ice the same lineup as Friday, which means Gemel Smith will check in, as well as veterans Martin Hanzal and Marc Methot.
This would be the first time since Nov. 4 and 6 that Methot will skate in consecutive games for the Stars. He was impressive in his return Friday after a 15-game absence due to lingering knee issues, as he assisted on the game-winner and was part of the team's impressive penalty-killing effort.
"No repercussions, he's good to go. He felt great -- played awful well," Hitchcock said of Methot. "Nice to see he comes back on the ice and feels good the next day; that's even a better sign. So that's a big step for us right now."
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.