'You move on': Stars can't have a repeat performance Saturday in Tampa

Stars (18-14-2, 38 points) vs. Lightning (25-9-5, 55 points)

As tests go, this is a pretty good one.
The Stars are coming off their worst loss of the year, struggling to get any traction on the road, and playing on the second night of a back-to-back. So why not do it against the defending Stanley Cup champions at their place?
Dallas has been one of the worst road teams in the NHL and has lost six straight away from home. In the past five games, the Stars have tallied four total goals. It's a huge problem for a team that's been fantastic at home.
Tampa Bay was in the Central Division last season and went 6-2-0 against the Stars. That's after winning the 2020 Stanly Cup against Dallas in six games. Since 2016, the Lightning are 11-2-3 against Dallas in the regular season.
A big part of that run is the fact goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy is 11-1-3 with a 1.91 goals-against average and .932 save percentage in his career against Dallas, so that creates a challenge to score right off the bat for the goal-starved road Stars.
Is all of that overwhelming?
"You move on," coach Rick Bowness said. "We played so well [on the road] at St. Louis and then we come up with one last night. It's disappointing, but you have to move on. If you're worried about last night coming into tonight's game with a Stanley Cup championship team, we're going to be in trouble. We addressed it this morning and hopefully we clean up where we need to clean up and we put a better performance on the ice tonight."

What to watch

Neither Jake Oettinger nor Anton Khudobin looked great Friday, but since the Stars had planned starting Khudobin Saturday at Tampa Bay, that's the plan they'll stick with.
Braden Holtby is in COVID protocol, and the Stars have two challenging road games on back-to-back nights, so they'll use both goalies. Oettinger started Friday and allowed four goals on 17 shots. He was replaced by Khudobin, who allowed three goals on 22 shots. While the numbers weren't great, it was a good warm-up for Khudobin, who last played a game on Nov. 18 before getting sent to the minors.
"We gave him some time last night and he looked fine, he looked very comfortable in the net," Bowness said. "The goals that went in certainly weren't his fault, nor were they on Jake."
Khudobin went 1-3-0 in the AHL with a 2.80 GAA and .898 save percentage in four AHL games. He said he's simply taking things day to day right now.
"That's the world I'm living in right now," he said. "I make the best out of it."

Lineup update

Bowness said there are a couple of guys who are banged up and he won't know if they're playing until tonight. That said, he shuffled lines mid-game Friday and likely will shake things up again.
Here is the expected lineup:
Robertson-Benn-Pavelski
Peterson-Hintz-Seguin
Raffl-Faksa-Glendening
Kiviranta-Gardner-Kero
Suter-Klingberg
Lindell-Heiskanen
Hanley-Hakanpaa
Khudobin
Oettinger

Numbers

45

Steven Stamkos, who was injured for much of last season, has 45 points (18 goals, 27 assists) in 38 games played. He ranks fifth in the NHL in scoring.

20

Former Stars forward Corey Perry has 20 points (10 goals, 10 assists) in 39 games this season. Perry had 21 points (nine goals, 12 assists) in 49 games last season for Montreal.

39

Tampa Bay defenseman Victor Hedman leads all NHL blueliners in points this season with 39 (seven goals, 32 assists) in 39 games.

He said it

"We probably played a little pretty and not as gritty as we should have. We got away with it Thursday], but we have much better in the tank than we gave."*-- Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper after a 4-2 win over Carolina*
*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*.