Game 54

Buffalo Sabres (16-29-8) vs. Dallas Stars (28-20-3)

Puck Drop: 2:00 PM EST | American Airlines Center | Dallas, TX

TV: MSG

Radio: WGR 550

SB Nation Stars Blog: Defending Big D

Know Your Opponent

Dallas Stars

Record: (28-20-3)

Last Game: 2-1 shootout loss against Nashville

Division Ranking: 5th in the Central Division

PP: 9th (23.2%)

PK: 20th (78.4%)

What to Watch

1. Hot & Cold

The Stars have been on and off, hot and cold, as of late. They’re 3-2 in their last five games dating back to February 15, including wins over Colorado, Chicago and Winnipeg. Not bad, right? But they lost to Arizona 3-1, which… well, we all know how Arizona’s been doing this season. With that said, Dallas has had some sparks of brilliance this season with several four-game winning streaks, so it’s hard to know exactly what to expect from them.

2. End the Streak

The Sabres carry a five-game losing skid into Sunday’s game, with defeats to Ottawa, Colorado, Columbus, Montreal and St. Louis in their current streak. Anyone who’s watched Buffalo this season knows how they’ve struggled. The five-game streak doesn’t even match their season-high seven-game streak, which lasted from November 27 until December 14.

Here’s to hoping they can find something good this afternoon in Dallas and nab two points.

3. Tager on a Rager

If nothing else, we can at least look to Tage Thompson as a bright spot in the Sabres’ lineup right now. Thompson has 23 points (11-12) in his last 22 games, including 14 points (9-5) in his last 12 games, per Sabres PR.

Projected Lineups

Buffalo Sabres

Forwards

Jeff Skinner-Tage Thompson-Alex Tuch

Ramus Asplund-Dylan Cozens-Kyle Okposo

Peyton Krebs-Casey Middlestadt-Victor Olofsson

Anders Bjork-Cody Eakin-John Hayden

Defense

Rasmus Dahlin-Casey Fitzgerald

Mattias Samuelsson-Jacob Bryson

Robert Hagg-Mark Pysyk

Starting Goalie: Dustin Tokarski

Dallas Stars

Forwards

Jason Robertson – Roope Hintz – Joe Pavelski

Jamie Benn – Tyler Seguin – Denis Gurianov

Michael Raffl – Radek Faksa – Alexander Radulov

Riley Tufte – Jacob Peterson – Luke Glendening

Defense

Ryan Suter – Miro Heiskanen

Esa Lindell – John Klingberg

Thomas Hartley – Jani Hakanpaa

Starting Goalie: Jake Oettinger