Stars vs Devils Look A-Head

The Devils will look to get points 60 and 61 on Tuesday night as they face off against the lone star states own Dallas Stars. The last time these two met was November 21^st in which the Devils came up short in a 5-3 loss. Yann Danis was given the nod in net for his third start of the season on this night; however, he surrendered three first period goals and was yanked in place of Brodeur at the start of the second period. He let in those three goals on just nine shots, not his best performance. The Devils actually fought their way back into the game, tying the contest up at 3 a piece, but to no avail it was not the Devils night.

Hopefully, this match up will be different as the Stars are the ones on the road this time. The game begins at 7 EST at The Rock. The Stars have gone winless in their last four trips to New Jersey dating back to 2000, however, the series between the two over the last ten games only favors Jersey 6-4. Dallas is 7^th in the league in goals for at 2.93, similar in comparison to the Devils, who rank 10^th with a 2.83. The big difference between the two is in goals against. New Jersey is second in the league allowing only 2.20 goals per game, Dallas is close to allowing three goals a game.

In their last game, Dallas lost at home to the Canucks by a score of 3-1. Loui Erikson did however continue his hot streak by netting the lone goal for the lone stars. Erikson has had 5 goals in his last three games, getting a hat trick against Anaheim on New Years Eve. He is one guy the Devils need to focus there attention on tonight, the others areBrad Richards, Mike Ribeiro and James Neal. Brad Richards is similar in his game to Joe Thornton seeing as he has a lot more assists than goals, he distributes the puck well on the ice, finding his mates, alleys to pass the puck and knows where to be. Ribeiro is a balanced player with goals to assists and like Richards has a real sense of passing the puck. Sophomore James Neal is leading the team in goals with 18. Goalie Marty Turco is having an average season with a 13-9-8 record with a 2.66 GAA and a mediocre .911 save percentage.

As for the Devils, they are hoping to have a dominating performance tomorrow since the two games they had on the road against Chicago and Minnesota were less than perfect. They may have won in their last game against the Wild, but they did not by any means play sound hockey. Perhaps it is because they are a little more short-handed on D with the injury to Bryce Salvador, who will be out again against the Stars. If it isn’t that it could just be a bit of a bump they hit in the road. This game will be a good indication of what it may have been and I expect them to play a strong game from start to finish. Hopefully Travis Zajac will begin to show signs of life. He has not had a goal since December 07^th in Buffalo and has only 4 points in that span. We really need him to start to get it going again in order to put that mediocre Western Conference road trip behind us. Go Devils!