Stars head to St. Louis without Benn
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Though there is still plenty of time left in the season, the Dallas Stars don't want to wait too much longer before making a run up the Western Conference ladder.
Losing their leading scorer won't make going on a hot streak any easier.
The Stars will be without Jamie Benn this evening as they take on a St. Louis Blues squad that hasn't lost at home in well over a month thanks to a club record-tying 12-game point streak as the host.
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Dallas had a chance on Saturday to pick up some points over a club it is battling for a playoff spot, but instead lost a tough 2-1 decision to visiting Colorado. The defeat leaves the Stars 10th overall in the West, two points back of a playoff spot.
Vernon Fiddler tied the game 5:26 into the third period, but Kari Lehtonen was beaten for a power-play goal with 9:25 to play. Lehtonen ended with 21 saves for the Stars, who had won three of four.
"We didn't have our best stuff today," Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said. "We were still in a position to find some points and that's the next step."
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Benn had four shots and four hits in nearly 21 minutes of ice time on Saturday, but the 22-year-old underwent an appendectomy on Sunday afternoon that will sideline him for 10-to-14 days. Benn leads Dallas with 42 points off 13 goals and 29 assists.
Forward Mike Ribeiro already missed his third game in a row with a slightly torn right MCL for Dallas and is day-to-day.
The Stars will need to dig deep this evening against the Blues, who are an NHL-best 18-3-3 at home this season and 10-0-2 at Scottrade Center since their last regulation loss there on Dec. 3 to Chicago to tie a single-season club record. St. Louis followed up an overtime loss to Vancouver on Thursday in the opener of a five-game homestand with a 3-2 shootout triumph over Minnesota.
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The Blues came into the meeting 0-5 in shootouts this year and just 1-of-17 on their tiebreak attempts, but defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk opted to go with speed and scored the only goal of the shootout in the second round on a high wrister to the blocker side of the Wild's Josh Harding.
"I watched a little film earlier and I saw that he kind of comes down with his blocker and leaves a little bit on his left side open," Shattenkirk said. "As I was coming in I kind of faked the shot and didn't see him bite and I kind of knew that left side might have been open so I shot it as hard as I could."
Jaroslav Halak turned aside all three skaters he faced in the tiebreaker after making 29 saves through overtime. St. Louis improved to 5-0-1 in its past six overall and sits two points behind Chicago for first place in the Central Division.
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Shattenkirk also had an assist in regulation and Alex Pietrangelo had one of the two goals to give him a pair of tallies and seven assists over a six-game point streak that is a career high.
St. Louis snapped a five-game series slide to Dallas with a 5-3 home win on Dec. 26, getting a pair of goals from Chris Stewart and 20 saves by Halak, who is 8-0-3 with a 1.76 goals-against average in his last 11 starts overall.
The defeat left the Stars stuck on 99 wins versus the Blues in franchise history.