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Stars try to shine bright versus Panthers

Nov 15, 2011 - 3:49 PM (Sports Network) - Former Stars teammates Joe Nieuwendyk and Ed Belfour were among the inductees into the Hockey Hall of Fame and both won a Stanley Cup together in 1999 with Dallas.

The Stars look to honor their former stars with a win tonight versus the Florida Panthers at American Airlines Center. Nieuwendyk is currently the general manager for Pacific Division-leading Dallas, which has dropped consecutive games for the first time this season after a four-game winning streak. The Stars went 2-2 on a recent four-game road trip.

In Saturday's 5-2 loss at Detroit, Loui Eriksson and Brenden Morrow both scored and Andrew Raycroft stopped 35-of-40 shots in defeat.

"They're a good team. They had a couple of chances and they scored on them. That's what they do," said Raycroft.

Dallas is second in the Western Conference with 22 points, three behind the Chicago Blackhawks, and owns a 6-1-0 record in Big D this season. The Stars will play five of their next six games at home, and hope to have center Steve Ott back on the ice. Ott missed the road trip with a hip injury.

"It's going to be a game-time decision tomorrow," Stars head coach Glen Gulutzan said Monday on the team's site. "He's very, very close. He's a for sure for Friday. I'd say it's pretty close for tomorrow."

Kari Lehtonen is expected to be in the crease tonight for Dallas. Lehtonen leads the league with 11 wins and also sports a .934 save percentage and a 2.20 goals-against average. Dallas defenseman Alex Goligoski broke his thumb in a loss at Pittsburgh on Friday and is expected to miss a few weeks.

Morrow is one point shy of 500 in his career and would be the 10th player in team history to have that many with the club. Tuesday's game in the Lone Star State is also Brenden Morrow Bobblehead Night.

"I think the doll's probably a little better looking than Brenden. He's very lucky that they went with such a great complex on his face with the rest of it and left all his scars away," Ott told the team's site. "Definitely he's got a good-looking bobblehead."

The Panthers will play back-to-back road games against the Stars and Blues, and have won three in a row away from Sunrise. They are 6-3-0 as the guest this season and had a modest two-game winning streak stopped with Sunday's 3-2 home loss versus the Philadelphia Flyers.

Evgeny Dadonov and Tomas Fleischmann both scored and goaltender Jose Theodore turned aside 32 shots for Florida, which had picked up points in six straight games (3-0-3) and finished 0-for-7 on the power play.

"We had periods tonight where our belief, commitment weren't there and it ends up hurting you on the scoreboard," said Florida head coach Kevin Dineen.

Forward Stephen Weiss played in his 573rd game as a Panther, tying Robert Svehla for second-most in franchise history. Radek Dvorak is the leader with 613 games under his belt.

Fleischmann has 12 points (5 goals, 7 assists) in his last 10 games. Belfour and Nieuwendyk both ended their careers with the Panthers.

Dallas won the only meeting with Florida a year ago by a 4-1 score and has prevailed in seven straight games against teams from the Southeast Division. The Stars and Panthers have split the past eight matchups in Texas.