Patrick Kane to play 1,000th game as Blackhawks travel to Dallas

Patrick Kane will play in the 1,000th game of his NHL career on Tuesday night as the Blackhawks kickoff a six-game road trip against the Stars.

The Blackhawks’ alternate captain has scored 1,060 points in his career and tallied the 400th goal of his career against Detroit on the final day of February.

The last time the Blackhawks took on the Stars, the exact same result happened twice. Chicago beat Dallas 2-1 in overtime of both games. The Blackhawks scored a power-play goal in each game and Alex DeBrincat scored both goals in the first game these two played.

Since the second game on Feb. 9, the Blackhawks have a 7-4-1 record and rank eighth in the league with a 56.25 share of the goals scored during 5-on-5 play. However, they’re 29th in the league with a 44.87 percent share of expected goals. The Blackhawks’ power play has also slowed of late with just three goals in their last six games.

Chicago recalled several young defenseman for the road trip, including Wyatt Kalynuk, Nicloas Beaudin and Lucas Carlsson. Their presence may be necessary if Calvin de Haan remains sidelined after blocking a shot against Tampa on Friday that kept him out of Sunday’s game, but de Haan was back on the ice for Monday’s practice.

The Stars, meanwhile, have gone 2-6-2 since their last game against the Blackhawks. Part of that is who the team is missing: Ben Bishop hasn’t played so far this season and likely won’t until mid-March or early April; Tyler Seguin is also yet to play in 2021 while Alexander Radulov has been on the IR since Feb. 7. Defensive leader John Klingberg missed the Stars’ last game as well.

The Stars haven’t had a great offense all season. Joe Pavelski has 23 points, but the next highest is Klingberg at 15 in 19 games. Both Jamie Benn (4 G, 7 A) and Miro Heiskanen (2 G, 11 A) are underperforming. The Stars are 21st in goals per 60 across all strengths (2.75) this season and drop to 30th at 2.16 in games played since Feb. 9. This comes in spite of Dallas seeing the most power-play minutes per game (7:30) in the league. That’s not to say the power play is bad: it’s ranked seventh this season with goals on 25.7 percent of their opportunities.

Dallas has gotten above-average goaltending from both Anton Khudobin (.913 save percentage in 12 games) and rookie Jake Oettinger (.916 save percentage in 10 games). The Stars are ninth in the league in team save percentage with .909 this season.

The Stars are the 16th-best penalty kill in the league, having killed 78.4 percent of their penalties. Dallas has given up more expected goals against per 60 shorthanded than the Blackhawks (6.53 to 6.52) and 20.64 high-danger chances against per 60, 11th most. This could be a set that gets the Blackhawks’ power play going again.

The Stars are not a bad 5-on-5 team — they have a 50-50 share of shots on goal (14th) and a 52.49 share of expected goals (7th) — but they’re seeing awful results. The Stars’ 1.88 goals per 60 is 29th in the league at 5-on-5. Their 7.09 shooting percentage at 5-on-5 is 27th in the league.

Tale of the Tape

Blackhawks — Statistic — Stars

47.13% (29th) — Corsi For — 51.11% (9th)

46.06% (30th) — Expected goals for — 52.49% (7th)

3.08 (14th) — Goals per game — 2.80 (21st)

3.00 (17th) — Goals against per game — 2.55 (7th)

47.4% (26th) — Faceoffs — 50.1% (17th)

31.2% (2nd) — Power play — 25.7% (7th)

72.5% (27th) — Penalty kill — 78.4% (16th)

Projected lineups

Blackhawks

DeBrincat — Suter — Kane

Janmark — Soderberg — Kurashev

Kubalik — Kampf — Hagel

TBD — Wallmark — Carpenter

Keith — Mitchell

Zadorov — Murphy

Kalynuk — Boqvist

Carlsson

Lankinen/Subban

Stars

Benn — Pavelski — Gurianov

Robertson — Dickinson — Kiviranta

Cogliano — Faksa — Comeau

Caamano — Dellandrea — L’Esperance

Lindell — Pysyk

Oleksiak — Heiskanen

Hanley — Sekera

Khudobin/Oettinger

How to watch

When: 7:30 p.m.

Where: American Airlines Center, Dallas

TV: NBC Sports Chicago

Live stream: NBC Sports app, NHL.tv