DALLAS — Last season Blake Comeau Jersey Womens , the Minnesota Wild and Dallas Stars squared off four times with each team winning twice.And on Friday night, these Central Division rivals will renew their rivalry with a game at American Airlines Center, the first of five meetings this season.The Wild (2-2-2, 6 points) are 0-2-0 on the road but Minnesota defeated Arizona 2-1 on Tuesday in the Twin Cities.Article continues below ...Minnesota has a minus-5 goal differential, but center Mikael Granlund sees an easy fix to that early trend.“We are spending too much time in our d-zone and just defending,” Granlund said after practice Thursday. “We got to be better with the puck.”Friday could mark the Wild debut for forward Matt Read, who was recalled from AHL Iowa on Wednesday. Read, 32, played 437 games for Philadelphia between 2011 and 2018 before signing a one-year, two-way contract with the Wild last July.It’s a homecoming for the veteran forward who played collegiately at Bemidji State in northwest Minnesota.Read skated on the Wild’s top line alongside Jason Zucker and Eric Staal during practice Thursday.“Obviously, they’re talented. They’re natural goal scorers Patrick Kane Jersey ,” Read said of Zucker and Staal. “They know how to put the puck in the net. It’s going to be a great opportunity to make sure I go out there and give them the puck as much as I can.”Dallas (3-3-0, 6 points) last played Tuesday, losing 3-0 at the New Jersey Devils, making the Stars 0-2-0 on a quick two-game road trip that also saw them lose 4-1 at Ottawa on Monday.First-year Stars coach Jim Montgomery would rather return to the road to atone for those losses, but also sees the benefit of starting a three-game homestand on Friday.“I actually wish we were going back on the road so we could address the road mentality we want to develop,” Montgomery said after practice Friday. “We need to get better at our team identity. We’re really focusing on our play without the puck. We think we’ve made a mistake as a staff trying to get too dynamic offensively too quickly and it’s taken away our players’ aggressiveness. We’re thinking too much on the ice.”Montgomery said Ben Bishop will start in goal against the Wild. He also said forward Valeri Nichushkin (undisclosed) will not play Friday but that veteran defenseman Marc Methot, out Tuesday with general soreness and forward Alexander Radulov, held out of practice earlier this week, will both play.This will be Dallas’ first look at the Wild, a foe Montgomery compares to a famous boxer.“They’re an extremely resilient team. They’re kind of like Muhammad Ali, they rope-a-dope you http://www.officialavalanche.com/authentic-adidas-alexander-kerfoot-jersey ,” Montgomery said. “They give you a lot of possession time, they seem to be giving up shots, but they’re not giving up a lot of quality shots. You can tell they’re a veteran team. They’re really comfortable being behind 1-0, 2-1. They seem to come back, and they wear you down over time by rope-a-doping you.” CHICAGO (AP) — Somewhere along the way, while Patrick Kane was piling up points and the special teams were rounding into form, the talk around the Chicago Blackhawks shifted from draft positioning to the wild-card standings.Another surprising turn in a strange season.After two eight-game losing streaks, a coaching change and a handful of trades and minor league promotions, Chicago is somehow in the mix for a playoff spot in the congested Western Conference. The Blackhawks’ second line of Dominik Kahun, Dylan Strome and Alex DeBrincat accounted for nine points in Sunday’s 5-2 victory over Detroit, running their win streak to a season-high seven in a row.“We’re better than we were before and now we’re going to need to keep getting better Erik Condra Jersey Womens ,” said coach Jeremy Colliton, who took over after Joel Quenneville was fired on Nov. 6.The Blackhawks (23-24-9) are just four points back of Minnesota for the second wild card heading into Monday’s games. But they also are just four points ahead of Anaheim and Los Angeles in last place in the conference. The last nine teams out West are separated by eight points.For now, Colliton is more focused on how Chicago is playing than anything else.“We’ve got to make sure we don’t think we’re just going to show up and it’ll just happen. We’ve got to work,” Colliton said. “We’ve got to do the right things and if you do it for close to 60 minutes we’ll get the points we want and I’m pretty sure the standings will sort out.”While the Blackhawks struggled for much of the first half of the season, Kane has been a constant force in a performance reminiscent of when he won the Hart Trophy for NHL MVP in 2016. The All-Star forward has 11 goals and 20 assists during a 14-game point streak — the longest active streak in the NHL.After Detroit pulled within one in the third period, Kane scored his 33rd goal and then assisted on Jonathan Toews‘ empty-netter to help wrap it up for Chicago.“He’s always involved,” Colliton said. “When he’s on the ice, the other team knows he’s a threat and that’s nice for us to have.”Toews and DeBrincat also have been solid this year, but one of the biggest keys to Chicago’s turnaround has been its depth scoring. Strome has four goals and 12 assists in his last nine games. Kahun had two goals and an assist against the Red Wings.The 21-year-old Strome came over in a Nov. 25 trade with Arizona. He had a disappointing start to his career after the Coyotes took him with the No. 3 pick in the 2015 draft, but he seems to be coming into his own since joining the Blackhawks and being reunited with DeBrincat after they played together in junior hockey.“I’m having fun playing hockey again,” Strome said. “The team’s winning Carl Soderberg Jersey , producing offensively. I’m winning some face-offs and helping the team win. Obviously when the team wins, everyone looks better. Everyone has a good mood in the room.”Chicago’s improved power play also has produced some big goals of late. The Blackhawks have converted at least one power-play opportunity in 15 of their last 18 games, going 23 for 59 for a 39 percent success rate over that stretch.Mix in some solid goaltending by Cam Ward and Collin Delia, and there is a glimmer of hope for the Blackhawks after they missed the playoffs last season for the first time in a decade.“I love that we’re playing for something and that guys have that belief in the locker room that if we keep doing what we’re doing, we’re going to give ourselves an opportunity,” Ward said. “Obviously you take care of what you can control. We want to keep this thing rolling.”