Kings-Stars Preview: Who's Your Scapegoat?

Since we last met the Dallas Stars...

The biggest change to the lineup is the loss of Brendan Morrow, out with an upper body injury. Per Mike Heika, the 21-year old rookie Vincour moves to the top six. The full lineup:

Eriksson-Benn-Ryder
Ott-Ribeiro-Vincour
Nystrom-Fiddler-Dvorak
Dowell-Wandell-Petersen

Souray-Robidas
Grossman-Daley
Fistric-Larsen

In Net: Kari Lehtonen, who, like Quick, has seen his SV% go down from "ZOMG!" to just really terrific. The team has considerably cooled off from their hot start.

Injured: Besides Morrow, Burish (hand) and Alex Goligoski (thumb) are still out.

Kings lineup: Penner, Martinez, and Parse are still out. No word on which forwards will be scratched.

Doughty was fined for his hit on Oshie, and thus is still in.

He's also no longer paired with JJ, and I'm glad for that. As I said when the experiment was revived, Doughty is one of the best players on the team in terms of puck possession, and Johnson has been one of the worst several seasons in a row. So what happened while they were put together?

Doughty before being paired with JJ: Corsi 15.45; 0.136 QUALCOMP

Doughty after 3 games: Corsi 12.39; 0.056 QUALCOMP

Johnson before being paired with DD: Corsi -7.83; 0.046

Johnson after three games:Corsi -6.79; 0.055 QUALCOMP

As expected, Doughty did see a decline, while JJ benefited from the pairing. Johnson may work out with him someday, but it's just not ready. In the meantime, the Kings will be better off with Doughty's reunion with Scuderi.