Music: {allcanada} Flames-Stars Preview 3/18/13

Sunday, March 17, 2013

{allcanada} Flames-Stars Preview 3/18/13

It's been a month since the Calgary Flames won at Dallas, and they haven't earned two points on the road since.

Returning to the site of that victory, the Flames look to carry over their recent success at home and avoid a seventh straight road loss while trying to hand the Stars a season-high fifth consecutive defeat Monday night.

Calgary (11-11-4) owns a 27-13 scoring advantage during its current six-game home winning streak, but has been outscored 24-8 during an 0-5-1 road slide that followed a 4-3 win at Dallas on Feb. 17. The Flames have not dropped seven straight road contests since going 0-3-4 from Jan. 26-Feb. 22, 2007.

"We have to have that swagger," Mark Giordano said. "When we're on the road we don't change anything. Not everything is going to go our way but we have to put together a streak here."

The Flames have momentum heading into this three-game trip after bouncing back from an 0-3-0 southern California trek by scoring 11 goals in home victories over Detroit and Nashville. Curtis Glencross recorded a hat trick while linemates Lee Stempniak and Matt Stajan combined for five assists in Friday's 6-3 win over the Predators.

"It's two good wins but our troubles have been consistency and playing well on the road and it's a big challenge for us now, these next three games," said Stempniak, who has a goal with three assists in two games after being held without a point on the California trip.

Glencross has four of his team-leading 12 goals in the last two contests after missing the back-to-back games in Los Angeles to end the trip with an upper-body injury. All but one of his goals and three of his 18 points have come at home.

He did assist on Stajan's tying goal last month at Dallas (12-12-3), where the Flames rallied from a 3-1 deficit to score three times in the third period. Glencross also scored and Michael Cammalleri recorded a hat trick with an assist in a 7-4 home win over the Stars on Feb. 13.

Winners of three straight overall in the series, Calgary is in the midst of a 7-2-2 stretch at Dallas, where the Stars have scored two goals while going 0-2-1 on a four-game homestand.

Dallas might have bottomed out during Saturday's 8-1 loss to Chicago. The Stars managed eight shots through the first two periods and looked severely overmatched by the faster Blackhawks en route to giving up their most single-game goals in 11 seasons.

"We dumped on our first goalie and we dumped on our second goalie,'' said forward Jamie Benn, who had an assist in his return after missing two games with a wrist injury. "We left them to hang out to dry and it's unacceptable. We need to do something within this room to change that. It's an unacceptable effort. (Chicago) gave us a wakeup call.''

The Stars have been outscored 16-3 during their 0-3-1 stretch.

Dallas' Kari Lehtonen was pulled after allowing four goals on 17 shots Saturday. He's yielded that many twice in three games.

Calgary's Miikka Kiprusoff has given up 10 goals on 46 shots in his last two road starts.