Our friends at Defending Big D inform us that Stars forward Adam Burish is in fact out for the opener Friday night in Dallas. The expectation is that he could play Saturday in Chicago, so we could see significant line shuffling between the first two games. At any rate, sans Burish, here are how DBD expects the forward lines to shake out in Game 1:
Morrow-Ribeiro-Ryder
Eriksson-Benn-Vincour
Ott-Fiddler-Dvorak
Petersen-Wandell-DowellRobidas and Goligoski will go with the Ribeiro bunch and Souray and Daley with the other.
Krys Barch and Burish are your scratches.
Michael Ryder will obviously be a man to watch, as he reconnects with Mike Ribeiro. Tomas Vincour will try to establish himself as a legitimate NHL top-6 or at least top-9 caliber guy. Vernon Fiddler will look to anchor the checking line, which will shuffle once Burish is healthy. The Stars also expect to break in young defenseman Philip Larsen tonight, likely pairing him with Mark Fistric.