Dallas has its own young-legs problem in reverse: the injury list is long and it's mostly centers. Duchene is out about 3 months after core surgery. Back broke a finger and Glen Gulutzan put him at 4-6 weeks. That puts a lot on Roope Hintz, who has already had a few scares this season, including blocking a shot with his hand against Chicago. He hasn't missed a game, and he ended the Winnipeg game himself.
Against the Jets, Hintz scored the tying goal with 2:00 left in regulation and the winner at 3:47 of overtime. Dallas outshot Winnipeg 38-19 in that one, so the 1-goal margin was more about Stuart Skinner than about the Stars hanging on. The Boston win was different. Mikko Rantanen scored a hat trick, the penalty kill had to carry a lot of the night, and Gulutzan said afterward that when you're killing that many penalties you're 'one punch away from getting beat.' Before that, the Stars split 2 with Colorado and shut out Chicago 4-0.
Lindell is the name to watch before Sunday. He blocked a shot ahead of the Boston game, and Gulutzan said he'd miss about a week, which works out to 3 or 4 games. That makes this game right on the edge of his return. He was averaging 20:49 a night with 18 blocks in 8 games, and without him the Dallas blue line has been killing penalties shorthanded. Whether he plays decides how much of the heavy defensive work lands on the rest of that group.
So it's an Islanders team that's been firing a lot of pucks and getting less than it should out of it, against a Dallas team that has found ways to win close games on home ice. If New York gets anything like 43 shots again, it'll test how much the Stars' recent winning is goaltending and structure, and how much is Hintz and Rantanen bailing them out in the 3rd period.