Montréal Canadiens vs Dallas Stars prediction: Jakub Dobes gets the call against Dallas's stingiest-in-the-league defense

The goalie switch

Montreal arrives in Dallas riding a three-game win streak and points in five straight, a run capped by Jacob Fowler's 46-save shutout in St. Louis on Tuesday. Then coach Martin St-Louis made his choice for the road trip finale: Jakub Dobes starts Thursday. This isn't a back-to-back move. It's a rotation call, and the gap between the two goalies is the story of this game.

Fowler has stopped .942 of the shots he has faced with a 1.54 goals-against average. Dobes sits at .847 with a 4.47 GAA across five starts. That's a small sample, but it's a big gap, and the shooters he'll face play for a team that rarely leaves its goalie exposed.

At the other end, Jake Oettinger is expected to start for Dallas after Casey DeSmith took Tuesday's 5-1 loss to New Jersey. Dallas hasn't officially confirmed it. Oettinger has a .929 save percentage and a 1.43 GAA, which makes him a different proposition from DeSmith's .888.

Dallas closes the doors

The Stars' identity this fall is suffocation. They allow 2.0 goals per game, 1st of 32, and 22.2 shots per game, 2nd. Their shot share, meaning their portion of all shots in their games, sits 6th. They also win faceoffs at a league-best rate, so they start a lot of shifts with the puck.

The catch is finishing. Dallas scores just 2.67 goals per game, 25th, and is 31st in first-period scoring. Slow starts are the norm, and that has kept games close: two straight overtime wins over Boston and Winnipeg came before the blowout loss to the Devils.

That blowout was the outlier, not the pattern. Coach Glen Gulutzan said the Stars never gave themselves a chance, then canceled Wednesday's practice. A response game at home against a goalie who has struggled is the obvious setup.

Special teams tilt toward Dallas

Montreal's power play converts 11.4% of its chances, meaning power-play goals per opportunity. That's 29th in the league, 4-for-35. Now it faces the Stars' penalty kill, which ranks 1st at 92.9%. The Canadiens rarely get many chances anyway, and Dallas protects the puck well.

The flip side cuts against Montreal too. The Canadiens are shorthanded 4.08 times a game, 30th of 32, though Dallas draws the fewest power plays in the league. If the Stars do get chances, the advantage is modest: their power play ranks 21st.

Who's missing

Montreal plays without captain Nick Suzuki (upper body), its leading scorer with 12 points in nine games. The club gave a 2-4 week timeline on Oct 22, and he has since skated in full equipment, but he remains listed as out. Ivan Demidov and Sam Montembeault also remain on injured reserve. At Wednesday's practice, Alex Newhook moved up to the top line with Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsky.

Dallas is thin on the blue line. Kyle Capobianco is expected to miss at least a week after Tuesday's collision, Esa Lindell is still days away, and Chris Tanev is skating but not ready. Radek Faksa (lower body) and Matt Duchene (core surgery) are out. One help arrives: Gulutzan said Sam Steel is likely to return Thursday. David Perron is still not ready for his Stars debut.

What the market says

Dallas is a -163 favorite with Montreal at +138, and both the puck line (Stars -1.5) and the total of 6.0 have held since our feed first saw the game. The total trends point in opposite directions. Dallas has gone under in 10 of 12, while Montreal is 7-5 to the over.

Last season's meetings swung wildly: a 7-0 Dallas rout in Montreal, then a 4-3 Canadiens win in Dallas.

• Confirm Oettinger in warmups.
• Montreal's power play against the league's best kill.
• Whether Dallas's slow first periods give Dobes time to settle.