Preview: Coyotes vs. Stars, 5 p.m., FOX Sports Arizona
Streaming live on FOX Sports GO
DALLAS -- The Coyotes quest for their first victory under head coach Rick Tocchet continues on Tuesday night against the Dallas Stars at American Airlines Center with a new goaltender between the pipes.
Adin Hill, who was recalled from Tucson on Monday, will make the first start of his NHL career against the Stars. Antti Raanta is sidelined with a lower-body injury, and Louis Domingue has struggled in the two games since Raanta went down.
Hill, 21, has posted a 1-1-0 record with a .968 save percentage and 0.65 goals against average in two games with the Roadrunners -- including one shutout. He was a third-round draft pick in 2015 and posted a 16-14-6 record and 3.16 GAA last season for Tucson.
http://twitter.com/FOXSPORTSAZ/status/920371781625462784
The Stars (2-3-0) are coming off s 3-1 home-ice victory over Colorado on Saturday night, while the Coyotes (0-4-1) are trying to bounce back from their worst loss of the young season -- 6-2 at home to the Boston Bruins.
Even though the Coyotes are the lone winless team in the NHL, Dallas coach Ken Hitchcock knows Arizona still has the talent to rise up and notch its first win on any given night. The Coyotes have three ex-Stars on their blue line, Kevin Connauton, Jason Demers and Alex Goligoski.
"Today was my first look at them," Hitchcock said after practice on Monday. "They got a lot of speed, a lot of skill, a lot of transition defensemen. We got to make sure they don't get loose on us because if they do, they can really go. ...
"Our job is to make sure they (the Coyotes) don't get going in transition."
Hitchcock has immense respect for Tocchet. In the early 1990s, Hitchcock was as an assistant coach in Philadelphia when Tocchet played for the Flyers. That was several years before Hitchcock earned his first head-coaching job with Dallas in January 1996.
"He's done a great job. He's stayed with it as a coach," Hitchcock said of Tocchet. "I'm really happy for him that he's got a head (coaching) job. He's had a lot of high-maintenance players there (when he was an assistant in Pittsburgh), and he's done a great job with them."
http://twitter.com/FOXSPORTSAZ/status/920333200773201920
The Coyotes, who turn around and host Dallas on Thursday in Glendale, Ariz., also will have a new forward in the lineup in Zac Rinaldo.
Tocchet shuffled his lines a bit at practice on Monday, dropping Clayton Keller down to the second line and moving Tobias Rieder up to skate alongside Max Domi and Derek Stepan. Keller leads the team with three goals and is tied with Domi for most points (four).
Defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who had a power-play goal on Saturday, will be playing his 500th career game with the Coyotes tonight -- making him the sixth defenseman in franchise history to play in 500 games.
"We're going into a tough building, and Dallas is a really good team," Tocchet said Monday. "It's exciting for me to see how they respond and where we're going to be."
The Stars have made great improvement in special teams plays under Hitchcock, who was hired in Dallas to replace Lindy Ruff. They have scored a power-play goal in each of their first five games and converted 27.8 percent of their man-advantage opportunities thus far, sixth best in the NHL.
And the penalty kill, a huge Stars weakness last season, has also done its part, killing 85.7 percent of opposing power plays, ninth best in the league.
"That's probably the element of our game that's improved the most, our special teams," Hitchcock said. "Both special teams have really got continuity going right now."
Tyler Seguin leads the Stars with three goals -- all on the power-play -- and John Klingberg has a team-high five points.
