Morning Skate: Nemeth returns to Dallas as member of Avalanche, Stars juggle defense

DALLAS — Patrik Nemeth makes his return to Dallas on Saturday when the Colorado Avalanche visit the Dallas Stars at American Airlines Center.

Nemeth spent the past five seasons in the Stars organization before being waived and claimed by Colorado on Oct. 3.

After struggling to find playing time in Dallas, Nemeth has flourished in Colorado as one of their top-four defenders and through five games he has three assists and is plus-7.

For some of the Stars it’s going to be an odd feeling playing against their former teammate.

“Pretty weird, I feel like I have the book on him a little bit because you see him in practice like all the time. I was watching the game last night to see him on the other team is just weird,” Brett Ritchie said. “We’ve been together for a few years, we kind of came up together at the same time and stuff. Never thought that I’d see him on a different team. Until it happens you always think he’s going to be there.”

John Klingberg knows Nemeth well and said heading to Denver opened up a nice opportunity for the former Star.

“I always knew he was a good player, I played with him a lot over the years,” Klingberg said. “Nemeth was such an underrated player, and he was stuck in a tough situation here.”

Defensive adjustments

Dan Hamhuis returns to the lineup after missing two games with a groin injury and will be paired with Stephen Johns.

Jamie Oleksiak is a healthy scratch on defense. Klingberg will be paired with Marc Methot and Esa Lindell will be paired with Julius Honka.

The goalie matchup is Ben Bishop vs. Semyon Varlamov.

Avalanche projected lineup
Sven Andrighetto — Nathan MacKinnon — Mikko Rantanen
Alexander Kerfoot — Matt Duchene — Nail Yakupov
Gabriel Landeskog — J.T. Compher — Colin Wilson
Matt Nieto — Carl Soderberg — Blake Comeau
Nikita Zadorov — Erik Johnson
Patrik Nemeth — Tyson Barrie
Mark Barberio — Chris Bigras
Semyon Varlamov
Jonathan Bernier
Scratched: Anton Lindholm, Andrei Mironov
Injured: Sergei Boikov (shoulder), Tyson Jost (knee)

Stars projected lineup
Jamie Benn — Tyler Seguin — Alexander Radulov
Mattias Janmark — Jason Spezza — Brett Ritchie
Remi Elie — Martin Hanzal — Devin Shore
Antoine Roussel — Radek Faksa — Tyler Pitlick
Marc Methot — John Klingberg
Esa Lindell — Julius Honka
Dan Hamhuis — Stephen Johns
Ben Bishop
Kari Lehtonen
Scratched: Jamie Oleksiak, Greg Pateryn, Gemel Smith