The Dallas Stars entered the Stanley Cup Finals as one of the favorites to take the holy grail. However, since they advanced to the second round, they’ve looked extremely out of place. Their goaltending has been nothing short of inconsistent game-in and game-out.
Kari Lehtonen entered this series as the backup, but has worked his way into the crease on a regular basis. His sensational play led the Stars 3-2 win in game four, however, he was only able to shell aside 19 of the 22 shots he faced in game five. We’re expecting Antti Niemi will get the nod tonight after KL’s brutal Saturday night performance, meaning, well…we don’t know.
Niemi looked sharp in round one but has been a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde kind of character in this semifinal series. You never quite know what you’re going to get.
The Dallas Stars strategy is very simple if they want to continue this series – they need their goaltenders to reappear. Jamie Benn and Jason Spezza have been excellent. So getting the puck to the net hasn’t been the issue, the tenders and the defense have been their broken crutch so far.
The Stars are 5-2 straight up in their last seven games coming in as underdogs.
The Blue and Yellow are the favorites in this series for a reason. Vladimir Tarasenko has been sensational. Captain David Backes has been excellent. Nobody though, and we mean nobody, has been as good as goaltender Brian Elliot. It’s the exact opposite of the Stars situation in the St. Louis crease.
Elliot has put up a 1.92 goals-against average and a .937 save percentage in his five games against Dallas. He’s been an absolute wall and if the Stars want to get to him, they’ll have to literally get to him. They’ll need to create more traffic and look for fortunate bounces with more deflections. The Stars haven’t been great at getting their forwards in tight in this second round. They’ve been sending a lot of rubber to the net, but haven’t been able to squeak any past the 6’2 tender.
The Blues should not look to a defensive type of game though. The worst thing the Blues could do is play a different system than the one that got them here. Their offensive attack is the reason they’ve made it this far; it’s the reason they lead the league in playoff goals with 36; and it’s the reason they are now +300 Stanley Cup – Western Conference favorites.
St. Louis went 24-16 straight up on the road during the 2016-17 regular season; which was the second-best SU away record in the entire NHL.
Create a betting account now to get in on all the fast-paced action from the Stanley Cup Playoffs in an instant.
