Dallas Stars at Colorado Avalanche 8/31/20: NHL Hockey free preview, analysis, prediction, odds and pick against the spread.
2020-08-31 21:45:00 EDT
The Dallas Stars and the Colorado Avalanche meet in game five of their best-of-seven Western Conference semi-final matchup in NHL action from Rogers Place on Monday night.
The Dallas Stars will look to close out the series and advance to the conference semi-finals for the first time since 2008 after going up 3-1 in the series with a 5-4 win over the Avalanche on Sunday.
John Klingberg opened the scoring for the Stars just 6:18 into the game before Radek Faksa doubled Dallas’ lead just 2:15 later on the power play and Jamie Benn added a 3rd goal for the Stars on another power play just 2:12 after Faksa’s tally. The lead held going into the second and for the first half of the middle frame before Valeri Nichushkin got the Avs on the board with 6:36 to go in the second and Cale Makar cut the deficit to 3-2 with just :26 to go in the second period. Roope Hintz and Denis Gurianov scored :32 apart to make it 5-2 Dallas early on in the 3rd but Nichushkin would keep Colorado in it, making it 5-3 just 3:22 later. Vladislav Namestnikov would cut it to 5-4 with a few seconds to go, but it only turned out to be a consolation goal as the Stars shut the door the rest of the way and held on for the win.
Anton Khudobin got the win to improve to 7-4 this postseason after allowing 4 goals on 37 shots faced while Pavel Francouz took the loss, giving up all five goals on 26 shots faced before being pulled early in the 3rd period.
Dallas is 5-1 in their last 6 games overall and 4-1 in their last 5 playoff games as a favorite while the over is 9-2-5 in their last 16 conference semi-final games. Colorado is 6-2 in their last 8 games within the division and 9-19 in their last 28 playoff games as an underdog while the under is 4-1 in their last 5 games playing on no rest. Dallas is 6-2 in the last 8 meetings between these two teams.
Goals have been the story of this series which is odd considering these were the 2nd (Dallas) and 6th (Colorado) best defensive teams in the NHL in the regular season, but we’ve seen 34 goals in 4 games so far this series and it doesn’t take a math major to see that’s almost 9 goals per game. I think game five is no different, so give me the over here, but my stronger play is on who wins this game and I have that available as a premium pick that you can find here.
