Dallas Stars at Vegas Golden Knights 9/6/20: NHL Hockey free preview, analysis, prediction, odds and pick against the spread.
2020-09-06 20:00:00 EDT
The Dallas Stars and Vegas Golden Knights meet Sunday in game one of the NHL Western Conference Finals at the Rogers Place.
The Dallas Stars are coming off a seven game series victory over the Colorado Avalanche. The Dallas Stars are averaging 3.31 goals per game and are scoring on 28.3 percent of their power play opportunities. Joe Pavelski leads Dallas with eight goals, Miro Heiskanen has 16 assists and Jamie Benn has 44 shots on goal. Defensively, the Dallas Stars are allowing 3.5 goals per game and are killing 82.3 percent of their opponents power plays. Ben Bishop has given up 12 goals on 77 shots faced and Anton Khudobin has allowed 41 goals on 449 shots.
The Vegas Golden Knights are coming off a seven game series victory over the Vancouver Canucks. The Vegas Golden Knights are averaging 3.27 goals per game and are scoring on 20.5 percent of their power play opportunities. Alex Tuch leads Vegas with eight goals, Shea Theodore has 10 assists and Nate Schmidt has 50 shots on goal. Defensively, the Vegas Golden Knights are allowing 2.33 goals per game and are killing 87.8 percent of their opponents power plays. Robin Lehner has given up 24 goals on 293 shots faced and Marc-Andre Fleury has allowed eight goals on 75 shots.
The Stars are 7-2 in their last 9 games playing on 1 days rest, 7-3 in their last 10 vs. Western Conference and 7-3 in their last 10 overall. The Golden Knights are 31-9 in their last 40 Sunday games, 18-6 in their last 24 games as a favorite and 22-6 in their last 28 overall. The over is 7-1 in Stars last 8 overall. The under is 4-1 in Golden Knights last 5 overall. The Stars are 1-6 in the last 7 meetings.
The Vegas Golden Knights have won seven of the nine meetings against the Dallas Stars, which includes a 5-3 victory last month when these teams met in the bubble round robin games. The Stars have found their offensive firepower these last few games and the defense has become slightly more consistent, but they’re still being outscored on average in these playoff games and Khudobin can get roughed up in net. The Golden Knights have been the best, most balanced team throughout these playoffs and outside of having issues closing out the Canucks, they’ve been the team to beat by a decent margin.
I haven’t been ever to step in front of the Golden Knights all playoffs long and as long as the prices remain reasonable, that will continue.
