Lightning, Stars Face Off In Historic Cup Final

The historic 2019-2020 NHL season finishes with the Tampa Bay Lightning and Dallas Stars fighting to be Stanley Cup champions over one full year since the preseason started. Dallas won both meetings in overtime this season, but Tampa Bay enters as the favorite with most advanced statistics leaning in the Lightning’s favor as well.  

Sportsbook Odds Analysis

This game opened with the Lightning as favorites at -160 and the line has lowered slightly pretty much across the board. Depending on the book, you can find the line between -148 and -160. The total opened at 5 and has been steady at that number.

Tampa Bay News & Notes

The Tampa Bay Lightning enter the Cup Final with the best goals for percentage at five-on-five (45 goals scored to 27 against) of all playoff teams and top five in several noteworthy categories including high-danger chances for percentage (fourth), Corsi for percentage (fourth) and save percentage (fifth).

The Lightning also enter this series with almost 100 more total scoring chances in the playoffs than Dallas and have played two fewer games.  

There are plenty of reasons to favor the Lightning in the series, but the most obvious one might be in net. Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy has a .931 SV% in the postseason as the reigning Vezina Trophy Sportsbook has been a steady force. The Stars’ Anton Khudobin has been solid and at times brilliant, but we give the edge to Tampa.

Dallas News & Notes

The Dallas Stars were somewhat of a surprise to make the Cup Final as they were the underdog against both the Vegas Golden Knights and Colorado Avalanche.

But the scrappy Stars, who have played with their backup goalie for the majority of their games, have found ways to score timely goals, play good defense when needed (shutting down Vegas scorers) or play a run-and-gun, up-tempo style (Colorado series).

And although most advanced statistics favor the Lightning, the Stars boast the far better Sportsbook unit (27.3% to 17.9%) and have been about equal on the penalty kill.

The Stars also appear to be healthier than the Lightning who have multiple star players either banged up (Brayden Point) or missing altogether (Steven Stamkos).