Desperate Stars Cling to Playoff Hopes vs Lightning

The Dallas Stars need a victory as they take on the Tampa Bay Lightning on Friday night in the second game of a two-game series. The Lightning are 6-1 in the season series, including two wins by a combined 9-2 score over the last week. The Lightning are favorites in this matchup.

Sportsbook Odds Analysis

The game opened with the Lightning as favorites at -155 and the line has since moved into the -153 to -165 range. The total opened at 5.5 and is locked in at that number with the UNDER favored in the -117 to -139 range depending on the sportsbook.

Dallas News & Notes

The Stars’ playoff hopes are slim but not completely dashed. They are four points behind fourth-place Nashville with three games to play while the Predators have two games left. To get back to the postseason, the Stars must win all their games while the Preds lose theirs.

Helping the Stars’ cause is the return of all-star center Tyler Seguin to the lineup. Seguin missed the first 51 games of the season and has two goals in two games since coming back. He has been sorely missed from a Stars team without a top-30 scorer in the league. There have been bright spots, though, as winger Jason Robertson is second among NHL rookies with 43 points in 48 games.

Dallas has relied on its defensive prowess to win games this year without a potent offense. Only two teams have allowed fewer goals at even strength, but the Stars rank 27th in goals scored at evens.

Tampa Bay News & Notes

The Lightning have dominated the season series with the Stars but the last two games were a lot closer than the scores might indicate. The Lightning won 6-2 on Wednesday night but only out-chanced the Stars 21-17 and had eight high-danger chances to Dallas’ seven at even strength. Tampa was also outshot 20-15 at evens.

It was a similar situation last week as the Lightning were actually out-chanced by Dallas 20-15 and the teams both had five high-danger chances – yet the Lightning won 3-0.

Overall, the Bolts have been pretty dominant, though, as they rank fifth in expected goals for percentage, eighth in total scoring chances and 10th in high-danger chances.

It’s hard to talk about how good the Lightning are without mentioning the goaltending as well. Possibly on his way to another Vezina Trophy, Andrei Vasilevskiy is now 31-8-1 this season with a stellar .928 save percentage.

Betting Pick: Dallas +140