Tampa Bay Lightning (59-26-7) at Dallas Stars (51-34-8)
NHL Hockey: Friday, September 25, 2020 at 8:00 pm (Rogers Place)
The Line: Dallas Stars +146 / Tampa Bay Lightning -182 --- Over/Under: 5.5 Click Here for the Latest Odds
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The Dallas Stars and Tampa Bay Lightning meet Friday in game four of the NHL Stanley Cup Final at the Rogers Place.
The Dallas Stars need a bounce back performance to even up this series at 2-2. The Dallas Stars are averaging 2.92 goals per game and are scoring on 24.7 percent of their power play opportunities. Joe Pavelski leads Dallas with 10 goals, Miro Heiskanen has 18 assists and Jamie Benn has 65 shots on goal. Defensively, the Dallas Stars are allowing 3.04 goals per game and are killing 82.1 percent of their opponents power plays. Ben Bishop has given up 12 goals on 77 shots faced and Anton Khudobin has allowed 58 goals on 706 shots. Jake Oettinger has allowed zero goals on eight shots.
The Tampa Bay Lightning look for a third straight victory to take a commanding 3-1 series lead. The Tampa Bay Lightning are averaging 3.09 goals per game and are scoring on 19.4 percent of their power play opportunities. Brayden Point leads Tampa Bay with 11 goals, Nikita Kucherov has 23 assists and Ondrej Palat has 72 shots on goal. Defensively, the Tampa Bay Lightning are allowing 2.27 goals per game and are killing 84.6 percent of their opponents power plays. Andrei Vasilevskiy has given up 47 goals on 655 shots faced.
The under is 2-0-3 in Lightning last 5 overall. The over is 1-0-3 in Stars last 4 overall. The Lightning are 7-3 in the last 10 meetings. The over is 6-2 in the last 8 meetings in Dallas and 15-3-3 in the last 21 meetings.
The Tampa Bay Lightning have clearly found their groove offensively in this series, as they've now scored eight goals in the first two periods of the last two games. The Lightning entered this series as the favorites and it feels like they're starting to flex their muscle as they hope to take complete control of this thing. With that said, there's something about getting the more desperate team at plus money that intrigues me. This is pretty much a must win for the Stars if they're going to have a real shot of lifting the trophy. I expect a cleaner effort on the defensive side. Give me the underdog to even up this series.
Randy’s Pick Dallas Stars +146
AUTHOR: Randy Chambers
Follow Randy Chambers on Twitter @WizardOf0dds