Hockey is almost over and that is sad 🙁 but we now know the two teams that will battle it out for the greatest trophy in all of sports. The Dallas Stars and the Tampa Bay Lightning will go head to head to crown a Champion.
The Stars shocked the NHL world by taking down the powerhouse that was the Vegas Golden Knights in the Western Conference Final. Vegas out played them for a bulk part of the series but somehow, someway Dallas found a way to get past them. They scored key goals when they needed and Vegas was never able to capitalize on their chances.
Anton Khudobin was stellar in the series for the Stars and is the main reason they were able to shut down the high powered offense of the Knights. Now, after years of disappointing playoff runs Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin and the rest of the Stars have a chance to make up for all the previous years. It will be no easy task as the Lightning have been one of the top teams in the East and have been playing with a chip on their shoulder all playoffs long.
The Lightning have been a force in these playoffs and they out lasted the Islanders in 6 games in the Eastern Conference Final. What’s even crazier is they are doing it without some of their top players. Steven Stamkos has missed the entire playoffs so far and Brayden Point even missed a game in the Conference Finals. While the Islanders showed some fight and were able to get two wins but it wasn’t enough as the Lightning were able to finish them off last night.
The Final will begin tomorrow night at 7:30 on NBC. While it may not be the sexy matchup, this is going to be a hell of a series. Dallas has been scoring goals like crazy and getting great goaltending. Tampa Bay has such a high powered team and probably the best goaltender in the NHL. I expect this to be a physical low scoring series and I don’t expect Dallas to roll over. My brain is telling me that Tampa wins this series easily but I’m not fully convinced on it. Dallas is on a heater right now and I don’t know if I can’t bet against them. I’ll be shocked if this series doesn’t go 7 games because these two teams are pretty evenly matched.
Prediction: Tampa Bay in 7
-Walsh
Featured Image-TSN
Stars/Tampa Images-NHLPA