Stars-Oilers Series Preview

 2C Dallas vs Edmonton 3P

We are back with another Playoff preview here on the ETEH Blog, so today we are looking at the Western Conference Finals in the Western Conference playoff picture, as we're going to be looking at the best team in the Central this year in the Dallas Stars as they finished 2nd in the Central this year, they took down the beast of a team in Colorado in RD1 and took down the best in the league in the regular season in Winnipeg in 6 games in RD2 as they reach the Conference final for the 3rd consecutive year, and they take on the 3rd team in the Pacific in the Edmonton Oilers who won 4 in a row and stunned the Kings in RD1 in 6 games and followed that up with taking down the Pacific winning Knights quite handedly in 5 games in RD2 as they are the team to once again come out of the Pacific and make the WCF for the 2nd consecutive season and 3rd time in 4 years.

History of Rivalry Between teams in playoffs:

Now going over to the history of the playoff rivalry between the Oilers and Stars and it is actually rather short on account of this being the first ever postseason series between the Jets and Stars as these two teams have met a couple times over the years in the postseason before as the first ever meeting was back in 1984 when Dallas was still in Minnesota and in that first ever series the Oilers would win, and they would play once more when Dallas was Minnesota back in 1991 and that series went in the North Stars favour, then in the span of 7 years from 97-03 these two teams would play 6 times as the Oilers wou.d win the first matchup in 97 but Dallas would then win 5 in a row in that time span, and they wouldn't meet in the postseason again until 21 years later in last years WCF as Edmonton won in 6 games to get their 3rd postseason victory against them, so now the Oilers are looking for 2 series wins in a row against Dallas while the Stars look for their 7th playoff victory against the Oilers. 

Season Series Record: 

Dallas 2-1-0 12-9+3

Edmonton 1-2-0 9-12-3

Perry Nelson Imagn Images

Each teams X-Factors: Rantanen vs Draisaitl

Next we go over to the two teams X-Factors in my opinion for this series and the two X-Factors in my eyes are the Stars top end power forward who saved their season in round 1 in Mikko Rantanen and maybe the most lethal goal scorer in the NHL in Leon Draisaitl. No I know these two are arguablly the best players on their respective teams, but both these teams have had really good bottom six contributions all playoff long and their top sixes have been great as well, but I feel the X-Factors for the two teams in this series have to be the best players as I feel that the top player who has more of a impact in this series will probably help their team win as Rantanen who had a hat trick in each of the first two rounds is one of the top point players in the playoffs and if he keeps that up I think the Stars have a actual shot at winning, While if Draisaitl keeps on putting the puck in the net for the Oilers and keeps on playing on another planet, then I feel this series will probably go Edmonton's way but those are the two X-Factors in my opinion.

Which teams are best at 3 Positions:

Offense: now on the offensive side both teams are really good as I believe the top 2 point players for the playoffs are in this series, both have superb top ends of the forward group but also stellar depth, so when it comes to who has the advantage in this series I would have to say the Oilers have the better top end talent as even though they are good, no one can really compete with McDavid and Draisaitl offensively, but depth wise the advantage goes to Dallas as on some other teams, Dallas 3rd and 4th lines would be 2nd and 3rd lines, so in my eyes the Oilers have the top end talent advantage but the Stars have a more deeper offence then Edmonton.

Perry Nelson Imagn Images

Defence; so on the defensive side the Oilers and Stars both have rather good defence's as the Oilers were able to shutdown the Knights in round 2 and the Stars played a sound defensive game against the Jets so both have solid D-Corps, but I will give the D edge to the Oilers as the Oilers have a pretty good defence even without Ekholm and even though the Stars just got Heiskanen back, playing Ceci or Lybushkin on the 2nd pair really weakens the D and once Edmonton gets Ekholm back then they truly will have a really much better defence then the Dallas Stars so the D advantage goes to Edmonton.

Goaltending: now if you look at these two teams goaltenders they have utilized them both in a very different way, as for the Stars Oettinger has been their goalie the entire playoff run and he has had his bad games such as game 6 vs Colorado or game 2 vs Winnipeg but for the most part Oettinger has stood tall and been a solid goalie for Dallas, while Edmonton started the playoffs with Skinner but started Pickard in game 3 of RD 1 and he won 6 straight before being injured and Skinner went back in for game 3 of RD 2 and has since had back to back shutouts for the Oilers and has looked a lot better and Edmonton will roll with Skinner but just given how well he has played all playoffs I am giving the goalie edge to Oettinger and the Stars.

Biggest on Ice Matchup: Stars PP vs Oilers PK 

Now in my opinion the biggest on ice matchup in the Oilers and Stars series has to be the Oilers penalty kill against the lethal Stars power play, now the Oilers penalty kill was superb last year en route to the Stanley Cup including not giving up a PP goal to either LA or Dallas, but this year the PK especially on the road has sucked as Vegas and LA have been able to capitalize quite well on the Oilers  PK this year which has lead to the Oilers having a sub 70.0 PK which isn't overly great, and then you look at Dallas and while they haven't been perfect, their power play so far in the postseason against the Jets and Av's was quite good as they have the 3rd ranked power play in the postseason entering the WCF only behined Montreal and the team who play Edmonton in round 1 in LA, so whoever wins this matchup will have the upper hand in this series because if Dallas power play does it's job then I think they could win the series, but if Edmonton's PK shuts them down like last year then the Stars may be out in round 3 yet again.

Predictions:

So when it comes to my predictions for this series I am looking back to last year and thinking that this series will probably be similar to what happens last year where the Oilers find there game in the conference finals, Skinner looks pretty good and the Stars just looked gassed after two long and gruelling series last year, and I feel the same will happen this year after two long series against Colorado and Winnipeg and also Edmonton finding lots of ways to score so I am saying the Oilers take this series in 6 games just like last year, I could very well see Dallas maybe come away with this series but after the way the Oilers finished up round 1 against LA and then the utter dominant ion in round 2 vs the Knights, I and going to say the Oilers take it and head to their 2nd consecutive Cup Final.