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The St. Louis Blues split the first two games of the series with the Dallas Stars at home and travelled down to Dallas for game three. The Blues came away with a big win 4-3 to stretch their lead in the series 2-1. By winning game three the Blues have put themselves in the driver’s seat to take the series win.
Anytime you can go into your opponents’ home ice and win the first game of the home stand is huge. The way that the third period finished in game three was wild, and sums up the entire NHL playoffs this season. Pat Maroon scored a goal with 1:38 left in the game to send the Blues back to their lodging victorious.
The Stars are 1.5 goal favourites in game four of the series and the over / under is set at five goals.
Numbers Favor the Blues
While there have been some crazy things going on in the NHL playoffs this year, the craziest part might be that the Blues are 4-0 on the road this postseason. It is hard to win on the road in any sport, much less the playoffs in the NHL.
In fact, the Blues haven’t dropped a road contest since April 3rd. With that being said, the Blues are 1-4 in their last five games in Dallas and they are looking to stop that rut of games in Dallas. The Stars are also 7-3 against the Blues over the past ten meetings between the two teams
Stars Look at Healthy Home Advantage
This series is looking a lot like the Stars first round match-up with the Nashville Predators. The Stars lost their first home game of the series and came back to win and advance. So far through four home games in the playoffs the Stars are 2-2 while they are 3-2 on the road. Interestingly, the Stars are really, really good on Wednesday nights.
Over the past five Wednesday night games the Stars are 5-0. Since Dallas is the home team in the game they are also looking at the fact that the home team is 8-5 in game four in the playoffs this season.
The Stars are also one of the best teams in NHL playoff history at defending during a power play. Through 24 power plays the Stars have only allowed one goal for a kill rate of 95.8 percent. That only trails the 2004 Red Wings mark of 96 percent.
Big Momentum Game Ahead
Whoever wins this game will have a ton of momentum. The Blues would love to get out to a 3-1 series lead while the Stars would love to even the series.
There are two things that you need to look at here and decide which useless fact is the most important as stated above. The Blues don’t lose on the road, but the Stars don’t lose on Wednesday nights.
I am going to go with the hot hand for this game. Take the Stars in another crazy finish that hits right on the over.
