Dallas Stars: Second Round Series Breakdown

The Dallas Stars will face the St. Louis Blues in the second round of the playoffs. Take a deeper look at the series between the best teams in the West.

The Dallas Stars let it get interesting late in Game 6, but they ultimately finished off the Minnesota Wild for their first series win since 2008.

Though Tyler Seguin only played in Game 2, the Stars still managed to score at least three goals in five out of the six games played. Jamie Benn was great in his second playoff series as he led just about every major statistical category with four goals, six assists and ten points.

The Stars will now transition to their second round series against the St. Louis Blues, who defeated the Chicago Blackhawks in a thrilling seven-game series. Check out the regular season results between the two teams:

• Dec. 12: Blues win 3-0
• Dec. 26: Blues win 3-2 in SO
• Dec. 27: Stars win 3-0
• Feb. 16: Blues win 2-1 in OT
• Mar. 12: Blues win 5-4 in OT

This was a difficult series for the Stars. They went 1-1-3 in five very physical contests, with three being decided past the third period. Besides the Blues’ 5-4 win on Mar. 12, most of the games were rather low scoring as each team relied on their goalie to get the job done.

The most notable game came on Dec. 27 as Patrick Sharp, Jamie Benn and Cody Eakin added goals in Kari Lehtonen‘s 22-save shutout.

Now, moving to the critical series that lies ahead, let’s check out key areas for each team (All stats represent playoff averages):

Offense: The Stars currently own the second-best offense in the playoffs, as they are scoring 3.50 goals per game. The Blues rank seventh, with 2.67 goals per game. Jamie Benn has the most points in the postseason with 10 (4 goals, 6 assists), while Jason Spezza trails closely behind with nine (4 goals, 5 assists). Vladimir Tarasenko has six points for the Blues.

Defense: Goaltending will be an interesting factor in this series as the Stars have already used both Kari Lehtonen (.911) and Antti Niemi (.870) while the Blues have only used Brian Elliott (.928). As for the blue line, the Stars will have a tough time getting past a loaded defense consisting of players like Alex Pietrangelo, Kevin Shattenkirk and Jay Bouwmeester.

Special Teams: The Blues have had incredible success on the power play so far in the playoffs with a percentage of 31.3 compared to the Stars’ percentage of 21.1. Both teams have been struggling with the penalty kill as the Stars are operating at 75.0 percentage and the Blues are at 72.2 percent. Since the playoffs started, the Stars have lost a little momentum in their special teams play, as they had been one of the best in both categories prior to their series against the Wild.

Injuries: Tyler Seguin is the only player out for the Stars as he continues to rehab the injury to his Achilles. Everyone is healthy for the Blues at the moment, as Carl Gunnarsson recently returned from injury.

What To Expect: Depending on how healthy both teams can stay, this could turn out to be one of the best series of the playoffs this year. The teams had intense meetings during the regular season and will be battling as divisional rivals as well as the two best teams in the West.

Watch for the physical nature of the series. These teams do not like each other and it seems like every time they get together, players like Antoine Roussel and Ryan Reaves look for trouble, not to mention the ongoing Jamie Benn/David Backes rivalry.

Ultimately, this series is going to come down to goaltending. Both teams had issues with it in their respective first round series. Elliott let in four goals in Game 5 and six goals in Game 6, which proved to be the reason why the Hawks nearly came back and won the series. For the Stars, both Lehtonen and Niemi had games where they gave up five goals.

More dfw sports: Stars Outlast Wild, Advance To Conference Semis

The series is set to get underway later on in the week as we wait for the remaining first round games to be completed.