The Dallas Stars and Vegas Golden Knights square off with both needing just four wins to advance to the Stanley Cup Final.
The pregame narrative: Reilly Smith has been fairly productive this postseason but we’ll explain why he’s a quality fade candidate in Game 1. In fact, Vegas’ offence as a whole is worth betting against.
Check out our Stars vs. Golden Knights picks for Game 1 on May 19.
NHL odds as of 9:21 a.m. on 05/18/2023.
Stars vs. Golden Knights picks
Best Bet : Smith to not score 1+ points (-118)
Opportunity is the name of the game when looking for players to come through on the points market, and Smith isn’t checking the boxes we like to see.
The Golden Knights winger isn’t playing on the top power-play unit but is instead skating on the watered-down second unit. Even though he still has three power-play points this postseason, production on the man advantage will be a challenge against the Stars as they own the best penalty kill (83.3%) of any team remaining.
Smith isn’t skating inside the top six, either. He plays on line three alongside William Karlsson and Nicolas Roy, hence why he’s averaging under 17 minutes per night (16:43).
The game total for Friday’s contest is sitting at 5.5 goals, too, meaning the expectation is a low-scoring affair. With that in mind, we’re fine fading a player not receiving premium scoring opportunities.
Key stat: Smith had zero points in three regular-season games versus Dallas.
Quick pick
Golden Knights under 2.5 goals – regular time (+100) : Let’s not ignore the obvious. Scoring is going to be much more difficult for Vegas in the conference final.
Despite finishing the regular season strong, Stuart Skinner did not meet the moment in the playoffs. The goaltender posted a .883 save percentage and had the second-worst goals saved above expected among all netminders (-6.2) per Money Puck.
Facing off against Jake Oettinger is a much tougher task, even if he hasn’t been spectacular in the playoffs. He owns a sub-standard .903 save percentage in the postseason, but his Game 7 performance versus the Seattle Kraken was a reminder that he can rise to the occasion.
He turned aside 22 of 23 shots in the 2-1 victory, keeping the Kraken off the board until the final minute of play.
Vegas didn’t score more than two goals in any of its three games versus Dallas in the regular season.
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