It all comes down to this for Lindy Ruff's Dallas Stars and Ken Hitchcock's St. Louis Blues: The winner of Wednesday night's Game Seven in Dallas advances to the Western Conference Finals. The losing side will be left to ponder what more they could have done.
Game time at the American Airlines Center is 7 p.m. CDT. The game will be televised on NBC Sports Network.
The Stars forced a seventh game with a 3-2 win in St. Louis on Monday. First period goals by Mattias Janmark, Vernon Fiddler and Jason Spezza (power play) -- the latter two set up by Colton Sceviour and the Janmark and Fiddler tallies spaced just 20 seconds apart-- put Dallas in quick control of the game. The Stars held on the rest of the way and survived goals by Alex Steen and Patrik Berglund that cut the gap to one goal with 11:01 left to play.
With Dallas playing with a big early lead, they spent a lot of time playing defense over the final 40 minutes; reflected by a 28-7 negative shot disparity in the second and third periods (including a 14-2 gap over the final 20 harrowing minutes).
Fortunately for the Stars, Kari Lehtonen was very strong in goal, stopping 37 of 39 shots overall. Brian Elliott (three goals on seven shots) was pulled after the Spezza goal in the first period in an effort by Hitchcock to hit the "reset button" with 43:11 of hockey still to play. Jake Allen was not busy in relief of Elliott, stopping all seven shots he faced.
The power play had not been a strength for the Stars in the series and they only had one opportunity in Game Six but made the most of it. Dallas went 2-for-2 on the penalty kill.
Patrick Eaves (leg) returned to the Stars' lineup for Game Six. Tyler Seguin (Achilles tendon injury) participated in the Stars' practice on Tuesday but remains unavailable to play. Travis Moen (hand injury) is also out. The Blues have their full roster available.
Home ice has not meant much in this series. The road team has won four of the six games to date, with both the Stars and Blues winning two of three on the other's home ice. However, home ice in a Game Seven is what these two Central Division clubs battled each other for all season. Now it's at hand.