Blues vs. Stars: Game 7 Preview, Prediction for NHL Playoff Series Finale

The Dallas Stars and St. Louis Blues are vastly different teams. They play diverging styles of hockey and have distinct strengths and weaknesses, and the histories of the two teams both recent and long term are decidedly unalike.

Yet each club has already succeeded in outstripping its predecessors, and each is on the verge of proving that it belongs in the same conversation as perennial Western powerhouses Los Angeles and Chicago.

The Blues, long a strong regular-season team, have been bedeviled by playoff failures. On May 1, with a 4-3 overtime victory over Dallas, the Blues won their first second-round playoff game since 2002, when the franchise managed a single win in a five-game loss to Detroit.

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That second-round playoff winless streak included each of the last four years.

Dallas, meanwhile, has a recent history of postseason failure. After advancing to the conference final in 2008, the team missed the playoffs in six of the seven seasons that followed, with the lone exception being a first-round exit at the hands of the Anaheim Ducks. A win on April 24 over Minnesota propelled the Jim Nill-built Stars further than they had gone before.

There’s a lot on the line in Wednesday's Game 7 at the American Airlines Center. A win for the Stars would validate Nill’s blueprint as general manager and establish the up-and-coming club as a true contender.

A win for the Blues would perhaps be even more meaningful; Dallas is an up-and-comer, but St. Louis is in danger of becoming a never-was. Success on Wednesday may be the last—and best—chance for the club as currently structured to record some lasting achievement.

Let’s take some time to preview what could be a momentous occasion in the history of both teams.

Dallas Stars storylines

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Jamie Benn has been great even without Tyler Seguin

Tyler Seguin skated with the Stars on May 10, and per the video posted by Mark Stepneski of the Stars’ official website, he looked awfully good:

Nevertheless, Seguin is not expected to play, as Stepneski noted less than an hour later.

And while it’s fun for Stars fans to imagine how good their team would look in Game 7 with its first-line centre in the lineup, the truth is that left wing Jamie Benn hasn’t missed a beat in his absence.

Benn is tied (with standout San Jose Sharks defenceman Brent Burns) for first in postseason scoring with 15 points.

Assuming the Stars advance, he’s a leading contender for the Conn Smythe Trophy, and his play with other centres offers head coach Lindy Ruff the option of playing Seguin on another line if the pivot returns later in the playoffs.

The minus players at the top of the defensive depth chart

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John Klingberg and Alex Goligoski are the two defencemen entrusted with the most minutes by the Dallas Stars.

Klingberg has a minus-five rating in the playoffs; Goligoski is a little worse at minus-seven. This is in sharp contrast to the regular season, where these two players were plus-22 and plus-21, respectively.

Yet it would be too simplistic to label the Stars’ top defenders as having underachieved.

The shot metrics tell a different story. Fenwick, an on-ice plus/minus of all shots and missed shots, shows that Dallas has dominated territorially with those players on the ice.

In the postseason, the Stars have a 155-109 edge (59 percent) in Fenwick events with Goligoski on the ice and a 175-138 edge (56 percent) with Klingberg out there.

Over the long term, that kind of shot dominance leads to strong work in the goals department, too. In the short term, though, even a line that owns the ice territorially can get outscored.

Fortunately for the Stars, Coach Ruff has taken the longer view and continued to play his best defencemen despite their misleading plus/minus numbers.

St. Louis Blues storylines

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Does Brian Elliott start?

Of the 64 goaltenders to play in at least 15 regular-season games this year, only two managed to post a save percentage of 0.925 or better.

Ben Bishop, generally acknowledged as one of the top goaltenders in the game, posted a 0.926 save percentage for the Tampa Bay Lightning. Brian Elliott of the St. Louis Blues, meanwhile, beat that mark, going 23-8-6 on the year with a 0.930 save percentage.

Elliott has been almost as good in the postseason, with a 0.926 save percentage for the Blues over 13 games. Yet, when asked after Game 6 whether Elliott would be in net for Game 7, head coach Ken Hitchcock prevaricated.

“I want to sleep on what I'm going to do,” NHL.com’s Louie Korac quoted Hitchcock as saying. “I'll let you know on the game day.”

In five seasons with the Blues, Elliott has twice led the NHL in save percentage. His 0.930 save percentage this year was preceded by 0.917 and 0.922 performances.

Yet in the last two years he has been passed over in the postseason, with trade acquisition Ryan Miller taking the playoff starting job in 2013-14 and backup Jake Allen doing so in 2014-15.

With Elliott pulled in favor of Allen after allowing three goals on seven shots in Game 6, and with the head coach declining to confirm his starter, it seems possible Hitchcock is considering making a change.

The prediction here is Hitchcock will judge the goaltender on a strong season and playoffs, and not on his most recent performance—one that happens to be statistically his worst of the postseason.

Elliott should—and likely will—start, but the coach has opened the possibility that when Game 7 begins it will be someone else in net for the first time this postseason.

Can Hitchcock survive a loss?

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If this storyline feels familiar, it’s because the same question was asked prior to Game 7 between the Blues and Chicago Blackhawks in the first round.

At the time, Benjamin Hochman of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch had no problem predicting that a loss in that game would have been the end of Hitchcock’s tenure as coach in St. Louis.

He wrote:

"

Win Game 7 and you’re the coach who took the Blues to the second round (and perhaps beyond?) of the playoffs, while knocking off the defending champs, who just happened to be the detested Chicago Blackhawks.

Lose Game 7 and you’re the coach who infamously had four consecutive first-round-series losses.

Lose Game 7 and you’re the ex-coach.

"

That outcome seems less inevitable if the Blues come up short in the second round, but the question is still worth asking.

To paraphrase Hochman, win Game 7 and Hitchcock is the coach who took the Blues to the third round. Lose Game 7 and he’s the coach who, in five tries, couldn’t get an exceptional St. Louis team past Round 2.

For what it’s worth, this is only the second Game 7 the Blues have played under Hitchcock. The other one was two weeks ago, and they won it. The coach likely needs his team to repeat the feat.

Prediction: Stars 3, Blues 2

Statistics courtesy of NHL.com and Corsica Hockey. 

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work.