NHL Stanley Cup Final 2020: Lightning vs. Stars TV Schedule, Odds, Game 3 Picks

The Tampa Bay Lightning may have found the best way to beat the Dallas Stars. 

The Eastern Conference champion blitzed the Dallas net with a trio of first-period goals to take the lead early in Game 2 and level the Stanley Cup Final at one game apiece.

If Tampa Bay finds a way to strike early in Game 3 and beyond, it could gain the edge it needs to hoist the Stanley Cup.

Prior to Monday, the Lightning owned a 6-1 record in Stanley Cup Final games in which they scored first, per NHL Public Relations.

Dallas has not given up multiple goals in the first period much in the 2020 postseason, but when it has, it struggled to come back in those contests. 

Stanley Cup Final Game 3 Information

Date: Wednesday, September 23

Start Time: 8 p.m. ET

TV: NBCSN

Odds

Tampa Bay (-157; bet $157 to win $100)

Dallas (+135; bet $100 to win $135)

Over/Under: 5

Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook.

Pick

Tampa Bay 3, Dallas 1

Brayden Point, Nikita Kucherov and Victor Hedman were at the forefront of Tampa Bay's early onslaught in Game 2. 

Point opened the scoring, while the other two players assisted on his goal and Ondrej Palat's tally, both of which occurred on the power play. 

The third goal in a five-minute span came from Kevin Shattenkirk, who has been the most active defenseman in the attacking zone with seven shots on goal in the series.

In five of Dallas' seven playoff losses, the opposing team has scored first and it has conceded at least three goals in all but one of those defeats. 

Tampa Bay's initial surge in Game 2 followed those trends, and it handed the team confidence in the series and a game plan to beat Dallas moving forward. 

The key for Tampa Bay throughout the postseason has been to get Kucherov and Hedman involved as much as possible. 

Kucherov has a league-best 28 points and 22 assists in the postseason and Hedman possesses nine goals and eight assists. 

The duo is a part of a group of seven Lightning players with five shots on goal or more, as the Lightning have outshot the Stars 67-49. 

Dallas proved in Game 1 it could find success without putting an abundance of attempts on target, but that strategy is hard to thrive off when a team is playing from behind. 

The Stars beat Andrei Vasilevskiy once in the second and third periods to get within one goal, but they still did not challenge the Tampa Bay goalie with a high volume of shots. 

Dallas can absorb a fast start by Tampa Bay better if it increases its attacking production throughout the game, but that has been hard for it to do since the Western Conference Final began.

In the last two series, the Stars have scored more than three goals on one occasion. In the five-game series win over Vegas, they averaged 23.6 shots per game. In Games 1 and 2 vs. Tampa Bay, the Stars averaged 24.5 shots per contest. 

If Dallas is not able to win Game 3 with the defense that shut down Vegas and got it to this point, it may be hard for it to muster a comeback, especially down multiple goals. 

In addition to Kucherov and Hedman, look for Blake Coleman to be involved in a bulk of Tampa Bay's scoring chances. He has a plus-minus of two and owns a pair of assists in the Stanley Cup Final.

If Dallas gets on the board early in an attempt to reverse the momentum in the series, Alexander Radulov will likely be involved. He leads the series with three assists.

Follow Joe on Twitter, @JTansey90.

Statistics obtained from Hockey Reference.