NHL Stanley Cup Final 2020: Early Game 3 Odds and Lightning vs. Stars Prediction

The Stanley Cup Final is tied at one game apiece for the third consecutive year and fourth time since 2015. 

In each of the last two years, the Game 1 victor went on to lose Game 2 and fell short of claiming the Stanley Cup.

The Dallas Stars will look to avoid a similar fate as the Boston Bruins in 2018 and Vegas Golden Knights in 2019 by bouncing back in Game 3 versus the Tampa Bay Lightning at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Wednesday. 

The last time Tampa Bay was in the championship series, it lost the opener and then won Games 2 and 3 before losing three straight games to the Chicago Blackhawks in 2015. 

Jon Cooper's side recovered from an opening defeat to Dallas by placing three goals past Anton Khudobin in the first period of Game 2 on Monday. 

The first two games of the series have each produced five goals, which is where the Game 3 over/under is set. 

Stanley Cup Final Game 3 Odds

Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook

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

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

Over/Under: 5

Predictions

Tampa Bay (-157) and Over 5

At some point, Tampa Bay's high number of shots on goal should result in a large total on the scoreboard. 

The Lightning showed glimpses of their high-scoring attack against Dallas' strong defense in the opening 20 minutes of Game 2. 

Tampa Bay took advantage of penalties in quick succession to Joe Pavelski and Jamie Oleksiak to score two power-play goals in a three-minute span.

The Eastern Conference champion rode that momentum to put in a third through Kevin Shattenkirk under a minute after Ondrej Palat netted the second power-play tally. 

As they have been all postseason, Nikita Kucherov and Victor Hedman were the catalysts of Tampa Bay's offense, as they each produced an assist on Brayden Point's opener and Palat's tally. 

If Kucherov and Hedman continue to pressure the Dallas defense, they could be involved in more goals Wednesday.

The best prop bet from Tampa Bay's side could be Kucherov (+200) or Hedman (+330) to score a goal. 

Dallas is more than capable of scoring, as it produced four goals in the Game 1 victory Saturday and scored four or more goals on eight occasions in their first two playoff series against Calgary and Colorado. 

The issue with relying on the Stars to push the number of goals over the projected total is they do not put pucks on net at the same volume as the Lightning. 

However, they were more accurate in Game 1 by scoring on four of their 20 shots. 

Rick Bowness' team increased its shot total by nine in Game 2 but failed to beat Andrei Vasilevskiy more than two times. 

Dallas will look to Pavelski as an offensive catalyst after he tallied one of the two goals and attempted five shots. He carries good value at +320 to score, so he could be the best option for a Dallas prop bet. 

But until Dallas proves it can consistently keep up with Tampa Bay's offense, it is hard to see the Stars breaking through for a second series win after the Lightning discovered some scoring form in Game 2.

Follow Joe on Twitter, @JTansey90.

Statistics obtained from Hockey Reference.