Who will win the Stanley Cup ?

        
      
        The Dallas Stars in recent years have had much success in the regular season but unfortunately couldn't translate their success to the playoffs. They had success in the first round defeating the Minnesota Wild in six games. The Dallas Stars had their big guns show up in the series and when they came to play they were unstoppable. With center Tyler Seguin, second on the Stars with 73 points this season, sidelined for all but Game 2, others had to step up and they did. Captain Jamie Benn, who led Dallas with eighty-nine points this season, led the way with ten points in the series. The Stars also got big production from second-line center Jason Spezza who had nine points in the series, grinder Patrick Eaves with 5 points and playoff veteran Patrick Sharp with four points. "Well, our big guys came to play," Stars coach Lindy Ruff said after Game 6. Secondly, Dallas' defence was solid throughout the whole first round conceding only 17 goals in the first round which is an average of 2.83 goals per game. Lastly, the Stars know that home or away they can get the job done. In the first round series, they got the win at home twice as well as winning on the road twice which proves that being on the road isn't a problem for them.

    
         In the second round, The stars come up against the St. Louis Blues. In the regular season the season series was 1 Overtime win for Dallas, 1 regulation time loss for Dallas and 3 Overtime losses for Dallas. Although St. Louis took the season series I still think that Dallas will have the advantage leading into the playoffs. St. Louis will go into the series confident, knowing that they won the season series, but this will drive Dallas to come out stronger and win the crucial games. I believe that if key players like Benn and Seguin perform in the series, then Dallas will have no problem moving on to the conference finals. If Dallas' defence can shut down Tarasenko, the Blues key player, then St. Louis will have to rely on other players to step up and if those players don't show up then it is clearly evident that Dallas will take the series and move on to the conference finals. \


  
       In my opinion, I believe that Dallas will win the cup because they have the edge on everyone in the western conference considering that they finished first and also because of their good record against the four playoff contenders in the Eastern conference and they also have good records against Anaheim, Nashville and San Jose in the regular season. Therefore I believe that Dallas' toughest task will be their current series with the St. Louis Blues. If they can defeat the Blues, I think that they have the upper edge on all the teams remaining in the Finals and the Conference finals. If they can overcome the Blues, I believe that if Seguin stays healthy throughout the remainder of the playoffs and Benn and Sharp are solid then there is no reason why Dallas should not win Lord Stanley.