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A pair of squads thirsty to get the best of one another will face off Thursday evening as the Ottawa Senators meet up with the Dallas Stars for an intriguing matchup. It is time to take a look at our NHL odds series where our Senators-Stars prediction and pick will be made.
As it stands, Dallas has lost back-to-back games but has yet to embark on a three-game losing streak this year. With a more than impressive 14-7-5 record, the Stars certainly want to nip this two-game slide in the butt before it really starts to rear its ugly head.
A team that is considered to be in a rebuilding type of phase with the majority of the roster containing a handful of talented but young players, the Ottawa Senators would like to undergo a quick turnaround after falling flat on their faces to the Sharks by a score of 5-2 on Tuesday evening. Coming into this one with a 10-14-1 overall mark, a convincing victory at the hands of the Stars would send this team's confidence through the roof.
Here are the Senators-Stars NHL odds, courtesy of FanDuel
NHL Odds: Senators-Stars Odds
Ottawa Senators: +1.5 (-154)
Dallas Stars: -1.5 (+124)
Over: 6.5 (-120)
Under: 6.5 (-102)
Why The Senators Could Cover The Spread
Few can argue that the Senators are in a different stage within their franchise than the Stars at the moment, but that certainly doesn't mean that Ottawa isn't capable of covering the spread in convincing fashion. Let us start by taking a glance at the Senators' record against the spread so far this season. Currently, despite possessing a losing record entering tonight's action, Ottawa is a surprising 14-11 when it comes to covering the spread. While the famous saying is that good teams win, great teams cover might be fairly strong when applying it to this group, the Senators are not a team that should be overlooked in any sense of the word.
In order to cover the spread and improve on that record, the Senators must find a way to combat the high-scoring Stars with some flashiness and sparkle of their own. Even further, Ottawa could spell trouble for Dallas if they can continue to be effective when on the power play. When the other team is shorthanded, the Senators have no doubt been fueled thanks to their 27% success rate which falls within the top ten of power-play effectiveness. Bafflingly, they've been even better on the road with a 30% mark in that same category. Simply put, putting the pressure on Dallas in more ways than one will prove to be beneficial.
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Most importantly, can the Senators do enough between the pipes? At the moment, Ottawa is allowing more goals than they are scoring and need a shutdown-type of performance from goalie Cam Talbot. When clicking on all cylinders, Talbot can be extremely effective in not letting anything past him. However, if Talbot allows some softies in the early going, Ottawa's chances of covering will only begin to dwindle.
Why The Stars Could Cover The Spread
Although Dallas is coming off a tough 4-0 loss to the Maple Leaves on Tuesday, the Stars have showcased what has made them so great in the first third of the season by not allowing themselves to let losses rack up too severely. While a large part of this resilience is in large part due to a talented roster, Dallas has been on-fire when it comes to finding creative ways to score offensively. However, this couldn't be further from the truth when the Stars were blanked by Toronto even after putting up a whopping 44 shots on goal. At the end of the day, sometimes the puck just doesn't fall like you want it to.
Fortunately, the good news is that the Stars have rarely not come through in the scoring department, as they own the top-scoring attack at 3.70 goals per game.
Despite getting shutout for the first time all season, the glaring concern has been the amount of goals they have been giving up on the other side of the ice. In two of their past four defeats overall, the Stars have trailed by at least two goals in the first period during each one of those contests. This has definitely been a head-scratcher for a club that is only surrendering 2.85 goals per game and is led by the ultra-talented Jake Oettinger in net. The overall work of Oettinger suggests that Dallas will eventually get things sorted out, but he has given up seven goals over the course of his last two starts. Without a doubt, Oettinger needs to return to his usual form in order for Dallas to cruise in a big way.
Final Senators-Stars Prediction & Pick
Yes, the Senators may only have a measly 21 points on the season entering play, but if they are going to kickstart their season, this is the game to do it in. However, it shouldn't be expected for the Stars to not score like they did versus Toronto, and playing at home will most likely rejuvenate them with some much-needed energy to cover.
Final Senators-Stars Prediction & Pick: Stars -1.5 (+118)
