Dallas Stars vs. Seattle Kraken: 2023 Stanley Cup playoff series preview and pick

Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

Dallas Stars: 2nd in Central Division, 108 points
Seattle Kraken: 1st Western Conference Wild Card, 100 points

Schedule (ET)

Date	Game	Time
Tuesday, May 2	1. Seattle at Dallas	9:30 p.m. ET
Thursday, May 4	2. Seattle at Dallas	TBD

Additional dates and start times will be confirmed later this week.

The Skinny

The Dallas Stars have had a few days to rest after taking down the Minnesota Wild in six games on Friday. Jake Oettinger found the same magic that nearly led the Stars to an upset first-round series win against Calgary a year ago, while Roope Hintz, Jason Robertson, Tyler Seguin and Miro Heiskanen carried the offensive load. The Stars got scorig from just about everywhere, and when you have a goalie playing more like vintage Andrei Vasilevskiy, you’re unstoppable.

The Kraken, meanwhile, are playing with house money. They’re the league’s newest team, one that most expected to miss the playoffs in an attempt to continue accumulating assets. Instead, with no true superstar, but armed with one of the hardest-working lineups in the league, the Kraken not only made the postseason, but beat the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Colorado Avalanche. And they did that despite losing top scorer Jared McCann midway through. By all accounts, the Kraken were serious underdogs against the top team in the Central Division.

It helped that the Avalanche were playing seriously shorthanded, missing Gabriel Landeskog, Josh Manson, Andrew Cogliano, Valeri Nichushkin, Darren Helm and even Cale Makar for a game. That wasn’t the Avalanche at full strength. Still, winning Game 7 against the defending champions is the ultimate confidence booster for a team with high hopes and low expectations.

Head to Head

Dallas: 2-0-1
Seattle: 1-1-0

After meeting three times over a 10-day span in March, these two are quite familiar with each other. The Stars took Game 1 on March 11 4-3 in overtime before winning again 5-2 just two nights later. The Kraken finished things off with a 5-4 OT win in March 21, holding off a late-game comeback effort that saw Jamie Benn tie the game with just one second left.

Heiskanen led the way with a whopping seven points in three games, with Benn (six) and Joe Pavelski (five) also having some standout performances. It was another defenseman that led Seattle’s attack, with Vince Dunn (four) pacing Daniel Sprong (three), Carson Soucy (three) and Chris Tanev (three) over three contests.

With the winning team requiring at least four goals in every one of those games, you can expect this to be quite the high-scoring series.

Top Five Scorers

Dallas

Roope Hintz, 12 points
Jason Robertson, 7 points
Tyler Seguin, 6 points
Miro Heiskanen, 6 points
Two tied, 4 points

Seattle

Yanni Gourde, 6 points
Jaden Schwartz, 5 points
Justin Schultz, 5 points
Oliver Bjorkstrand, 4 points
Alexander Wennberg, 4 points

X-Factor

Confidence. It’s all a mental game with this series. The Stars still have some key parts of the core that took the team to the Stanley Cup final in 2020, only to miss the playoffs the following year. They’ve dealt with adversity and know how to overcome the highs and lows.

The Kraken, however, are flying high with nothing to lose. They’ve crushed preseason expectations and are still new as a group. So to beat the defending Cup champs in their first postseason run is something quite special, even if there are a few players that have gone the distance before and understand the rigors of a tough playoff run.

So, which team believes in themselves the most? They played fairly even hockey during the season and both had similar strengths in their opening matchups. The Stars definitely have the higher expectations as one of the top teams in the West, but, sometimes, you can’t beat heart.

Offense

Dallas has a true superstar on their hands with Jason Robertson, who scored 46 goals and 109 points in his third NHL season – both career highs. He has another seven points in the playoffs, even with increased defensive pressure by the Avalanche in the first round. But the first round star was Roope Hintz, a noted big-time playoff performer with 37 points in 50 games over four seasons. He had five goals and 12 points in the first round to lead all players while scoring at a 3.00 point-per-60 rate. Not far behind him was Evgenii Dadonov at 2.97, with his three goals and four points in a middle-six role giving the Stars some serious scoring punch. Not bad for what seemed like a minor acquisition at the trade deadline. Tyler Seguin was also important with six points, while Heiskanen was dangerous from the blueline with six helpers himself. Add in Benn, Mason Marchment and Wyatt Johnston, and this is definitely a group that’ll smother you offensively.

The Kraken’s offense has always been by committee this season, and that’s the case in the playoffs, too. Yanni Gourde, an underrated part of Tampa Bay’s Stanley Cup runs, had six points against Colorado, with Jaden Schwartz and Justin Schultz grabbing five apiece. Even with Jared McCann injured and Matty Beniers limited to just one goal, the fact that they could get scoring help from anywhere was a huge bonus. They’ll need guys like Beniers and Jordan Eberle to step up because Dallas definitely has the edge up front, but the Kraken’s depth makes them a difficult team to play against.

Of the teams still in the hunt, Dallas and Seattle have two of the deepest lineups around. And with the amount of scoring we saw in the three-game series, expect guns-a-blazing every single night.

Defense

These are two teams that love to use their blueline to generate offense as much as possible, and that’s why Heiskanen and Dunn led their respective teams during the season series. The Heiskanen and Ryan Suter pair looked strong in the first round, with the youth-veteran combo playing a strong two-way game. Esa Lindell and Jani Hakanpaa did an excellent job of shutting things down, while the third pairing of Thomas Harley and Joel Hanley was actually quite solid in their 27 minutes together with an expected goals percentage of 65.2, according to Money Puck. Dallas’ blueline is physically imposing, with the entire corps being at least 6-foot-1. Having Heiskanen, one of the best young defensemen in the game, playing his best hockey this year doesn’t hurt, either.

It’s amazing what Seattle’s back end has accomplished this year. They conceded the fifth-fewest expected goals in the NHL during 5-on-5 action this year. That’s with a group featuring Dunn, Adam Larsson, Jamie Oleksiak and Justin Schultz. It’s absolutely incredible what coach Dave Hakstol has managed to do with this core, and a huge reason for the team’s success is the deployment. No defenseman played more than 20:32 (Larsson) at 5-on-5, and the eye test will tell you this team does an excellent job of shutting things down late in games. The Kraken also get full commitment from their forwards in their zone, most notably Gourde, Brandon Tanev and Eeli Tolvanen. They’ll need all hands on deck to shut down the red-hot Stars attack.

Goaltending

Can the Kraken get better goaltending than Dallas? Oettinger’s .930 save percentage at 5-on-5 is among the best in the league. His small, but impressive playoff CV is as good as anyone’s, statistically, over the past two years. Oettinger was also miles ahead of Seattle’s offerings during the regular season, and even backup Scott Wedgewood put up solid numbers through 21 games.

Fortunately for the Kraken, they got the goaltending they were always craving from Philipp Grubauer during the first round. The former Avalanche netminder struggled in his first two seasons with the Kraken, owning just a .895 save percentage through 39 games this season. But his advanced stats, highlighted by his 0.934 save percentage and 1.84 goals saved above average at 5-on-5, were actually better than Oettinger’s with an extra game to his credit, too. It’s hard to trust Grubauer over Oettinger, but the Kraken wouldn’t have advanced without their goaltender’s strong play. Simple as that.

Injuries

Fortunately, the injury list for both teams is quite short. Unfortunately, it includes some high-quality players. The Kraken are expected to start without Jared McCann and Andre Burakovsky, two key pieces of the team’s attack. Burakovsky missed the entire first round with a lower-body injury, while McCann played just four games before sitting with an undisclosed issue after a late hit that got Makar suspended. If either is made available, that’ll be a massive boost for the Kraken.

For the Stars, Joe Pavelski is considered day-to-day at this point after suffering a concussion in Game 1 on a hit from Matt Dumba. He recently resumed practicing, which is a good sign for a forward that just missed the 80-point mark this season. The Stars fared well without him, but there’s no question that he’d be a difference-maker.

Intangibles

The Stars a heavy-hitting, high-scoring, shot-blocking, goaltending-mad machine. The Kraken are a hard-working, all-for-one, nobody-left-behind unit. It’s a battle between skill and heart. Do the Kraken have a mental edge since they’re playing with house money?

Series Prediction

We’ve learned to underestimate the Kraken at our peril. Regardless of what happens here, or how many players the Avs missed in the first round, Seattle has so much to be proud of at this point. They’re playing with a “Why not us?” mentality, and that’s exactly what drove the Florida Panthers to victory. But the Stars can play unstoppable hockey and, in theory, have the better lineup on paper. This series could easily go the distance, with Seattle giving it everything they’ve got. But the Stars will wrap things up with the edge up front, and Oettinger is once again going to steal the show.

Stars in seven games.

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