NHL postseason Round 2 quick hits: Blues vs. Stars

Vitals
Dallas: 50-23-9 regular season, 4-2-0 in six games played in Round 1
St. Louis: 49-24-9 regular season, 4-3-0 in seven games played in Round 1

Season Series
St. Louis won four in the five-game regular-season series, including two victories in overtime and one in the shootout.

Playoff History
Dallas and St. Louis last met in the second round of the playoffs in 2001. The Blues completed a four-game sweep over the Stars.

Looking at the Round 2 Matchup
Very little separated these two teams in the Central Division standings at the end of the regular season, and both are coming off lengthy and hard-fought first-round series. Though in looking at their regular-season matchup on paper, the Blues had the advantage.

For the matchup at hand, NHL.com summarizes that the key to Dallas having success is to clean up its mistakes from Round 1, while St. Louis will aim to exploit those mistakes. Stars coach Lindy Ruff shuffled defense pairings and starting goalies in Round 1, and the St. Louis offense will look to prey on that, hoping for even more production from the Schwartz-Tarasenko-Lehtera line.

Offensive firepower was a big part of Dallas’ game in the regular season, particularly in the first part of the campaign when the Stars had a large lead in the Central. While captain Jamie Benn was a big contributor, the Stars also had the benefit of goals from score-savvy Tyler Seguin, whose participation in Round 2 after missing most of Round 1 due to his Achilles injury is still uncertain. 

Quotables
“We've got a really tough opponent, even probably tougher than the one we just knocked off. That's pretty significant. We're going to have to be even better than we were against Chicago if we expect to win, and quite frankly I think we've got more in us too.” —Blues head coach Ken Hitchcock on the pressures of playing in the second round (via The Dallas Morning News)