The Dallas Stars and the Colorado Avalanche tangle in Game 1 of the best-of-seven Western Conference Semifinals Saturday at 8 p.m. ET at Rogers Place in Edmonton. We analyze the Stars-Avalanche NHL betting odds and lines, with picks and best bets.
Stars vs. Avalanche: Projected starting goalies
Anton Khudobin vs. Philipp Grubauer
Khudobin helped the Stars to a 4-2 series win over the Calgary Flames, stepping up in five of those games with regular starting G Ben Bishop deemed unfit to play. In fact, Bishop wasn’t even the backup for Game 6, as that understudy role fell to the 6-foot-5 Jake Oettinger. Khudobin went 3-2 with a 2.52 goals against average and .918 save percentage against the Flames in the quarterfinals. He’ll need to be even better if he and the Stars hope to stop the Avalanche. In a preview in the round-robin games, Khudobin allowed four goals on 40 shots in a 4-0 loss back on Aug. 5, although he did stop 38 of the 39 shots in a 2-1 regular-season win in Denver on Nov. 1, 2019.
Grubauer figures to get a little more of a test from the Stars than he did in the Avs’ 4-1 series win against the Arizona Coyotes. He won each of the four games against the ‘Yotes, with Pavel Francouz taking the one loss in Game 3. Grubauer went 4-0 with a 1.00 GAA and sparkling .953 SV%, while also blanking Arizona in Game 1. It helped that he received 14 goals of offensive support in the final two games, which were laughers. Things figure to be a lot tougher against the Stars.
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Stars vs. Avalanche: Odds, picks and betting tips
Odds courtesy of BetMGM; access them at USA TODAY Sports for a full list. Odds last updated at 1:10 p.m. ET.
Prediction
Avalanche 4, Stars 2
Moneyline (ML)
The AVALANCHE (-176) are priced right at that level where I don’t feel comfortable betting a moneyline. Anything more than -180 and I AVOID and focus on the puck line – or back off of the favorite. However, the Avs looked like a Stanley Cup contender in their quarterfinal series, although, the Coyotes were the No. 11 seed. We’ll see if the Avs slow down against a much better Stars side (+145). However, Colorado pounded Dallas 4-0 in a round-robin tilt, so we do have a fairly fresh sample of how this thing could go.
New to sports betting? A winning $10 bet on the Avalanche returns a profit of $5.68, while a winning $10 play on the Stars fetches a return of $14.50.
Puck Line/Against the Spread (ATS)
The AVALANCHE (-1.5, +165) are an interesting play at this price. It might take an empty-net goal to get you over the hump, but Game 1 should belong to the favorites, and the way they treated Khudobin last time makes this puck line play that much more attractive.
Over/Under (O/U)
OVER 5.5 (+110) is worth backing, but play it very lightly. Again, I like the score to end up 4-2 here, with perhaps an empty-netter in the final minute capping off the scoring. In other words, the Over is anything but a slam-dunki play, so tread lightly.
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