2020 Stanley Cup Final Preview: Stars vs. Lightning Series Breakdown

One team was sort of expected to be here. The other is more of a surprise.

And regardless of whether you think either warrants its description, the matchup is set.

The Tampa Bay Lighting will face the Dallas Stars in a seven-game rumble for the Stanley Cup in the pandemic-resistant bubble at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta.

The Lightning, lest anyone forget, were supposed to be in this position last season after running away with the league's regular-season points lead. Instead, they saw a glorious 2018-19 campaign wind up in shambles after a historic four-game ouster at the sticks and skates of the No. 8 Columbus Blue Jackets.

To their credit, the boys from Florida's Gulf Coast rehitched their wagons and were the NHL's fourth-best point-getting team this time around. They then worked their way through a round-robin tuneup before taking out the Blue Jackets and the Presidents' Trophy-winning Boston Bruins in five games apiece.

An Eastern Conference title series with the New York Islanders lasted a bit longer than some predicted, but still ended in the Lightning's favor after six games.

Meanwhile, the Stars find themselves the last team standing in the Western Conference after exiting the round-robin series as a No. 3 seed, beating the Calgary Flames in six games and then toppling the two teams seeded ahead of them—the No. 2 Colorado Avalanche and the No. 1 Vegas Golden Knights—in seven and five games, respectively.

Dallas was only the league's 10th-best regular-season team when it came to compiling points and would have been seeded fifth in the West based on that stat, but the league chose to rank teams based on points percentage, which vaulted the Stars ahead of the Edmonton Oilers and into the round-robin fray.

The Oilers got the fifth seed and were beaten in the qualifying round by the No. 12 Chicago Blackhawks.

The Lightning and the Stars have won one Stanley Cup apiece, with Dallas' banner going up in 1999 after a six-game defeat of the Buffalo Sabres and Tampa Bay's celebration coming five years later in 2004 following a seven-game defeat of the Flames.

The quest for a second title begins Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET. Games will then take place every other night. Game 5, if necessary, would be played on Sept. 26, and the series would continue with Games 6 and 7 on Sept. 28 and Sept. 30.

The B/R ice hockey team reconvened to forecast the sport's main event series and broke it down across several categories. We finish by thrusting out our neck with a prediction on which team will be taking the silver chalice for a celebratory lap and some team pictures in Edmonton's icy hub.

If this category were a boxing match, it would be a technical knockout.

Tampa Bay scored 245 goals in 70 regular-season games—five goals better than any other team in the NHL—while Dallas was tied for third from the bottom of the 31-team league with 180 goals in 69 games.

In fact, no team that reached the 24-team postseason tournament scored less often than the Stars.

But while it's still a walkover for the Lightning, the Stars have ratcheted things up a bit since the playoffs began, with four players scoring at least eight goals in the team's 21 games. Right winger Denis Gurianov and center Joe Pavelski have each netted nine goals, and second-year defenseman Miro Heiskanen is fourth in the league with 22 points.

A must-have for Dallas to remain competitive is input from first-line center Tyler Seguin, who's scored only twice and assisted on six other goals in 20 games since the playoffs got underway.

The Lightning, meanwhile, have the best goals-per-game clip of any team that advanced past the conference semifinals, rattling off an average of 35.5 shots per game.

Winger Nikita Kucherov and center Brayden Point are the leading scorers this postseason with 26 and 25 points, respectively, while defenseman Victor Hedman is playing as well as anyone on the planet. His nine goals lead all blueliners and have him tied for second—along with Gurianov, Pavelski and Point—among all players.

It will get even more imposing for the Stars if Tampa Bay captain Steven Stamkos returns but could tighten up if injuries continue. Stamkos hasn't played in the postseason because of a lower-body malady, while Point missed a pair of games in the conference final against the Islanders.

Edge: Lightning

For the Stars, trying to stop a prolific offense is old hat.

Dallas faced the West's highest-scoring team in Colorado in the second round, holding the Avalanche to just five goals in the first two games while getting off to a series lead that boosted confidence and changed the dynamic. Then, a Vegas team that had already scored four goals or more five times was held to just eight in five games in the conference final.

To suggest goaltending has been more of a deciding factor wouldn't be too much of a stretch given that Dallas has allowed more shots than it's taken across 21 games this postseason. But 6'3", 207-pound defenseman Esa Lindell has blossomed into a lockdown-type talent, and the aforementioned Heiskanen is steadfast in his own end and opportunistic when it comes to kickstarting counterattacks.

The Lightning are branded as a run-and-gun operation, but they have allowed better than two shots fewer per game than the Stars in these playoffs and have allowed goals at a far stingier rate (2.21 goals-against average to 3.05).

Ex-New York Ranger Ryan McDonagh and Hedman are difficult obstacles to negotiate for any goal-seeking unit, while Point and Anthony Cirelli chip in as two-way forwards along with a handful of other lower-profile teammates.

Edge: Stars

Anyone who expected Anton Khudobin to be playing for a Stanley Cup, take a bow.

The 34-year-old Russian played just 30 regular-season games, compared to 44 for teammate Ben Bishop, but took over as the playoffs began. He has started 18 games this postseason, while the injured three-time Vezina Trophy finalist has manned the crease just three times.

He's been up to the busy work rate both in terms of games and shots, stopping exactly 92 percent of the 620 attempts that have gotten through while racking up one shutout and allowing only one goal in three other games.

His success is no surprise to teammates, insists Seguin, a Cup winner with the Boston Bruins:

"You definitely see the compete he has in him, the passion he has and the great teammate that he is. I wouldn't say any of us is shocked or that this is unexpected. "He's been around for a Cup run. He's seen it all. I wouldn't say this is unexpected, but it is obviously great to see, and we have a lot of confidence in him."

That said, Khudobin is up against it when it comes to his Stanley Cup Final counterpart.

Reigning Vezina winner Andrei Vasilevskiy is among the league's best. In these playoffs, he's featured in 19 games, during which he's allowed 1.82 goals per game with a .931 save percentage on 583 shots against.

The goals-against number is third-best among playoff goalies who have been in net for at least 120 minutes, and the save rate is eighth via the same criterion. And it's earned the respect of the guys in front of him.

"He's the best goalie in the league," Hedman told reporters.

Edge: Lightning

If it's true the goaltender needs to be your best penalty-killer, Khudobin is doing his job.

He's racked up a .890 save percentage during the 100-plus minutes when the Stars have been short-handed in the playoffs, and he's been helped out by the Lindell-led man-down defensive unit.

They will need to be at their best against the star-studded Lightning power play, though Tampa Bay has seen its success rate on the power play tumble from 23.1 percent in the regular season to just 17.9 percent in the playoffs. Against the Islanders, in fact, the team scored three man-advantage goals in the first game but went just 1-for-15 over the rest of the series.

Stamkos' return would be timely given that 10 of his 29 regular-season goals were on the power play.

Dallas' power play, meanwhile, has been a revelation in the postseason, converting at a 27.3 percent rate on the highest rate of man-up shots per game after producing at 21.1 percent in the regular season.

The unit will need to stay that prolific to keep up with the Lightning across an entire series.

Edge: Stars

This stage shouldn't be too big for Jon Cooper.

The Tampa Bay coach was leading one of the last two teams standing in 2015 and has reached the league's final four four times. Perhaps most importantly, he's kept the team focused and driven in the season after the abomination against the Blue Jackets last spring.

The only thing he hasn't done is win the big one.

But he did win a little one, capturing the AHL's Calder Cup title with the Lightning's then-affiliate in Norfolk in 2011-12. That team won a league-record 28 straight games during the regular season.

In Dallas' Rick Bowness, he faces one of his former assistants. He was elevated to head coach with the Stars when Jim Montgomery was fired in December—his first chance at a top job since he coached 20 games with the then-Phoenix Coyotes in 2003-04.

The Bowness-led Stars went 33-21-5 during the regular season. Prior to his tenure with the Coyotes, he had coached the Winnipeg Jets, Boston Bruins, Ottawa Senators and the New York Islanders, but his teams only finished a season better than fifth place once.

Though he will be a foe in this series, Tampa Bay's Point remembers Bowness fondly.

"A guy with tons of experience," he told reporters. "So much knowledge, such a passion for the game. He was awesome. He was super good to me, and if you ask anybody who's ever played for him, they'd say the same thing."

Edge: Lightning

The odds and the statistics make it a clear choice.

But it's tempting to give momentum and surprise a nod too.

This is the struggle faced by anyone looking to pick a winner between the Lightning and Stars.

If you lean toward the team that's been the most consistent since last fall and shown resilience after falling short last season, the needle points to Tampa Bay, which is a 1-2 favorite with bookmakers, per Oddschecker.

Cooper's squad is the most talented and among the deepest in the league, has star power on offense, defense and in the net and is ravenously hungry to fully exorcise its 2018-19 ghosts.

The first few postseason series were a suitable warm-up for a championship run, with the Lightning losing just once in the round-robin tournament and in each of the first two rounds before dropping two games against the plucky Islanders in the Eastern Conference Final.

To suggest Dallas was a lock to get this far, though, is a bit more of a stretch.

The Stars were seeded behind Vegas and Colorado in the round-robin mixer and then primed the pump across six games with the sixth-seeded Flames before bumping the No. 2 Avalanche and No. 1 Golden Knights in succession to reach their first Cup final since 2000.

They nearly blew a 3-1 lead against the Avs before showing mettle in OT of Game 7 and then split the first two games of the West final against the top-seeded Golden Knights before rattling off three straight wins by one-goal margins.

It's enough to suggest the underdogs have a chance. But we can't quite get there.

The Lightning are a difficult enough challenge on normal terms, but in a scenario wherein a franchise-defining victory is within reach, their star power will be even more difficult to contend with. Khudobin will keep it respectable and probably even steal a game or two, but it won't be enough to claim four wins.

Prediction: Lightning in six.