Game 37: Stars at Oilers

Want some good news? The Stars went 8-4-1 in December. The Stars lost to the Oilers in Edmonton on December 3rd... a month ago. It really looks like this team has changed since the start of the season. The Stars are now 16-15-5 (or 16-20, adjusted). The Oilers are 17-16-3 (or 17-19, adjusted). The Oilers are 4-5-1 in their last ten games, including 0-2 in their last two games.

Dallas Stars Player Stats 08-09

Name	Brad Richards	Mike Ribeiro	Loui Eriksson	Mike Modano
Goals	10	6	20	12
Assists	24	26	8	12
Points	34	32	28	24
+/-	-6	-4	+5	0

I like the Stars. Deep down I think they can win. And oddly enough, even though they have a slight edge in performance and a disadvantage in the (+/-), I think they are entering this game as the better team. They are on the way up...

Edmonton Oilers Player Stats 08-09

Name	Ales Hemsky	Shawn Harcoff	Sheldon Souray	Lubomir Visnovsky
Goals	10	10	11	6
Assists	25	16	15	17
Points	35	26	26	23
+/-	+1	+2	0	+7

The Stars top four are better than the Oilers top four... with the exception of the (+/-), but the Oilers are on the way down and the Stars on moving up. Both are technically tied for 11th in the West and both have 37 points each.

Goalie Comparrison

Name	Games (Starts)	Record	GAA	SV%
Marty Turco	33 (33)	15-13-5	3.19	.882
Dwayne Roloson	20 (19)	9-6-3	2.71	.918

Oilers have the better goalie. Turco has been playing a bit better... I still give the edge to the Oilers.
Forecast: I'm going to go against the grain a little and say that the Stars will take this one with a score of 3-1.

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