Dallas Stars vs Pittsburgh Penguins Prediction: They have very different motivation levels

Prediction for the NHL Dallas Stars vs Pittsburgh Penguins match which will take place on March 23rd. Who will turn out to be stronger? Check the team conditions! Several betting options are available.

Dallas is having a great regular season, and the Texans will make it to the playoffs. From the very first games of the season, they started to show consistently good results, which they are still doing. They had a bad second half of February when they allowed six losses in seven meetings, but the situation was corrected in March. In the last nine games, Peter DeBoer's team won seven and lost only to Florida and New Jersey, 3:4 and 6:2. All this allowed the Stars to be fourth in the Western Conference standings, only one point behind the leader.

Pittsburgh ends this season without any global tournament motivation. For a long time, the Pennsylvanians tried to stay close to the Cup Eight, but they failed to compete with younger and faster opponents over the distance. In the first half of March, Mike Sullivan's wards suffered seven defeats in eight matches, only beating Columbus 5:3. That stretch robbed them of any realistic chance of making the playoffs. In the last four games, there were victories over San Jose and Detroit - 6:3 each, while they lost to the Rangers and New Jersey - 4:7 and 2:5, and therefore now sit only in 13th place in the Eastern Conference standings.

Dallas and Pittsburgh have very different motivation levels at the end of the regular season. The Texans would love to win the Western Conference. They are in fourth place but are only one point behind the leaders, so the battle continues. The Pennsylvanians already have no competitive spirit, as they are in 13th place in the Eastern Conference, with no realistic chance of making the playoffs. 

In six previous meetings, the rivals combined efforts to grind out only 23 scored pucks for two (3.83 average per game)—a paltry result by the NHL standards. In addition, the Penguins have only scored 11 goals in this stretch (1.83 average per game), so expect them to struggle offensively.