Play the Total in Stars vs. Sabers

Stars vs. Sabers, 7:00 ET

We got back on the winning side last night with a win on the Wild. It was nice to get off the mini losing streak that I had, but as usual, it feels best to just be correct about something. I have another play tonight but I'll tell you this right now - totals haven't been my area of expertise. I just didn't find a side that I'm comfortable taking tonight. Let's get into this play.

This has been a solid season for Dallas. They've been in just about every game, but there are a lot that they haven't been able to close out with 13 overtime losses. That's a pretty high total, and the most amount in any one season was 18 most recently occurring in the 2014-2015 season. It hasn't been all bad news for Dallas though. The Stars are in the midst of a great scoring stretch having put up no fewer than four goals in the past five games. They've somewhat needed the scoring stretch lately as their defense has been good but not great in that same stretch. While they've put up 24 goals over their last five games, they've also allowed 17 goals to opponents. I'm thinking that they have Jake Oettinger in the net again today. He's been excellent for the season, but he has allowed 10 goals over his past three games. That isn't terrible, but over the past month, he is allowing three goals on average per game.

On the other side of the puck is the Buffalo Sabers. The Sabers are also having a good campaign, but are struggling at home this season with a 13-17-2 record. They've had a rough go of it lately as they've dropped four of their past five contests. Their last two losses came with scores of 3-2 and the previous three they combined with their opponent to score eight goals. On the season, the Sabers are allowing over 3.5 goals per game, and they are scoring 3.68 goals per game on average. The prediction is that Craig Anderson will be in the net tonight for the Sabers. He has allowed at least three goals in both of his past two games. In home games, he is allowing 2.90 goals compared to 2.66 on the road. He did face the Stars once this season and only allowed two goals in the game.

I like the over 6.5 in this game. The two teams are combining for a lot of goals in their current form and neither goalie is having a great stretch currently. I also think that both teams are capable of putting up three goals in this and that's really all we need is for both to score three. If they both score three goals, we get a win for sure. Both are juiced significantly to score over 2.5 goals tonight, too. The over is the way to go in this one.

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