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Posted at 1:40 PM EST

OT included. Let’s not get crazy here, alright. While  Montreal is going to the playoffs as one of the top seeds in the East, they’ve been playing around .500 hockey since mid-November. In other words, Montreal absolutely deserves to be favored here but in no way do they deserve this billing. Over their last eight games, Montreal is 4-4 and three of those victories occurred against Ottawa. When the Habs hired Claude Julien they went on a bit of a tear but take away those six games and they have been an average hockey team for weeks. This is the Canadiens final game of the season against an opponent from the West, as they’ll close out the season with six games against Eastern conference foes. Montreal is not playing poorly but they are not dominating either and they have much bigger things to focus on than a late season game against a team going nowhere.

That team going nowhere is last year’s President Trophy winner. The Stars have grossly underachieved this season but that doesn’t mean they have thrown in the towel. Dallas has picked up points in four straight, which included two wins over San Jose and an OT loss to the Blackhawks. The Stars have allowed 26 shots on net or less in six of their past eight games and have really thrived in its last two games by outscoring the opposition 8-2 and holding both teams to 21 shots on net each. Dallas is a dangerous team with the most talent of any team not going to the playoffs. Yeah, they’ve had a rough year but they are being sold extremely short in games they have just as good a chance of winning as the favorite does. This is a really good team that is having a really bad year but we’re not going to hold that against them when the price is so juicy in a winnable game. Big overlay here. 

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