New York Islanders vs. Dallas Stars Prediction, Preview, Picks & Odds - 4/5/2022

Time: 8:30 p.m. ET

Venue: American Airlines Center, Dallas, TX

Where to watch: Bally Sports Southwest, MSG+

DraftKings: Check back later

BetMGM: Check back later

Caesars: Check back later

Islanders: 32-27-9

Stars: 39-26-3

The Dallas Stars are like that pesky little kid that won’t go away when they keep poking you in the chest, hoping that you give them the ice cream bar you earned so hard with you’re allowance. You try, and try, and try to get away from the kid, but at some point you just give in because he’s so annoying that you just let him in and hope to God he doesn’t get your next ice cream.

And yet here the Stars are, in terms of points percentage ahead of the Vegas Golden Knights for the wild-card spot in the Western Conference and tied with the Nashville Predators, both with three games in hand on the group from Sin City, and the Stars actually fell short on Sunday in a 4-1 loss to the Seattle Kraken.

A rare time for this group that’s been playing so well to fall short against a team that just got ran over by said Vegas team twice in the last week. But the Stars return home and have a chance to get back ahead of the wild card race when they take on the New York Islanders who are red-hot and on a four-game winning streak.

Dallas’ run has been timely, to say the least. Three straight wins going into Sunday, two to Anaheim and one against San Jose all by one goal. It’s not that the Stars aren’t great, but I think we all desire to see them against lofty competition. That’s when you look at the Golden Knights and realize the teams they’ve beaten to get back in contention makes things interesting.

But that loss to Seattle on Sunday was a reminder that maybe they’re not quite there yet. Maybe there’s still that gap between what we expect Dallas to become and what Dallas will eventually be. And that, for the better part of anything, is reason to pay attention to this group.

Even if Jake Oettinger struggled for the first time in a while on Sunday by giving up three goals on 28 shots, there’s no denying the rookie has earned his place in this league with his performance up to the point that what was once a system of four goalies with three veterans has now been taken over by a kid that has laid claim to the net over a Stanley Cup champion and two Stanley Cup finalists before him.

"This one stings a little bit because you come in 3-0 (on four-game road trip) you fully expect to go come with eight points," Stars forward Joe Pavelski said. "Throughout a season you're thinking that's a pretty good trip, but with the situation we're in, you can be a little greedy and selfish and you wanted that fourth one. So we'd like to have that last one."

And even with Dallas coming back home for the first time since March 26 off that road trip, you have to wonder if it’s also fool’s gold for the Islanders. Sure, they’ve won four straight, but two of those wins were against the Columbus Blue Jackets and the other to the New Jersey Devils, on the road Sunday, in a 4-3 victory.

We can say those things and come to the realization that maybe they’re not great. Then they beat  the New York Rangers on the second night of a back-to-back, coming off a home win against Columbus, and shut out one of the best offenses in the NHL to a point where said Rangers were calling their own performance “horseshit” the other night. And suddenly, we wonder what took the Islanders so long to get something going.

“It’s easy to take the league for granted when you’re young and you’re playing a lot and things can change quickly, as we all know,” said goalie Cory Schneider, who has been in the American Hockey League this season and made 27 saves in his first start since March 6, 2020, getting some rest in favor of Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov. “Life in general, not just in hockey. So always be grateful for the chances you get and I thought my teammates worked really hard tonight to make my first game back.”

While that’s such a great story for Schneider, the world of hockey cannot expect this wonderful human to win twice because he’s just not that good of a goalie. And when we’re in the position of evaluating goaltending, the Islanders need one of their star goalie to step up if they want to keep this thing going.

Dallas is in that weird position of trying to trust them, but getting back home against the Islanders should do that. Eventually, however, I don’t think that’ll happen. Because I think the Islanders are on to something here and they’ve been waiting a long time for the opportunity to showcase that they are indeed good. I don’t think it’ll eventually turn into a playoff spot unless something catastrophic happens in the last 14 games, but the Islanders are surely going to make this one tough on Dallas and win with defense and goaltending. Islanders win 3-2

The Islanders are 69-51 in the past three seasons off a division game.

The Islanders are 13-17 in non-conference games this season.

The Stars are 17-11 in non-conference games this season.

The under is 69-42 off an under for the Stars the past three seasons.

Islanders:

Anders Lee -- Brock Nelson -- Anthony Beauvillier

Zach Parise -- Mathew Barzal -- Kyle Palmieri

Josh Bailey -- Jean-Gabriel Pageau -- Oliver Wahlstrom

Matt Martin -- Casey Cizikas -- Kieffer Bellows

Adam Pelech -- Ryan Pulock

Zdeno Chara -- Noah Dobson

Sebastian Aho -- Grant Hutton

Semyon Varlamov

Stars:

Jason Robertson -- Roope Hintz -- Joe Pavelski

Vladislav Namestnikov -- Tyler Seguin -- Denis Gurianov

Jacob Peterson -- Jamie Benn -- Alexander Radulov

Michael Raffl -- Luke Glendening -- Radek Faksa

Ryan Suter -- Miro Heiskanen

Thomas Harley -- John Klingberg

Andrej Sekera -- Jani Hakanpaa

Jake Oettinger

Points: Brock Nelson -- 49

Goals: Brock nelson -- 32

Assists: Mat Barzal -- 34

Goalie: Ilya Sorokin -- 22-14-7, 2.30 GAA, .927 SV%

Points: Joe Pavelski -- 68

Goals: Jason Robertson -- 32

Assists: Joe Pavelski -- 43

Goalie: Jake Oettinger -- 24-12-1, 2.49 GAA, .916 SV%