Blues at Stars
Dallas Stars coach Lindy Ruff finally may be content with Kari Lehtonen between the pipes after seeing his goaltender carousel undergo several turns in the playoffs. Lehtonen is expected to be in net on Saturday afternoon as the Stars host the Central Division-rival St. Louis Blues in Game 5 of their Western Conference semifinal series.
"I'll use the word maturity," Ruff told reporters of Lehtonen on Friday, one day after the latter made 24 saves as Dallas evened the series with a 3-2 overtime win in Game 4. "There's some maturity there. There's some calmness to his game. I think he's living off his past experience, which you want every player to do, and I think he's trying to put that all behind him." St. Louis' Vladimir Tarasenko put his three-game point drought in his rear-view mirror by scoring a goal and setting up two others in a 6-1 rout in Game 3 before adding one of each on Thursday. The 24-year-old Russian has a team-leading six tallies and 11 points in the playoffs.
TV: 1 p.m. ET, NBC, Sportsnet, TVAS
ABOUT THE BLUES: Coach Ken Hitchcock was quick to praise Paul Stastny's overall performance after the 30-year-old Quebec native scored his first goal of the postseason on Thursday. "He's competing at a very high level, as high as he's ever done since he's been here," Hitchcock told the team's website of Stastny, whose 27 shots are third-best on the team. Fellow forward Jaden Schwartz is heating up of late, notching an assist in the two most recent contests to extend his point total to nine (three goals, six assists) in his last 10 games.
ABOUT THE STARS: Captain Jamie Benn set up a pair of tallies on Thursday to push his postseason point total to a team-leading 14 (five goals, nine assists) and was honored the following day as a finalist for the Ted Lindsay Award, which is presented to the NHL's "Most Outstanding Player" as voted by players. While Benn has been consistent throughout the playoffs, Patrick Sharp recorded his first two points of the series on Thursday with his club's first power-play goal versus the Blues before assisting on Cody Eakin's overtime tally.Tyler Seguin (Achilles) skated for the fifth straight day on Friday, but Ruff admitted that the electric forward is "not ready to play."
OVERTIME
1. St. Louis has been outscored 14-7 in the second period of the playoffs.
2. Dallas rookie C Radek Faksa scored on Thursday for his second goal and third point of the series.
3. The Blues are 5-for-15 on the power play in the last three games.