For the second time in three years, the Dallas Stars are facing the same team in both the CMHL and ICHF quarter-finals. In S18, Dallas lost both matchups at the hands of the Nashville Predators. This year, they'll hope to flip their fate upside-down and come out doubly ahead of the Vancouver Canucks! This is the second year in a row that Dallas is facing Vancouver in Round 1 of the CMHL playoffs - last year, they lost in six games. Here's a breakdown of each of the matchups.

CMHL - Vancouver (4) vs Dallas (5)

Season Series: The Stars beat the Canucks 2-1, with scoring pretty even at them 10-9 in favour of the Canucks. 

Team Stats:

These two teams are extremely evenly matched on paper. Vancouver, in fact, only has home ice advantage for the series because they won the tiebreaker in the standings with more regulation wins than Dallas. Both teams were among the league's best defensively this year and both are capable of putting up strong offensive numbers. While Vancouver holds an edge on shots for and faceoffs, Dallas holds an edge on special teams. It will be interesting to see how this series plays out and which team can push their strengths to their advantage. 

Dallas made only one trade deadline acquisition, picking up Tyler Johnson from SEA. In 17 games, Johnson has put up a respectable 4 goals and 3 assists in a top 9 role. But to win this series, Dallas will need a big performance from their top 3 of Point-Debrincat-Mangiapane. They will also need one of their two goalies to step up and provide consistent play. Dallas operated on a 1A/1B goalie tandem this year, with both Andersen and Raanta finishing the year with similar numbers. Andersen will get the start in Game 1 of the series but expect to see Raanta step in if Andersen is not up to the task.

ICHF - Minnesota North Stars/DAL (4) vs Vernon Vipers/VAN (5)

Season Series: Vancouver won the series 3-1, with a 14-9 edge in overall scoring.

Team Stats:

With nearly identical records, these two teams fought right down to the wire for home ice advantage in Round 1 of the playoffs. Minnesota ultimately secured home ice with a dominant victory over the East-leading Notre Dame (TOR). That seemed to send the message that this was not a team to be taken lightly and I was venture so far as to say that this is the best ICHF team I have had since I rejoined the league four years ago.

The Minnesota North Stars can match Vernon on offence and defense, putting up among the second best Shots For:Shots Against ratio, with only EDM beating them. Their only real weakness this year has been on the power play where they have failed to capitalize, which points even more to how strong of a team they are to be able to put up the 6th best goals for in the league even with a bottom third powerplay.

Minnesota made a couple of trade deadline acquisitions that have paid off in spades. They picked up top 6 forward Adam Erne from DET and he has gone on to post a point-per-game pace since joining the team, with 12 goals and 10 assists in 21 games. They also added insurance in net in the form of Alex Stalock. In 6 games since the deadline, his record is 3-3 but his numbers are sparkling with a .921 Save % and 2.25 GAA. But Stalock's addition seems to have pushed starter Karel Vejmelka to the next level as he went on a heck of a streak down the line, finishing the season with a tremendous 36-12-6 record. 

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