Stars-Oilers Game 4 preview: Can Dallas punch back to even it up?

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ESPN staffMay 27, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

The bully quality for the Dallas Stars is that if the Western Conference finals get to a Game 7, they person the NHL's master of Game 7s down their bench.

The atrocious quality is that they request to get to Game 7 for that to matter. And aft going down 2-1 successful the bid to the Edmonton Oilers via a 6-1 nonaccomplishment successful Game 3, different decision could marque that difficult.

Can they punch backmost successful Game 4 to knot the matchup astatine 2-2 heading backmost location to Dallas for Game 5?

Here are notes connected the matchup from ESPN Research, arsenic good arsenic betting intel from ESPN BET:

More from Game 3: Recap | Grades

Matchup notes

Dallas Stars astatine Edmonton Oilers
Game 4 | 8 p.m. ET | ESPN/ESPN+

Following the Oilers' triumph successful Game 3, ESPN BET has adjusted the bid victor likelihood to Oilers -375 (previously -140) and Stars +280 (previously +120). The Oilers' Cup victor likelihood are present +140, portion the Stars' are +700. Connor McDavid is atop the Conn Smythe likelihood leaderboard astatine +175.

The Oilers are present 10-2 successful their past 12 games, aft losing the archetypal 2 games of the archetypal circular vs. the Los Angeles Kings, and are 20-3 astatine location successful the playoffs since 2017 erstwhile starring aft 2 periods.

The Stars mislaid consecutive games for the archetypal clip successful the 2025 playoffs, and person 1 extremity full successful their past 3 roadworthy games (Games 2 and 5 of the 2nd circular against the Winnipeg Jets and Game 3 against Edmonton).

McDavid powered the Oilers to a Game 3 triumph with his 44th multipoint and sixth multigoal crippled of his playoff career. McDavid has arsenic galore playoff games with aggregate points (44) arsenic helium does with nary points (20) oregon 1 constituent (24).

Teammate Evan Bouchard opened the scoring with his sixth extremity this postseason, tying Leon Draisaitl for the squad lead. Bouchard is the archetypal defenseman with six goals successful consecutive postseasons since Rob Blake successful 2001 and 2002. Bouchard besides recorded an assist, marking his 24th vocation multipoint playoff game, which extended his grounds for defensemen successful a four-postseason span.

Stuart Skinner was singular successful extremity erstwhile again, stopping 33 of 34 shots to gain his 4th triumph this postseason. It was his archetypal triumph of these playoffs that didn't extremity successful a shutout, arsenic the Stars' extremity with 4:25 near successful the 2nd play ended Skinner's shutout streak astatine 99 minutes, 33 seconds. With the win, Skinner tied Andy Moog for the third-most playoff wins by a goaltender successful Oilers past (23); Bill Ranford is adjacent connected the database astatine 25, and Grant Fuhr is good up astatine No. 1 with 74.

Dallas' Mikko Rantanen recorded an assistance connected the extremity from Jason Robertson, but has gone without a extremity successful his past six games. In his erstwhile six games earlier the drought, helium scored 9 goals, which remains tied for the NHL pb this postseason.

Jake Oettinger allowed six goals successful the loss, tied for the astir successful a playoff crippled successful his career; the erstwhile juncture was Game 6 of the 2023 Western Conference finals against the Vegas Golden Knights.