Faksa's late goal lifts Stars past Blues in Game 1

The second round of the Western Conference playoffs began on Friday night in Dallas with the Stars defeating the St. Louis Blues, 2-1, in an outstanding, fast-paced hockey game to take an early 1-0 series lead.

Antoine Roussel and Radek Faska provided the offense for the Stars in the win.

Here are all of the takeaways from Friday’s postseason action.

The Dallas Stars took Game 1 on Friday night. (USATSI)

1. The Stars and Blues showed us what exciting hockey is. The NHL has had a significant decline in goal scoring over the past 15 years, and it continues to trend in the wrong direction. It is a big problem.

But the bigger problem isn’t necessarily the decline in goals, but the style of play. Too many teams play a safe, risk-free brand hockey that not only takes the goal scoring out of the game, but also any kind of entertainment. Goals are great, but goals alone don’t make a game exciting.

Scoring chances do. A face pace does. A back-and-forth, wide open style of play does.

Friday’s game in Dallas had all of that, and then some.

This game was the example that a low scoring game can be extremely entertaining as long as the two teams are playing with speed and trying to create something. On Friday the Stars and Blues combined for 74 shots on goal, a ton of scoring chances, and were not only playing with speed, but were also a playing a physical game that didn’t really cross the line or feature hitting just for the sake of hitting. There was a purpose behind everything, and it was fantastic.

The only reason this game didn’t feature more goals is because the two goalies, Brian Elliott and Kari Lehtonen, were fantastic thanks to saves like this.

A scoreless #DALvsSTL Game 1 so far, thanks in part to saves like this… #StanleyCuphttps://t.co/fUBz3J0L7t

— #StanleyCup Playoffs (@NHL) April 30, 2016

This is the way the Stars have played all season, and it is one of the things that has made them one one of the NHL’s must-see teams.

2. Jamie Benn vs. David Backes is going to be quite a matchup. The captains of these two teams always seem to get involved in the physical stuff. Earlier this season they dropped the gloves with one another, and on Friday night crossed paths on more than one occasion.

Backes tried to get Benn to fight again early in the game, but Benn refused to engage him.

3. This style of play really seems to favor the Stars. One thing is for sure about Friday’s game: Blues coach Ken Hitchcock had to hate the pace of it because that is pretty much the exact opposite of the way he has always wanted his teams to play.

If the Stars can keep this series the way it was in Game 1, that would really seems to play into their hands and should give them a great chance to win it. Again, this is the way they want to play. It plays right into their strengths, especially if they get Tyler Seguin back at some point in this series.

The Blues were able to clog things up in the neutral zone against the Chicago Blackhawks in round one and slow them down, but the Stars are playing at much faster and pace and the Blues were never able to get them out of it on Friday. It is only one game, but it was a very encouraging one for the Stars.

Check back in for more takeaways from the San Jose Sharks-Nashville Predators game when it concludes…

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