Vegas Golden Knights taking the ice against Dallas Stars

It’s the Dallas Stars versus the Las Vegas Golden Knights in the Western Conference finals, but in the Eastern Conference, the Tampa Bay Lightening will find out its opponent after the New York Islanders play the Philadelphia Flyers in game seven tonight as the National Hockey League playoffs wind down.

But the West was settled Friday night when top-seeded Las Vegas shut down the 6th-seeded Vancouver Canucks, 3-0, in game seven of the best-of-seven. This was the same score that Vancouver came away with in winning  game six to force the decider as the Rogers Place Arena in Edmonton Alberta.

At the same site, the 5th-seeded Dallas Stars took the 3rd-seeded Colorado Avalanche into overtime to post a 5-4 victory in game seven and advance to the conference final.

And at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, the 6th-seeded Isles and No. 1-seeded Flyers play the deciding game seven after Philly came back from a 3-1 series deficit Thursday night to claim its third overtime win, 5-4, and ice down its second-straight triumph to also force the deciding game.

Thus, it won’t be a surprise if both conference finals go seven games before the championship contest will be played and the Stanley Cup will be hoisted. The Islanders haven’t gotten that far in 27 years when they lost in the conference final to the Montreal Canadiens. But from 1980 to 1983, the franchise won the Cup four straight times. Philly has won it a total of four times.

Las Vegas and Vancouver went two scoreless periods despite the Golden Knights controlling things since the start. They out shot the Canucks, 36-14, and picked up goals from Shea Theodore, Paul Stastny and Alex Tuch, with their goalkeeper, Robin Lehner, coming away with 14 saves and the shutout.

Assists came from Nicholas Roy, Jonathan Marchessault and Riley Smiith, There were four penalties that served 16 minutes in the penalty box, while Vancouver was also whistled for four, but spent only six minutes in the box.

In the other game seven, Dallas won the first two contests, Colorado games three and four, the Stars game six, and the decider. Their scoring leaders were Alexander Radulov and Joel Kiviranta, with Kiviranta coming through with three goals and Radulov putting in the other two.

Dallas assists came from Joe Pavelski, Jamie Benn and Denis Gurianov. For the Avalanche, it was a pair of goals from Vladislav and one each from Andre Burakovsky and Nazem Kadri, with both Burakovsky and Kadri including assists, as did Nikita Zadorov, Ian Cole and Mikko Rantanen. In the OT, the game-winner came from Kiviranta.

The Stars gave up two first period goals, scored once each in the next two periods, while the Avalanche put in a goal in the second period, and one in the third to make for the overtime.