Golden Knights: 4-3 to win Western Conference Second Round against No. 5 Vancouver Canucks; 4-1 to win first round against No. 8 Chicago Blackhawks; 3-0-0 in Qualifiers round-robin; 39-28-4, .606 points percentage in regular season
Stars: 4-3 to win second round against No. 2 Colorado Avalanche; 4-2 to win first round against No. 6 Calgary Flames; 1-2-0 in Qualifiers round-robin; 37-24-8, .594 points percentage in regular season
Season series: VGK 1-1-0; DAL 1-0-1
Game 1 is Sunday (8 p.m. ET; NBC, CBC, SN, TVAS)
The Vegas Golden Knights are in the Western Conference Final for the second time in their three seasons and are looking to win the Stanley Cup for the first time. To do so, they will have to get past the Dallas Stars, who are in the conference final for the first time since 2008, when they lost to the Detroit Red Wings in six games.
Vegas and Dallas have never met in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and each is coming off a victory in Game 7 of the second round Friday.
The Golden Knights defeated the Vancouver Canucks 3-0 to advance, needing a win in the deciding game after leading the best-of-7 series 3-1. They eliminated the Chicago Blackhawks in five games in the first round.
"They're big, they're heavy, they're experienced, they're fast," Dallas coach Rick Bowness said. "This is a whole new challenge for us. ... I know they're the favorites, based on the regular season, based on the round-robin, as they should be. That's fine. We've been the underdog in the other two series as well.
"The challenge is that this is very a deep team and this is a very experienced heavy team, and they're going to come at us and we understand that. ... It's going to be which team can forecheck the best, which team can hem the other team in their own zone. Spend as little time in your zone as possible."
The Stars also had to win in Game 7 of the second round after taking a 3-1 series lead against the Colorado Avalanche. They won 5-4 in overtime of the deciding game on the third goal of the game by rookie forward Joel Kiviranta. Dallas trailed by a goal at three different times during the game.
It was redemption for the Stars, who lost Game 7 of the second round last season, 2-1 in the second overtime to the eventual Stanley Cup champion St. Louis Blues.
"When you looked at Dallas during the season, you kind of scratched your head why they weren't creating offense with the personnel they had," Golden Knights coach Peter DeBoer said. "It didn't make a lot of sense. The fact they've put that piece together here, since we've come back, that's not a surprise to me. They've got a lot of skill back both on the back end and up front. Real good power play. They're firing on all cylinders. It's going to be a great test."
Dallas, which defeated the Calgary Flames in six games in the first round, now sets its sights on Vegas, which earned the top seed in the Western Conference after going 3-0-0 in the round-robin portion of the Stanley Cup Qualifiers.
The Stars are the No. 3 seed after going 1-2-0 in the round-robin. They lost 5-3 to the Golden Knights in the first game of the round-robin Aug. 3.
RELATED: [Complete Golden Knights vs. Stars series coverage]