from Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,

The Blues are 5-1 in daytime hockey this season, and the Dallas Stars are 5-2. One of those contests was Game 2 of their Western Conference semifinal series, won 3-2 by the Blues.

But while the clubs have been successful with the sun still shining outside, and they’ve already experienced the early start time in these playoffs, their matchup Saturday in Game 5 of a best-of-seven series tied at two games each will be challenging.

For starters, the puck will drop a little after noon at American Airlines Center and neither the Blues nor Dallas has played a game before 2 p.m. this season. Secondly, it will begin roughly 38 hours after the Stars wrapped up a 3-2 overtime win in Game 4 at 10:07 p.m.

After it was over, Blues coach Ken Hitchcock acknowledged that both clubs appeared exhausted.

“Everybody knew this was going to be a long, hard series for both teams,” he said. “I thought both teams, at times, looked tired.”

And that was before both traveled back to Dallas. The Stars returned Thursday night and practiced Friday; the Blues took the day off before flying.

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