In Dallas, Ryan Hartman’s goal, 12:20 into a second overtime, sent to the Minnesota Wild to a 3-2 win over the Stars a 1-0 series lead in their opening road of the Stanley Cup Playoffs on Monday night.
“It’s been tight with them all season, but obviously it’s playoff hockey and it’s different,” Hartman said. “We expect a good battle. We’re happy with obviously getting the first win, but we can’t sit and think about the win too much. We have a game to win on Wednesday and we’ve got to get another one.”
Sam Steel had tied the game for the Wild late in the third period when he blocked an attempted shot from Dallas at the blue line, and raced down the down the ice on a breakaway for a 2-2 tie.
Filip Gustavsson made 51 saves in the Wild win.
Game 2 is set for Wednesday in Dallas.
“After the second period, I tried going into the locker room and reset there,” Gustavsson said. “And then in the third [period] and first overtime, it felt like [the puck] started hitting me. Kept the rebounds close to me, and that’s when I started to feel more comfortable in the game.”
After falling behind, 1-0, in the first period, the Stars hit for two power play goals, with Roope Hintz connecting on the first strike at 2:08 of the middle frame to tie the game, 1-1.
“I didn’t like our start,” Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said. “You know, sometimes it’s easier to start on the road in these Game 1’s in the playoffs. Didn’t like our start. I thought once we started to play in the latter part of the second period, third period, and the overtimes, we really put a lot of pressure on them. Both goalies were good. We hit a couple of posts. That’s playoff hockey, those could go either way.”
Jason Robertson scored two minutes later to give the Stars a 2-1 lead off the power play.
“That’s playoff hockey to a ‘T’,” Stars forward Max Domi said. “Obviously they played really well, got to give them credit. As a group, I think we got better as the game went on and just a couple of bounces, it could have gone either way. We’ll regroup, did a lot of good things tonight, and build on that for sure.”
Kirill Kaprizov scored with 48 seconds left in the first period to give the Wild the 1-0 lead.
“It was a great hockey game with flows, we were back and forth,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “The overtimes, obviously there were some unbelievable looks and great saves. The hockey game had everything. We’re happy the way that we held our composure, and all of that good stuff that everybody talks about in the playoffs. We did it tonight, we’ve got to do it again.”
Use CodePHN15 You could have used this chair to get through to the end of this one
Jake Oettinger made 45 saves in the loss.
“Just a bounce that went their way,” Oettinger said. “We had a couple that didn’t go our way; that’s hockey. I’m just proud of the effort the guys gave.”
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