DALLAS ( Associated Press) — The old goal scorer and young goalkeeper has put the underdog Dallas Stars in their first-round playoff series against the Calgary Flames.
Joe Pawelski scored twice and took the game-winner on the first power-play goal in the series for Dallas, and Jake Oettinger had 39 saves as the wild-card Stars won 4-2 on Saturday night. 1 series lead over the Pacific Division champs who have three 40-goal scorers.
Two nights after making 29 saves in a 2-0 win in Calgary that ended the series, Oettinger, 23, secured his second playoff win in his first playoff game on home ice – and the first for the Stars in more than three. years. This included a forceful stop by Johnny Goudreau at the breakaway spot with 3 1/2 minutes remaining.
“It’s a big save on time,” said coach Rick Bones. “Jake is doing fantastic. He’s just rock solid back there, not intimidated by the surroundings and noise.”
Stars were 0 for 10 with one additional skater in the series, although one of those power plays was only 4 seconds into Game 3 before 37-year-old Pawelski’s tiebreaking goal with 9:55 made it 3. 2.
Pavelsky made a cross-ice pass over a crowd to Vladislav Nemestnikov, who then took a shot that bounced off goalkeeper Jakob Markström. Puck was knocked out by Pavelsky, whose post-64 career goals are the most by an American-born skater.
“It’s big. It’s one more step,” Pavelski, who also had a game-winner in Game 2, said of taking a 2-1 series lead. “There’s a lot of effort from the lineup up and down. A lot of materiality. People are handing out, taking checks, making plays.”
Like Oettinger, it was the first home playoff game at the American Airlines Center for Pavelsky. His first season with the Stars in 2019-20 ended with a spot in the Stanley Cup Finals, when the entire postseason in Canada was played in a bubble due to the pandemic.
Game 4 is in Dallas on Monday night, before the series moves back to Calgary for Game 5 on Wednesday.
“Our group still feels really good. Really confident in our full potential,” said Calgary veteran center Blake Coleman, who played his first playoff game in Dallas, where he grew up in Plano, Texas. Were. “We win a game and we have home ice. That was our goal. There’s no panic in our room.”
Radek Foxa scored the first goal for Dallas, and Roop Hintz added an empty-net tally just before the final horn. Miro Hiskanen had two assists for the Stars, who also finished with a 44–23 advantage in the hit.
Elias Lindholm and Trevor Lewis scored for Calgary.
In Calgary in two games the teams traded shutouts and scored only three goals, they had another physical and struggling game. Matthew Tkachuk and John Klingberg fought only 1:22 into the game, trading bang and winning a big 5-minute run, as Oettinger saved Goudreau’s wrist glove on Calgary’s first shot.
Pawelski’s first goal of the game nearly leveled at 2 in the middle of the second period, when he knocked down Heiskanen’s shot that ricocheted off Markström. This came just seconds after an off-balance rejection by Markström to a shot by Heskanen, although the Stars were able to survive the possession.
Markstrom intercepted 28 shots.
Faxa turned the Stars up 1-0 at about 8 1/2 minutes into the game, when he used his stick to redirect Essa Lindell’s shot at Heskenen’s pass just after faceoff.
Just before this, Foxa was leveled in front of the net by Noah Hanifan, before Markström was able to control the puck following a shot by Heskanen.
Calgary also drew 1–1 on a goal which Bones thought had come about due to interference from the goalkeeper Oettinger placed in his side after contact with Milan Lusic. Dallas lost the replay challenge.
It appears that Lusick, who was linked with Tyler Seguin, tried to avoid the Dallas goalkeeper. The contact took place just outside the crease and Lusick was able to push the puck backwards, where he was knocked down by Lewis.
The Flames took a 2-1 lead when Lindholm scored from right inside the circle at the start of the second period.
“Fight hard. Stop the game,” said Calgary coach Darryl Sutter. “You have to play the whole game. We knew they were going to come out.”
notes
Klingberg received a sports misconduct at the end of the first period in Game 1 of the series, at the same time Takachuk was in a fight with Michael Raffle. Klingberg also received a harsher penalty in Game 2, and later added a non-player conduct penalty in Game 3. After 34 penalty minutes in 74 regular-season games, he has 26 penalty minutes in this series. … Oettinger had blocked 57 consecutive shots over a span of about 129 minutes, ending the seventh-longest streak by a Stars goalkeeper after the season. … 45 penalties and 124 penalty minutes have been combined in the three matches.
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