Thomas Harley’s overtime power-play goal finished off the series for the Dallas Stars in a 2-1 win against the Winnipeg Jets at American Airlines Center on Saturday.

Oh so close

The story of the first period was mostly the scoring chances for Dallas. They had a few golden ones.

Almost immediately, Evgenii Dadonov nearly converted on a wraparound that was eerily similar to Mikko Rantanen’s game-tying goal in Game 7 against Colorado. Same side of the ice, too. The wraparound slid off his stick and nearly found its way to a wide-open Sam Steel in front. Instead, it hit the far pad of Connor Hellebuyck and stayed between the big goaltender’s legs.

Dadonov wasn’t done either. Minutes later, he took a perfect centering pass from Jason Robertson and had essentially the entire left side of the net to shoot at. The puck landed flat on his forehand, but Dadonov missed to the left and actually hit Wyatt Johnston instead.

Maybe it was because PK Subban refused to pronounce his name right for the entire period.

Somehow, neither of those was even the best chance of the game.

Tyler Seguin collected the puck at the bottom of the left circle with Hellebuyck swimming and a wide-open net in front of him. Seguin made a nice move to the backhand that made Luke Schenn drop to a knee to take away part of the shooting lane… but not all of it. Seguin had a good chunk of net to shoot at, but missed, again to the left. He had room and maybe could have continued skating to make it an easier chance. Easy to say from up in the press box.

Winnipeg had its chances too… the best being a backdoor pass that hit Mark Scheifele’s skate. Jake Oettinger was nowhere to be found on the cross-ice pass, and if Mason Marchment didn’t do such a good job tying up Scheifele’s stick, it would have been a tap-in. Instead, it hit the inside of his skate and somehow deflected away from the yawning net.

Overall, a very good start for Dallas. Both teams had possession time, but the Stars created far better chances, and look how well they protected the dangerous areas in their own end:

Graph from Natural Stat Trick

Now they just need to put one in the back of the net.

The first goal and the first answer

I said before this game that the first goal was going to be huge.

Scoring first is always a big deal. But even more so when you are playing in a series with two of the best defensive teams in the NHL, teams who love to use their structure to smother and frustrate opponents. Frustrate them like this:

In fact, only once in the series has a team lost after scoring first (Game 1).

After Dallas controlled most of the first period, it was Winnipeg that took over in the second.

A fumbled puck and miscommunication between Dadonov and Steel turned into a Nikolaj Ehlers breakaway, a delayed penalty on Lian Bichsel, and eventually a nifty five-hole tuck from Scheifele — who is playing with a heavy heart (good for him to get that goal, on a human level).

But just like they did after falling behind in Game 1, the Stars answered fairly quickly. About six minutes later, Hellebuyck gave up a bad rebound to the high slot, and Steel ripped a wrister over the glove (heard that before on Hellebuyck, eh?) to tie the game.

First goal was huge, but the response was hugererer.

Heading to the third period tied 1-1. Win a period, win a game… maybe a series.

All of the things

The third period can be summed up like this…

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Hellebuyck stretched out to rob Mikko Rantanen in tight. Dadonov hit the post/crossbar from distance. Hellebuyck used the infamous Anton Khudobin scorpion move to stop Mikael Granlund in tight.

Oh, and Oettinger did this:

Yes, you are correct if you said, “Did that puck hit his paddle as it fell out of his hand?????”

Oettinger said he deserved a good bounce after the crazy ones that have gone against him in these playoffs. He got one.

Should have been a goal for all the reasons. But it wasn’t, and that’s all that matters.

Then, as the final seconds ticked off the clock, Steel took off through the middle of the ice and was tripped by a diving Scheifele. To me, it was deserving of a penalty shot. The referee did not agree, and the Stars took 1:46 of power-play time into overtime.

Stars coach Pete DeBeor and Steel actually said it was probably better they got the power play. Steel was gassed and would have had to face a red-hot Hellebuyck on a penalty shot on very choppy ice late in the period.

Of course it went to overtime, what else did you think would happen?

And in overtime, it was Thomas Harley who put this game and series to bed. Just enjoy all of the best from that moment and the end of the series:

Onto the Western Conference Final for the third consecutive season… Game 1 Wednesday in Dallas.

Quick notes

• Oettinger took a jab at Harley, saying he ditched the US and played for Canada at 4 Nations.
• The respect and compassion toward Scheifele from his teammates, coaches, the Dallas fans (who donated nearly $30k to chariites he works with), the Stars, DeBoer, and more people than I can count was really incredible to see.
• DeBoer said his work with Canada is on pause while he coaches Dallas — right now, he’s Finnish.
• I was yelled at by A LOT of Katy Perry fans after saying the Stars were more important because the AAC bumped her concert for Game 1.
• The emergency sirens went on at the AAC during the postgame show, so I left and made it to the studio to finish out the superchats… good times were had.
• I love this DLLS team, all our DieHards, and all you Stars fans. Let’s keep it rolling into round three.

Quotable

Stars coach Pete DeBoer

“It was important to take care of business. I was proud of our group. We stayed in the moment, and we stuck with that. This was a series where you were never going to feel comfortable, the offense was really hard to come by, there was no room out there, and there was not a lot of power plays. And you know what? We stuck with it… I was proud of how we won that game tonight because a less mature team doesn’t win that game.”