Dallas – Ryan Hartman had just gone around the net when a deflected puck came his way. He quickly scored to give the Minnesota Wild a win in the playoff opener — a game that began Monday night and dragged on into early Tuesday morning.
Hartman collected the puck and ran in front of the crease before lifting it over Jake Oettinger’s extended left leg at 1 a.m. local time and gave the Wild a 3-2 victory over the Dallas Stars in a more than four-hour marathon in which both 24-year-old goaltenders put on spectacular performances.
“Your goalie was amazing, our goalie was amazing,” said Minnesota coach Dean Evason. “Some of the saves they both made felt like nobody was scoring, right?”
The game-winner came after Stars defenseman Thomas Harley smacked the puck towards the corner, but Colin Miller couldn’t clear it. The puck instead bounced off Sam Steel’s bat at Hartman.
“Just a jump that went in their direction,” said Oettinger. “We had a pair that didn’t go our way and that’s hockey. … Close game and two good teams and it’s going to be a hell of a series. ”
Game 2 takes place in Dallas on Wednesday night.
The Stars had just been dismissed on a power play after Frederick Gaudreau’s trip penalty against captain Jamie Benn 9-11 in that second overtime. Roope Hintz, scoring from a power play in the second period, hit the post and there were several more chances before the penalty went.
Filip Gustavsson stopped 52 shots for the Wild, including 12 in the third period and 17 in the first overtime. He started Game 1 ahead of three-time Stanley Cup winner Marc-André Fleury after the goaltender tandem played separate games for most of the season.
Oettinger had 45 saves for the Stars in his first playoff game since a performance of 64 saves in Game 7 of the first round last May when Calgary, the top-seeker, made the series winner in overtime.
Veteran Stars center Joe Pavelski left the game midway through the second half after a massive hit by Matt Dumba, who was only penalized with a minor roughing penalty. The referees had initially called it a five-minute major, but changed it after a long re-examination.
The stars said Pavelski, 38, is doing well afterwards but his status for the next game is uncertain.
“I’m not confident for Game 2,” said Stars coach Pete DeBoer. “He’s fine, he walks out of the rink on his own.”
Another playoff hit Pavelski scored in 2019 while still with San Jose helped the NHL expand its video review process to allow umpires to review heavy penalties and gave them the option to downgrade them to a smaller one reduce, as was the case with Dumba’s hit.
“To be honest, I thought it was a clean hit,” Dumba said. “Shoulder to shoulder. I don’t even know why I got the roughing, probably because I was already in the pits.”
Hintz and Jason Robertson, who was Dallas’ first 100-point scorer of the regular season, scored power-play goals midway through the second period for the Stars a little over two minutes from a 2-1 lead.
Steel leveled the game with about 5 1/2 minutes in the second period. His wrister came right after winning a face-off on the defensive end and then blocking a Robertson shot.
Kirill Kaprizov scored a power play goal for the Savages in the final minute of the first period. He was right in front of the net and Oettinger for a deft deflection of captain Jared Spurgeon’s shot.
Gustav Nyquist, who received the assist on Steel’s goal, had a 50-foot shot about 5 minutes into play that went past Oettinger, snapped the keeper’s glove and bounced off the right post.
Gustavsson also had a few pucks behind him that didn’t go into the net. In a rapid-fire sequence about five minutes into the third period, the Stars had two shots on goal, another puck that went wide and another that hit the post as fans were already cheering what they thought was a goal.
Hintz struck from above center of the circles just three seconds after getting the puck from Benn’s faceoff win to start the Stars’ first power play. Benn took the faceoff after Pavelski was knocked out of the circle to start the first power play.
It took the Stars twice as long to score on their next power play – a full six seconds. Pavelski won the faceoff, with Miro Heiskanen getting the puck before dropping it through traffic to Robertson for a laser shot.
The Stars then killed two power plays, the second with a trip penalty against Pavelski, which came about five minutes before he was knocked out by Dumba’s big punch.
While Pavleski stayed down on the ice, Star teammate Max Domi went after Dumba and hit a couple of hard shots before they landed on the ice, with Umpires and Kaprizov also on top of them. Kaprizov was eventually withdrawn by a teammate, and Domi got a 10-minute misconduct.
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