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It took until the third period Saturday, but the counter punch everyone expected from the Dallas Stars after a costly home ice loss in Game 1 landed cleanly.
Stuart Skinner never saw it coming.
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But he and the Edmonton Oilers felt it. An opportunity to put the Western Conference Final in a death grip slipped through their fingers in a 3-1 loss in Game 2.
“It would have been nice to come out of here 2-0, but Dallas has a lot to say about that,” said Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch, whose club practically ran the Stars out of their own rink in the first period but could only convert on one of 16 shots. “More goals would have been nice. It would have set us up easier to go on from there.
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“I thought the story tonight was the play of the two goaltenders. With the chances we had and they had it could have been very high scoring.”
After being stuffed on one glorious opportunity after another in a second period rally, the Stars scored the game-winner on a seeing-eye point shot four minutes into the third period and then sealed the decision with an empty-netter at American Airlines Center.
This was the first breaking point in the series (if the Oilers go up 2-0 after two games on the road, it’s almost fatal) and the Stars refused to break.
“We had a big opportunity here tonight,” said Connor McDavid. “And we didn’t capitalize.”
Edmonton put up the good fight. In fact, the way they owned the first period Saturday it looked like they’d have the series in a stranglehold before the midway mark of Game 2.
But the Stars were everything you’d expect of a 113-point team that absolutely had to win this game. They pushed through the first period adversity, kept their cool when nothing was going in for them in the second period and delivered in the third period with the game on the line.
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“I just don’t think we were good enough in the first period but Jake (Oettinger) stood on his head and made some massive saves,” said Dallas forward Mason Marchment, who deflected home the winner. “After that we took over and started playing our game. For the rest of the game we did a great job. Everybody in that room knew we needed to be better.”
Game 3 in what has now become a best-of-five goes Monday evening at Rogers Place.
“We’ll try to use the energy from the fans and keep building our game,” said defenceman Mattias Ekholm. “It’s even now. We came in here and got our split. We feel good about that. Now it’s time to raise our level when we get home and dictate the game.”
ANSWER MAN
If the Stars were going to run away in this game it was going to happen early, when Jamie Benn scored on their first shot of the game at 3:39. That ignited the crowd, and the Dallas bench, and set the stage for the kind of start the hosts were looking for.
Just 44 seconds later the Oilers’ fourth line shut the whole place up. Connor Brown’s first of the playoffs turned momentum back in Edmonton’s favour. For all of the grief and consternation about Brown’s offence contributions in the first half of the season (there were none), he’s been good in the playoffs with his PK work and the dimension he’s adding to what has become a good fourth line.
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After that it was all Edmonton. They outshot Dallas 16-4 in a first period that somehow ended 1-1.
“We knew they weren’t happy with the loss in Game 1 and were going to come out hot,” said Ekholm. “But I thought we took that away from them.”
CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR
The Stars felt like they could have potted at least two or three goals in the second period, and probably should have, but the combination of Stuart Skinner and Edmonton’s tenacity around its own net robbed Dallas of a few sure goals.
But the Stars were taking control of the contest and limited Edmonton to 13 shots between the first intermission the empty-net goal that made it 3-1.
“They just elevated their game,” said Knoblauch. “We might have had as many shots as we had in the first period but in a tight-checking third period where they were protecting a lead we did have some opportunities.”
LATE HITS
The Stars were once again without their second leading scorer (30) from the regular season as Roope Hintz, remained out of the lineup … Leon Draisaitl’s 13-game points streak came to an end. … Adam Henrique took the pre-game warm-up but didn’t make it into the lineup.
E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com
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2024-05-26 04:18:45Z
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