On Wednesday night, the Dallas Stars hosted the Vegas Golden Knights for Game 5 of the first round. After losing the first two meetings, the Stars have stormed back in the series as they won each of the last three contests. Here is a period-by-period breakdown of yet another tight game between those two teams.
First Period
Four minutes into the first period, Miro Heiskanen takes a flagrant holding penalty, putting Vegas on the powerplay early. Ten seconds later, the Golden Knights are on the board. Mark Stone comes from behind the net and skates to the high slot to deflect Noah Hanifin‘s point shot. This play was an exact replica of the very first goal of the series.
One minute later, Dallas tied the game. A neutral zone turnover leads to Wyatt Johnston feeding Logan Stankoven for a two-on-one with Evgenii Dadonov. Stankoven stickhandles around Brayden McNabb’s diving attempt to block the pass option and passes the puck from his backhand to Dadonov who puts it in the back door. Stankoven had intercepted a pass prior to this play that allowed his team to break out of the zone. The Stars’ rookie continues to play like a veteran, with only a few NHL games under his belt, showing tremendous poise and hockey IQ.
At 6:33, William Carrier gets sent to the sin bin for a tripping call. The second powerplay unit gets the job done and put Dallas up 2-1 in the game. Matt Duchene scores with the man advantage assisted by Wyatt Johnston and Tyler Seguin. Later in the period, Carrier amends his mistake with a nice individual effort. He lugs the puck from his own end to the back of the Stars’ net and takes advantage of Jake Oettinger losing sight of the puck to tuck it past the netminder to tie the game.
Second Period
In the middle of the second, the Stars get a 3-on-0 opportunity. Stankoven and Dadonov are all alone in front of the net. Dadonov receives a pass and completely misses the net. On that same play, Tyler Seguin takes an illegal check to the head penalty. Lucky for Dallas, the referees give him a two-minute minor instead of a five-minute major. The Stars end up killing the penalty. Later, Alex Pietrangelo gets hit by Seguin and smacks him with the back of his glove, causing him to bleed.
The two least penalized teams in the playoffs showed a lack of discipline in Game 5. Like Seguin, Pietrangelo didn’t get a major penalty on the play. However, Dallas ended up scoring on that powerplay. Jason Robertson‘s perfect wrist shot put his team up 3-2.
Third Period
The third period of this game was pretty uneventful. Jake Oettinger kept the Stars in the game, and the Golden Knights couldn’t tie it after pulling the goalie. It was a tight game that could have gone both ways.
Vegas faces elimination in the next game. The Dallas Stars have been a top-tier team for many years, and they are showing that another trip to the finals is likely. With solid goaltending, depth at defense, talent at every line and a healthy mix of youth and experience, Dallas’ postseason run shouldn’t be short.
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