GAME 2 GOES FRIDAY NIGHT AT 8:30 PM AT CANADA LIFE CENTRE
The Dallas Stars simply had too much Mikko Rantanen for the Winnipeg Jets.
Wednesday night at Canada Life Centre, Rantanen scored a natural hat trick and that’s all Dallas needed as they won Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Divisional Final 3-2 over the Winnipeg Jets.
After getting off to a terrible start, the Jets righted the ship and played solid hockey for two and half periods, but Rantanen scored two power-play goals and the Jets failed to score on all four of their power-play opportunities and that was clearly the difference.
The Jets didn’t show up for the start of the first period, but fortunately, their MVP goaltender did. Hellebuyck was sensational as Dallas stormed out, completely dominated the game, controlled the Winnipeg zone and outshot the Jets 9-0 in the first seven minutes.
But eventually, the Jets woke up and thanks to a couple of penalties to the Stars, Winnipeg mounted an impressive offensive attack and while they didn’t score, they did take the next nine shots and finished the first period outshooting the Stars (the Jets first power-play unit had 10 of the shots)13-12.
The two teams went to their respective dressing rooms tied at zero and it was the first time this post-season that the Jets didn’t allow a goal in the first period.
The Jets got on then board first at 3:30 of the second period when Nino Niedrreiter picked up a pass (lost puck) from Mason Appleton and fired a backhander past the Stars’ Jake Oettinger. It looked like a harmless shot, but Oettinger wasn’t ready for it and was clearly out of position.
However, the Stars tied it at 9:43 when Mikko Rantanen banged home a loose puck in Hellebuyck’s crease. It was Rantanen’s sixth goal of the playoffs, and it was the start of the Jets collapse.
Rantanen scored again at 14:21 and then completed the natural hat-trick on the power play at 16:38. Sat this point, he had six goals in his last three periods.
The Jets stayed alive at 17:35 when Mark Scheifele took a perfect pass from Gabriel Vilardi and beat Oettinger with a perfectly placed wrist shot to the corner.
The Stars led 3-2 after two periods, but things didn’t look good for the Jets simply because Winnipeg had wasted three power play opportunities. Meanwhile, Dallas had scored on its only power play chance and any fan in the building had to know that the Jets were unlikely to see another power play while Dallas was going to get at least one more.
The signs were everywhere, there were two obvious Stars penalties in their own end – one tripping and one hooking – but the officials were not calling another penalty on Dallas until they’d evened things up. So even though Winnipeg had outshot Dallas 21-20 and even though they’d played the Stars even up in five-on-five situations, the penalty tally did not bode well for Winnipeg.
And of course, it happened. Jason Robertson ran into Gabriel Vilardi as the puck came out of the Winnipeg zone. Neither official saw it but one of them saw enough of the aftermath to make up an elbowing call against Vilardi.
To the Jets credit, they fought it off and ended up with a power play of their own as the Stars Tyler Seguin high-sticked Neal Pionk. It was an odd high stick considering Pionk didn’t have the puck and Seguin had no need to lift Pionk’s stick. Seguin just jammed his stick into Pionk’s face. Again, odd.
For the rest of the period, the Jets had some great chances, but the puck luck they enjoyed in that marvellous 4-3 comeback against St. Louis in Game 7 of the first round on Sunday, just didn’t follow them into Wednesday night.
Vilardi, Ehlers and Scheifele all had glorious opportunities to score in the dying minutes, but either Oettinger made the save or the puck went wide.
The Jets outshot Dallas 11-4 in the third period, 32-24 overall, and outhit the Stars 46-24, but an anemic powerplay and too much Rantanen was the difference in the opener.
The two teams will get back at it on Friday night at 8:30 at Canada Life Centre. It’s unlikely this will be a short series.
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