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After taking last night’s Game 1 on the road, the Dallas Stars again face the Winnipeg Jets in Game 2 of an NHL Western Conference semifinal tonight at 9:30 PM ET.
Dallas, making its fourth straight trip to the postseason, is looking for its third consecutive appearance in the Western Conference finals. Winnipeg, in the playoffs for the third straight year, last reached the conference finals in 2018. Dallas won one Stanley Cup back in 1999, while the Jets are looking for their first appearance in the Stanley Cup finals.
Let’s break down each team’s play in Game 1 while previewing tomorrow night’s matchup and our Stars @ Jets NHL pick.
After breaking his former team’s hearts in the first round, Mikko Rantanen stayed hot, recording a natural hat trick in the second period to lead the Stars to a pivotal 3-2 win on the road to take control of home ice. It was the second straight hat trick for Rantanen, whose scoring prowess helped eliminate the Colorado Avalanche, the team that traded him earlier in the season. It is just the third time in NHL history, and first time since the Edmonton Oilers’ Jari Kurri in 1985, that a player recorded two consecutive hat tricks in the postseason.
Evgenii Dadonov, Matt Duchene, Roope Hintz, Sam Steel, Thomas Harley and Ilya Lyubushkin each had an assist for Dallas. Jake Oettinger made 29 saves, winning the duel with Vezina Trophy favorite Connor Hellebuyck of the Jets. Rantane leads the NHL in both goals (8) and points (15) so far in the postseason. He has recorded a point in four straight games, and he has been on fire during that short stretch, scoring all 8 of his postseason goals and adding 6 of his 7 assists during those four contests as well.
Hintz is second on the team with 4 goals and 8 points, and Wyatt Johnston has 7 points. Oettinger has made 233 saves and posted a .919 save percentage and 2.75 goals allowed average in the postseason.
The Jets lost at home in Game 1 after winning all four games at Canada Life Centre against the St. Louis Blues in the first round. Winnipeg needs to earn a split tomorrow night to avoid a big hole heading to Dallas. Nino Niederreiter and Mark Scheifele scored for the Jets, with Mason Appleton, Gabriel Vilardi and Haydn Fleury all providing assists.
Hellebuyck has another standout regular season for Winnipeg, but he continues to be somewhat of an enigma so far in the postseason. He has a 3.75 GAA after leading the league during the regular season, posting a 2.01 GAA. And his .836 save percentage is well below his .925 percentage in the regular season. He had 47 wins this year, 11 more than Oettinger, but it is the Stars’ netminder who is winning that comparison so far in the playoffs.
Kyle Connor leads the Jets and is tied for fourth in the NHL with 12 points in the playoffs, followed by Scheifele and Appleton with seven points each. Scheifele, who was second on the team in points during the season, returned from injury to score in Game 1, and his presence on the first line is critical.
It’s not as if Rantanen’s production is coming out of nowhere. Despite playing for three teams this season, Rantanen had 32 goals and 56 assists. But his last four games have been nothing short of phenomenal.
He had a goal and 2 assists in a Game 5 win over the Avalanche in the first round and followed that with a goal and three assists in a Game 6 loss. Then he had his humongous hat trick, along with an assist, to clinch the series with a 4-2 win in Game 7, followed by last night’s near repeat.
Rantanen is in the zone at the right time, and Dallas needs him to keep that production at a similar level. He appears poised to score at least one goal again tonight.
Brian has been writing about sports professionally for 25 years, specializing in the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, men's college basketball and football, and soccer. He covered high school, collegiate and professional sports in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area for two decades. His written work has appeared in several print and online publications since 1999.