*Photo from TSN*
Dallas leads series 3-2
Back at home, the Stars shined. Roope Hintz had two goals and an assist, Jason Robertson had 3 assists, and the Dallas Stars defeated the Seattle Kraken with a 5-2 victory on Thursday night in Dallas.
After falling behind 2-1 in the series, the Stars have now won two straight games to take a 3-2 series lead and put the Kraken on the brink of elimination. Hintz, Robertson, and Joe Pavelski each had multi point games for the Stars as they limited the Kraken.
Dallas head coach Pete Deboer said of Hintz that "He's been just an absolute monster for us this playoff, and at the most important times. This is obviously a critical game for our group, and he comes out in the first 10 minutes and basically lets everyone in the building know that he's here to play and dragging our group around. He's done that the entire playoff."
The Stars got on the board first to set the tone. It was Wyatt Johnston who scored first, giving the Stars a 1-0 lead with an assist from Jamie Benn 3:57 into the game. At the 5:35 mark of the first, Hintz scored to double the lead, making it 2-0 on his 7th goal of the playoffs, assisted by Robertson and Thomas Harley.
Pavelski started the scoring 35 seconds into the second period, making it 3-0 Stars on the eventual game winning goal. 1:59 into the period, Adam Larsson scored, getting the Kraken on the board to make it a 3-1 game. Jared McCann scored at the 7:30 mark of the second, cutting the deficit to 3-2 with Brandon Tanev and Yanni Gourde assisting.
At the 11:20 mark of the 3rd period, Hintz scored his second goal of the night, making it 4-2 Stars with assists from Pavelski and Robertson. With the net empty late in regulation, Radek Faksa scored to seal the 5-2 win for the Stars.
Robertson said of the win that "I think it was important to keep our poise. Oettinger made some big saves, he had some big blocks. Everyone had to dig in a little extra. Those are types of playoff games you want to be on the ice for. You want to play, you want to battle, you want to compete. You want to be out there, battle for your teammates, your goalie, your fans, everything. Those are fun ones. I'm just glad we didn't sit back. We wanted to attack and try to get the next one. When we do that, we kind of try to shut the game down."
Getting the start in goal for the Stars was Jake Oettinger, who had another strong performance in the series leading win. Oettinger stopped 29 of the 31 shots he saw from the Kraken, which was good for a .935 save percentage.
It was Philipp Grubauer who got the start for the Kraken, losing his second straight game to fall to 6-6 in the playoffs. In the loss, Grubauer turned aside 16 out of the 20 shots on goal the Stars had, posting a .800 save percentage in the setback.
Seattle head coach Dave Hakstol said of the loss that "We found ourselves in a 2-0 hole. Overall the difference of the hockey game. We've got to be a little bit more patient so that we're not giving up a couple of the transition plays that we did, and we're going to have to be a little harder to generate more at the other end of the rink. They did a really good job tonight of making it hard to get inside and hard to get to their net."
Up next, the series shifts to Seattle for game 6 on Saturday night. The Stars will look to close out the series and advance to the next round, while the Kraken need to win to stay alive.
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