Thursday night, the Dallas Stars reverted back to the hockey team that fans had been used to towards the end of the regular season, and their first round matchup against the Minnesota Wild. American Airlines Center was loud as Wyatt Johnston and the Dallas Stars shine bright en route to a win.
In game one, the Dallas Stars looked a little flat and most players on the team outside of Joe Pavelski didn’t play with a ton of urgency. The Kraken led both teams in a majority of the statistical categories, and ended up stealing game one in overtime. Game two was a completely different story.
The first period brought plenty of chances for the Stars to get the scoring going, including a wide open net for Jason Robertson towards the end of the period. He ended up missing the net wide and the game remained scoreless headed into the second period.
Early in the second period, the rookie sensation, Wyatt Johnston, went to work in front of the net and put one five-hole to get AAC jumping. It was his second goal of the playoffs, and after that, the entire team started creating chance after chance after chance.
Just over five minutes later, Daddy brought one home for the Stars. Wraparound tries have been quite the frustrating thing to watch this season for Stars fans. Every try was snubbed by the opposing goaltenders blocker, and the chances usually turned into odd man rushes. Evgenii Dadonov decided enough was enough and finally put a wraparound goal just past the line.
With the second period coming to a close, of course we couldn’t have a game without a Joe Pavelski goal. Pavs cleaned the play up, but the 19 year old was the one who did most of the dirty work. Wyatt Johnston got free on the power play and put up two decent shots off of rebounds before Pavelski put it in the back of the net.
The Dallas Stars were able to play their style of hockey and dominated every single statistical category except for blocks and giveaways. Tyler Seguin was buzzing all night long as well. He was flying around the boards, laying down big hits, and ended up putting one in the back of the net with a classic Joe Pavelski tip in goal. The Stars won the game and evened up the series at one before they head to Seattle.
It seems like the roster is the perfect mix of great veterans with immense amounts of leadership, combined with the youthful energy and ability. The team is set up for success, but this series won’t be the easiest to win, the Stars will have to keep building on their game two performance.
Wyatt Johnston and the Dallas Stars shine bright en route to a win before their game three matchup in Seattle Sunday night.
