Last Night in Texas Hockey: The Stars INSANE Comeback

Last night in Texas Hockey: the Stars INSANE comeback in the third period created a frenzy inside of American Airlines Center. In a rematch of last year’s Western Conference Finals the Dallas Stars and Edmonton Oilers meet for the 8th time this century in the playoffs. It’s the second most meetings only trailing behind the incredible Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals series that I got growing up with nine total matchups.

Last year, I went into this Western Conference Finals matchup with so much confidence. The Stars had the best goalie in the series and the most depth. I was so confident that four lines could wear down the rest of the skaters on the Oilers outside of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. BOY was I wrong.

In 2024, the Stars went 0-14 on the power play, and their depth scoring disappeared. It was disastrous, but the Oilers earned that Stanley Cup Finals appearance. Now, in 2025, it’s time for revenge and an opportunity to win the Cup for Dallas for the first time since 1999.

First Period Thoughts

I’ve said it so many times on Clean Sheet of Ice, Apollo’s Texas Hockey Podcast, that the Stars need to get the games started on the right foot. No falling asleep at the wheel, and no going down on a super early goal.

The Stars got a power play before the ten minute mark in the first period, and I thought, surely, they’ll score one against these Oilers. The first power play of the series may have been the worst power play that the Stars have had all postseason.

The zone entries were hard to come by, much like they were against the Winnipeg Jets in round two. I don’t believe the Stars had a shot on goal during that power play, and then Draisaitl and McDavid were on the ice together after the kill. That’s a recipe for disaster.

McDavid controlled the puck at the point, haded it off to Darnell Nurse, who then gave the puck to Draisaitl. What McDavid may not get a ton of credit for is being a complete 200 foot player, but especially in the offensive zone. He said a pick (not like what we saw in the Colorado/Dallas series), but not enough for any contact on Wyatt Johnston. That pick gave space to Draisaitl who sniped one to the left side of the net past Jake Oettinger for the first goal of the series.

The Oilers continued to get pressure in the offensive zone, but the Stars had several shifts of their own with tons of pressure. Five minutes after the Draisaitl goal, the Oilers missed a pass near the defensive blue line. Tyler Seguin took that opportunity to go for one hell of a skate.

We haven’t seen a relatively healthy Tyler Seguin in the playoffs for the Stars since the previous decade. He’s been mauled by hip injuries among other things, but this was the first time where I saw him skate by guys and keep the speed going all the way through the play.

Last year, the Stars couldn’t get past Stuart Skinner for a majority of six games. Getting a puck past him in the first period and knotting the score up at one was a massive morale boost for the building, and I’m sure the Stars.

Second Period Thoughts

The second period was, uh, bad.

The Oilers dominated the pace of play, got some penalties in their favor and capitalized on floating pucks in the offensive zone.

We all knew McDavid and Draisaitl wouldn’t stay as quiet as they did against Vegas with a combined 11 points in the five game series. They had a combined four points in the first two periods of the Western Conference Finals.

With the Oilers up 3-1, the Stars had to do something different and the Marchment/Duchene/Seguin line was reunited late in the second period. Marchment, who went to the box earlier in the period, drew a hooking penalty and put the Stars on their second power play of the night.

Much like the first power play for the Stars, they couldn’t get the puck into the offensive zone cleanly, but they had 58 seconds remaining of man advantage to beging the third period.

Third Period Thoughts

Here’s where the game turned upside down. The Stars have had a couple of third period comebacks in the first two rounds of the playoffs, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen something like this in person in my life.

Obviously, we experienced the Mikko Rantanen put a team on my fucking back game against Colorado in game 7. We saw the one goal deficit get tied up against Winnipeg and the overtime game winner from Thomas Harley in game 6. We haven’t experienced this sort of domination in a single period from the whole Stars team just yet. Until last night in Texas Hockey.

The Stars had just shy of a minute on the power play remaining to begin the third period. The second unit started on the ice, and finally got a clean entry into the zone. The puck found Miro Heiskanen at the top of the zone, and he fired a shot on net.

Miro did a lot of these things as a younger player, but we didn’t see it as much this season before his injury in January. I’ve been BEGGING to see this from Miro again, and it came at the right time. The Stars cut the lead down to one just 30+ seconds into the third period and all hope was not lost for the Dallas Stars faithful in AAC.

Nearly three minutes into the third period, Corey Perry is called for high sticking putting the Stars power play back on the ice. This power play went 0-14 against the Oilers in last year’s Western Conference Finals. That’s important to forget in 2025.

Mikael Granlund has been a force in the last few games, and he got the puck on the right side of the ice with a little bit of room. He took a few strides, dusted off the puck, and sent another one of the cleanest goals I’ve seen in these playoffs across the board. Tie game.

Just wait, there’s more! ANOTHER power play begins after Evander Kane high sticked Matt Duchene. Yes, it was a high stick. No, it was not shown in its entirety on the ESPN broadcast. Another power play, with the opportunity to take the lead for the Stars.

Literally seconds into this power play, Mikko Rantanen fires a one timer off the side of the net and it bounced to the other side of the goal. Roope Hintz gets tripped up and is laying down hopelessly on the ice in front of Duchene. Dutchy fires the puck into Hintz’s back as he yelped in pain. Duchene then gets the rebound back and fires it into the net to send AAC into an absolute frenzy.

Skinner had no idea where the puck was on this play in any way, shape, or form. He complained at the refs, his teammates, anyone that would listen as the Stars flipped the game upside down in an insane comeback.

Duchene mentioned after morning skate, as well as the post game press conference, that he’s sticking with process over results. He said results will come if he keeps his process together and continuing to shoot pucks on net. Last night, Dutchy finally got some results.

Minutes later Sam Steel does his best McDavid impression deking through the defense and slinging a wicked backhand shot on net. The puck ended up getting tipped by Tyler Seguin for his second goal of the night, but make no mistake, that play was silky smooth from Steel and he deserves a ton of credit for creating that chance on his own.

Not to brag or anything but I saw that Seguin tipped that goal from the press box while ESPN’s broadcast and cameras focused on Steel. Not a big deal.

Esa Lindell joins the Finnish scoring with an empty netter less than a minute later for a 6-3 lead in an INSANE comeback last night in Texas Hockey.

This team may be winning games in the goofiest way possible and I wouldn’t have it any other way. They’ll be back for game 2 in AAC on Friday night to see if the Stars can steal another win at home.

Last night in Texas Hockey: the Stars INSANE comeback in the third period created a frenzy inside of American Airlines Center.