Dallas 4, Colorado 3
When: 8:00 PM ET, Saturday, April 8, 2017
Where: American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas
Referees:
Tom Kowal, Peter MacDougall
Linesmen:
Darren Gibbs, Tim Nowak
Attendance:
18532
By The Sports Xchange
DALLAS -- Tyler Seguin scored the only goal in the shootout and the Dallas Stars defeated the Colorado Avalanche 4-3 on Saturday night at American Airlines Center.
Kari Lehtonen was perfect in the shootout and stopped Matt Duchene, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen to seal the win in Dallas' season finale.
"It's nice to come out with the win," the Stars' Devin Shore said. "It was tough giving up the lead, but we wanted to get a win for our home crowd because they've stuck behind us through some pretty tough times. So we managed to get a win for them and it's a pretty good feeling."
The Stars (34-37-11) appeared to have won the game with 1:08 remaining in overtime when John Klingberg scored on a wrist shot, but Colorado challenged for offside and the goal was overturned.
"We wanted it to be entertaining, maybe not that entertaining," Seguin said. "Why not have a little drama, I guess."
The Avalanche close out season at the St. Louis Blues on Sunday. They have the NHL's worst record at 22-55-4.
Shore gave Dallas a 1-0 lead at 13:40 of the first period. Greg Pateryn took an initial shot that was deflected by Cody Eakin, snuck through goaltender Jeremy Smith, and the puck sat in the crease before Shore crashed the net and scored his 13th goal of the season.
"Getting the puck in the back of the net has a lot to do with bounces," Shore said. "And all you can really focus on is generated chances and trying to get as many bounces as you can. And we we're doing that and it ended up being a good start to the game."
Shore nearly doubled the Stars' lead with 2:25 remaining in the period. However, Smith was able to make a sprawling save on the goal line and after a brief review, it was confirmed that the puck never crossed the line.
Jamie Benn pushed the lead to 2-0 at 37 seconds of the second period on the power play. John Klingberg and Tyler Seguin had the assists as Benn finished the season with 26 goals.
Rantanen scored to cut the Dallas lead to 2-1 at 17:35 of the second period when he deflected Tyson Barrie's point shot past Kari Lehtonen.
Gabriel Landeskog tied the score at 2 on a deflection at 5:37 of third period. Francois Beauchemin took the initial shot while Landeskog set up position in front of the net.
MacKinnon gave Colorado a 3-2 lead at 8:24 of the third period on the power play on another deflection.
"We talked about working through and getting some traffic to the front of the net. So we did that on those goals, just throwing pucks to the front of the net," Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. "I wish we would have done that a little bit earlier. I look at the bulk of the goals and we got there by going to the paint and getting sticks up in the right spot."
Seguin tied the score at 13:44 of the third period when he deflected Esa Lindell's point shot for his 26th goal of the season.
Smith made 42 saves for Colorado.
"I thought Smitty played really well tonight and he deserved a better fate than how we played in front of him," Bednar said.
Lehtonen had 21 saves for Dallas, which finished outside of the playoffs for the second time in four seasons under Ruff.
"Just we could never get on a run. We could never get on a good run where you go 6 or 7 and 1, or you win five in a row. We never got that good run going," Ruff said. "We started a couple, we had opportunities to. Probably the biggest disappointment was there was games where we really deserved to win if we finished some of the plays and didn't hit posts, missed empty nets. Just to stay on a run or keep something alive, and we didn't quite have the finish that we had in the previous year."
NOTES: Denis Guryanov made his NHL debut for Dallas, skating on a line with Gemel Smith and Mark McNeill. Gurianov was the 12th overall pick in the 2015 NHL entry draft and helped Russia win the bronze medal at the World Junior Championships in January. ... Mikko Rantanen was back in the lineup for Colorado after missing back-to-back games with a lower-body injury. ... G Calvin Pickard will start for the Avalanche on Sunday in the season finale against the St. Louis Blues.
Top Game Performances
Colorado |
|
Dallas |
Tyson Barrie 2 |
Points |
Tyler Seguin 2 |
Tyson Barrie 1 |
Goals |
Tyler Seguin 1 |
Sven Andrighetto 2 |
Assists |
John Klingberg 2 |
Tyson Barrie 1 |
Power Play Goals |
Jamie Benn 1 |
N/A |
Short Handed Goals |
N/A |
Jeremy Smith .933 |
Save Percentage |
Kari Lehtonen .875 |
Jeremy Smith 42 |
Saves |
Kari Lehtonen 21 |
Team Stats Summary
Team |
Shots |
Goals |
Power Play |
Penalty Kill |
Penalty Mins |
Face Offs Won |
Colorado
|
24 |
3 |
1-1 |
0-1 |
2 |
29 |
Dallas
|
45 |
4 |
1-1 |
0-1 |
2 |
35 |
Upcoming Games
-
Colorado will play their next game on the road against St. Louis. The Avalanche have a W/L % of .217 after a win and .293 after a loss.