Stars defeat Blues in round-robin, decide No. 3 seed in West

The Dallas Stars rallied for a 2-1 shootout win against the St. Louis Blues in a Stanley Cup Qualifiers round-robin game to earn the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Sunday.

Joe Pavelski scored, and Anton Khudobin made 22 saves for the Stars (1-2-0), who will play the Calgary Flames, the No. 6 seed, in the Western Conference First Round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

"We watched [the Flames] play the last couple of games and they're playing very, very well right now," Dallas coach Rick Bowness said. "They're getting the goaltending, they're getting timely goals. They played [the Winnipeg Jets], a team that was beat up with some key injuries, but they're a very confident team right now and they've got some very dangerous players and they've got some great defensemen back there that play big minutes. We know we have a very, very tough opponent coming into this."

WATCH: [All Stars vs. Blues highlights]

Robert Thomas scored, and Jake Allen made 37 saves for the Blues (0-2-1), who will be the No. 4 seed and play the Vancouver Canucks, the No. 5 seed, in the first round in Edmonton, the Western hub city. St. Louis, the defending Stanley Cup champion, had a .662 points percentage this season that was best in the conference.

"Vancouver has a lot of young guys who are really good players, a lot of speed," St. Louis coach Craig Berube said. "They're a dangerous team offensively, they really come at you with speed. We're going to have to do a good job of checking, doing the right things. They also have a good power play. We took too many penalties (six), so it's important we have to stay out of the penalty box."\

Pavelski tied it 1-1 with 31 seconds left in the third period. He scored with a one-timer from the top of the left circle with Khudobin on the bench for an extra skater.

"We were creating a little momentum in the (offensive) zone," Pavelski said. "You know time's winding down and we get it up top and we needed to get some pucks to the net, so that was the thought. When I get that chance to shoot it, there was a good screen (from Jamie Benn) and it doesn't go in if there isn't a good screen there."

Khudobin said he was so excited when Pavelski scored that he "almost jumped over the boards. It was a good feeling. Trust me, we needed to have that feeling."

The Stars hadn't scored since Corey Perry's power-play goal at 12:42 of the second period in a 5-3 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday. Dallas lost 4-0 to the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday.

"Relief is not the word," Pavelski said. "Urgency going into this game was a little bit more, I would say correct. It's going to be moving forward. A series can go by really fast or it could go long. There's going to be ups and downs throughout it. There's no one taking a deep breath. Obviously, we established some parts of our game, executed a little bit better. We played a hard game for 60 minutes just to win in a shootout. Relief? No, confidence a little bit. We have to keep moving forward."

Denis Gurianov scored the only goal of the shootout when he shot five-hole on Allen in the second round.

Thomas gave the Blues a 1-0 lead at 3:43 of the first period. Tyler Bozak let a pass from Sammy Blais go through his legs on a 3-on-2 to Thomas, who shot over Khudobin's right shoulder from the slot.

"Feeling great," Thomas said. "I'm ready to go for Vancouver and it was a good confidence boost for me. Been a while since I scored (Feb. 25), but definitely a good feeling and getting the ball rolling."

Vince Dunn appeared to score for St. Louis at 16:44 of the first, but Dallas challenged the play for offside, and the call was reversed after a video review.

The Blues failed to hold a third-period lead in all three round-robin games.

"I don't think we're playing well in the third, that's one thing," Berube said. "Didn't make one play tonight, didn't in the other two games, either. We're almost trying to win with a one-goal lead. We're not trying to get the next goal, not playing aggressive. When you give the puck back to the other team, chances are they're going to get a goal."

Blais left the game with an apparent injury at 11:19 of the second period after being assessed a boarding penalty against Andrej Sekera. Blais briefly returned in the third, and Berube said he will be evaluated Monday.

The Stars were without forward Tyler Seguin and goalie Ben Bishop, who were ruled unfit to play. Bowness said each player is day to day. As part of the NHL Return to Play Plan, a team is not permitted to disclose player injury or illness information.