Evgenii Dadonov, Ty Dellandrea and Roope Hintz each scored his first goal of the playoffs for Dallas, which is the No. 1 seed from the Central Division and Western Conference.
“Tonight was [Oettinger's] best night. Third period, he locked it down and made some huge saves,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “When he gets in that zone, he's a really tough guy to beat. I like how our group is playing around him and defending around him. But you know, we bent a little bit tonight. You knew they were going to push back, and you know, he made some critical saves at key times. So, we're going to need that. ... He's got to be one of our best players, but I feel like he's in that zone.”
Michael Amadio and Jack Eichel scored, and Logan Thompson made 28 saves for Vegas, which is the second wild card.
“So here we are, tied 2-2. All close games,” Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. “So, we have to be the team that makes the right plays in the next game like we did up there on the last trip. I don't think it was our best game. I don't think it was theirs in Dallas, but we made the plays at the right time to win the hockey game. We played winning hockey in the third period. That will be the task in front of us now.”
Amadio gave the Golden Knights a 1-0 lead at 14:25 of the first period. Oettinger stopped his initial redirection, but he was able to swat the rebound just over the goal line.
Dadonov tied it 1-1 at 17:52, roofing a shot off the mask of Thompson from along the goal line.