Esa Lindell lifts Stars past Kings in OT

DALLAS -- Rookie Esa Lindell scored at 1:07 of overtime to give the Dallas Stars a 3-2 win against the Los Angeles Kings at American Airlines Center on Friday.
The 22-year-old finished off a 2-on-1 chance with Jamie Benn for his third goal.
"Saw they were changing one guy and saw the opportunity to get a 2-on-1," Lindell said. "That was pretty easy to put in from that pass."

WATCH: All Kings vs. Stars highlights
Tyler Seguin and Radek Faksa scored for the Stars (14-14-7), and Kari Lehtonen made 29 saves. It was the second overtime win of the season for Dallas (2-7).
Jeff Carter scored two goals for the Kings (17-13-4), and Jeff Zatkoff made 28 saves.
"I mean, it's good to get the point," Carter said. "Wish we got two. [Zatkoff] played a good game for us, made some big saves, especially against that big line (Jason Spezza with Seguin and Benn) early. They were moving all night tonight, you know. We kind of shot ourselves in the foot a little bit with a couple bad changes."
Carter scored on the power play to give the Kings a 1-0 lead at 3:05 of the first period. Lehtonen couldn't hold on to Tanner Pearson's initial shot, and the puck trickled over to Carter at the top of the crease.
Seguin scored his 11th goal 43 seconds into the second period to tie the game 1-1. He one-timed a shot off the rush on a play set up by Spezza and John Klingberg.

Faksa gave Dallas a 2-1 lead 3:30 into the third period when he scored on his own rebound. Faksa was stopped by Zatkoff on his initial shot, but he quickly gathered the puck and beat Zatkoff for his fifth goal of the season.
"I thought [Faksa] was really good. He was the guy again tonight I tried to double-shift," Stars coach Lindy Ruff said. "You need guys that win battles."
Carter scored on a rebound to tie it 2-2 at 10:51 of the third period. Devin Setoguchi got the assist after Lehtonen made a left-pad save on his initial shot.
It was Carter's 19th goal, tied for second in the NHL with Patrik Laine of the Winnipeg Jets and David Pastrnak of the Boston Bruins behind Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins (24).
"Pucks are just finding me," Carter said "I'm going to the net and I got a couple tap-ins tonight."

Goal of the game

Lindell scored his overtime goal off a pass Benn said almost didn't happen. "I was thinking shoot almost the whole way down the ice," he said. "It was kind of hard not to pass it to him there. He worked so hard to get up the ice and he made a good play in the D zone. You know, he was wide open. So I kind of had to make the pass."

Save of the game

Lehtonen made a pad save on Alec Martinez at 10:00 of the second period when it was tied 1-1. Martinez's chance came after a pileup in the Stars crease, forcing Lehtonen to fight through traffic to make the save.

Highlight of the game

Seguin's goal came off a pretty passing play with Klingberg and Spezza.

Unsung performance of the game

Faksa was dominant on faceoffs, winning 15 of 20 (75 percent), including the opening draw of overtime.

They said it

"I think it's good. It kind of shows the direction where we are going. It was a bit of a tough start of the season. So it's a huge thing to get some winning streak here, and we're trying to get it." -- Stars forward Esa Lindell
"I had a great trip. Visited seven states, get another one tonight, couple days in California, and then you get to a couple provinces." -- Kings coach Darryl Sutter on playing nine road games in a row, seven before Christmas, two after

Need to know

Kings forward Tyler Toffoli missed his second straight game with a lower-body injury. … Stars left wing Antoine Roussel (upper body) and defenseman Stephen Johns (lower body) each missed the game because of injury. … Dallas forward Cody Eakin served the third of a four-game suspension for charging New York Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist on Dec. 15. … The Stars dressed 11 forwards and seven defensemen.

What's next

Kings:At the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday (10 p.m. ET; SN, FS-W, NHL.TV)
Stars: At the Arizona Coyotes on Tuesday (9 p.m. ET; FS-A, FS-SW+, NHL.TV)