Heika’s Take: Overtime thrills continue as Stars’ full-team effort leads to Game 3 win

The Stars had maybe their most “team” win of the season on Wednesday.

And it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Facing a frenzied Ball Arena crowd that was welcoming the long-awaited return of Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog, the lads in Victory Green were already in the hole during the singing of the National Anthem. Mix in their own every day challenges in players like Mikko Rantanen (returning to play against his old buddies), Tyler Seguin (playing just his fourth game in over four months), and Jamie Benn (who hadn’t scored a goal in 19 games) with the fact that Mason Marchment took a double-minor penalty in the final minute of regulation in a 1-1 game, and, yeah, things looked pretty dire at times.

But Esa Lindell helped lead a penalty kill that held the Avalanche at bay, and then Rantanen and Marchment made hard-working plays on Seguin’s game-winning goal just 5:31 into overtime. The 2-1 win gives Dallas a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series and just brought all sorts of butterflies and unicorns to Starsland.

“Gutsy win,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “You go in after the game and you want to acknowledge some of the key plays, and really, I could’ve gone around the room. Everybody jumped in tonight and did their part. I thought we worked for a win, did a lot of really good things.”

The entire hockey world was cheering for Landeskog, who had been battling rehab on an injured knee for almost three years. His return was met with an incredible ovation from the crowd, and a great deal of respect from the Stars.

“With the whole Gabriel stuff, you knew it was going to happen,” Seguin said of the cheers. “You want to play Gabe hard, but obviously the story, you know, the things that he's gone through, I have so much respect for him. I've missed five months or a season, missing three years... I watched an episode of his documentary, and that's a little bit bigger than hockey to me. So, lots of respect that he's out there.”

And yet, as Seguin said, the best thing the Stars could do was give the game a maximum effort. That was easy for Dallas, because they have embraced being the villain in these situations. Dallas has the best regular-season road record in the three years that DeBoer has been head coach and is now 7-3 in 10 road games in the playoffs over the past two seasons. In fact, this is their fourth straight win at Ball Arena in the playoffs.

“It’s just fun to play on the road, and when it feels like it's 20 guys against the world, there's nothing better than that,” Stars goalie Jake Oettinger said. “I was thinking about that when I was walking into the arena today, like just how fun it's going to be to compete at this level and against this crowd and stuff. So just great crowds here in Denver and fun to play in.”

Oettinger now has a 1.67 GAA and .939 save percentage in road playoff games over the past two seasons. He has been huge in the past two games as the Stars have had to overcome one-goal deficits to push the games to overtime. Valeri Nichushkin gave Colorado a 1-0 lead in the first period, and then Benn tied things up on a power play in the third period. Dallas was unable to get anything going on an early power play in the third, but then Benn redirected a Thomas Harley shot in and tied the game midway through the period.

The captain is in pursuit of his 400th career regular-season goal and ended the regular season on a 17-game goal drought. However, he cashed in on a key postseason goal, so that pretty much wipes the slate clean.

That set the scene for overtime, but then Marchment took an accidental high stick with 40 seconds left in the third. The penalty drew blood, so Colorado got four minutes, including the majority of it to start on fresh ice in overtime. But the Dallas penalty kill turned up the heat and a combination of Lindell and Oettinger kept the puck out of the net. Lindell finished with 8:09 in shorthanded time on ice as Colorado went 0-for-6 on the night.

That opened the door for a fantastic game-winner. Rantanen spent more than a decade with the Avalanche and won a Stanley Cup with the team. However, he was traded twice this season and now is trying to beat his old friends. On the game-winning goal, he made a nice defensive play and then got the puck in transition to Marchment. Marchment then carried the puck deep into the offensive zone and slid it back to Seguin, who was trailing the play. Seguin took the puck from his skate to his stick and lifted in the winner.

“What a skilled play,” DeBoer said. “From the bench, I thought it was on his stick, but he actually kicked it off his skate. That’s a high-end skill play at full speed doing that. What gets lost on that goal is the job Mikko Rantanen did to win a battle at the blue line, chip it by Makar to Marchment and then get off and get Seguin on the ice. It was a big-time play by Mikko for us at a big moment, but you need that in the playoffs.”

And, of course, Marchment had been sitting in the penalty box afraid his blunder would cost his team the game. So when he came up with a huge assist, his teammates were ecstatic.

“I think I had anxiety for him,” Seguin said. “Just, you know, obviously one of my best buddies, and he doesn't mean to do it. Our killers did an incredible job for him, and I'm sure he's going to buy all those guys a beer tonight.”

It will certainly be a team gathering. They all earned it.

“You couldn’t have written a better script for how it ended,” DeBoer said.

This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.

Mike Heika is a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on X @MikeHeika.