Dallas Win Series as John Klingberg Scores in Overtime

The Dallas Stars went into Game 6 with the chance to win its first playoff series on home ice in eleven years, but it took overtime to get it done, but it saved them having to return to Nashville for a do or die Game 7.

After going scoreless in the third and first overtime period, John Klingberg gave Dallas the winning goal with three minutes remaining in double overtime after picking up a pass from Alexander Radulov and sent a wrist shot through traffic to give the Dallas Stars a 2-1 victory on Monday night, and with it, a 4-2 series win. Blake Comeau scored Dallas’s second goal, and Radek Faska, Alexander Radulov and Tyler Seguin earned assists. Commenting on the game, Klingberg said,

“We wanted to close it out today and don’t have to deal with going back there. We treated it like a Game 7.”

Dallas has not clinched a playoff series since 2008 when it beat the San Jose Sharks in the second round while on home ice. Last night’s win, for team captain Jamie Benn was a big one. Commenting, Benn said,

“To do it in overtime in that fashion, what an exciting time for our fans. They were loud and brought a lot of extra energy for us in overtime.”

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The Stars won the last three games in the series in a row under rookie head coach Jim Montgomery outplaying the Nashville Predators in each game. Dallas will next play the St. Louis Blues in the second round, and punters wishing to get their bets in early will find substantial benefits and bonuses being offered by Bet365, a leader in sports betting entertainment.

The Dallas Stars and St. Louis Blues last met in the playoffs in 2016 with that series going seven games before St. Louis came out on top. There is a little doubt that Dallas will be relying on Vezina Trophy finalist Ben Bishop, who had 47 saves for the night, to help them get the job done. Commenting on Bishop, Klingberg said,

“Obviously our best player once again is Bish. He’s just keeping us in the game. We slowly, second period, third period and overtime got better and better,” Montgomery said. “Obviously our best player was Bish. He was incredible.”

Pekka Rinne, winner of the Vezina Trophy last year, also had one of his career best playoff games, his 89th, with 49 shots stopped. That included one in which he stopped a shot by Jamie Benn during the first overtime period. Commenting on the loss, P.K. Subban said,

“It’s tough. It’s a tough pill to swallow. We came in here obviously wanting to take the series back to Nashville, and I thought we gave ourselves a great opportunity to do that.”

Nashville failed even to get a shot on goal until the third period and only managed to score one goal. They went zero for four on the power play and became the only team to make the playoffs that failed to score during the power play. Commenting on why, Roman Josi, who plays defence for Nashville said,

“I don’t have that answer right now. Even tonight, we had a lot of chances on the power play. If we get a goal there, it’s a different game.”

The reality of the loss has yet to sink in for Nashville, but suffice to say, the offseason will see some efforts put into figuring out what went wrong and working towards fixing it before the next season begins in September.