Saturday's NHL: Ex-Wing Namestnikov scores winner for playoff-contending Stars
Dallas — The playoff-contending Dallas Stars overcame a miserable travel day after a winless three-game trip in Canada and a two-goal deficit on home ice to get a much-needed victory Saturday night.
After the Stars had an early goal wiped out because of goalie interference, Roope Hintz scored two goals in a span of about two minutes to get Dallas even in the second, and former Red Wings center Vladislav Namestnikov had the eventual game-winner in a 3-2 victory over the Seattle Kraken.
“Great resilience. Listen, we were running on fumes there at the end there,” Stars coach Rick Bowness said. “Our guys, they dug deep … and found the will to win. That was the difference.”
With three games left in the regular season, all at home, the Stars have 93 points and are tied with Nashville for the Western Conference’s two wild-card spots. The Predators, who lost 6-2 Saturday to Tampa Bay, have four games left. Vegas has 89 points with four games remaining. The Golden Knights are home Sunday against San Jose before playing in Dallas on Tuesday night.
“It was a tough road trip for us,” center Joe Pavelski said. “Getting back home felt nice.”
The Stars left their Calgary hotel early Friday morning and didn’t get home until well after midnight. Their initial charter plane was going full-throttle toward takeoff when it had to slam on the brakes because of smoke in the cockpit. The team had to wait more than six hours for another plane to take them back to Texas and had to go through customs a second time.
With just over 13 minutes left in the second period, Hintz was on his rear in the crease when he stuck out his stick to knock in the puck to get Dallas within 2-1. Then, as the Stars were on the power play, Hintz was charging toward the net when he got a pass from Jason Robertson and had nice puck control to get around defenseman Adam Larsson for the tying goal.
Hintz has five goals in the last three games and 37 overall. Robertson assisted on both of Hintz’s scores and has 37 assists to go with his team-high 38 goals.
Namestnikov, who wasn’t on the trip to Canada as part of the five games he missed with a lower-body injury, got his 15th goal on a pass from behind the net from Denis Gurianov.
“You never want to be out, and when you come back, you want to make an impact,” Namestnikov said. “The boys battled hard today, and that was a gutsy, gutsy win there.”
Jake Oettinger stopped 30 of 32 shots, and the Stars goaltender also got a secondary assist on the tying goal with his pass to Robertson.
Chris Driedger had 28 saves for the expansion Kraken, which have 26 wins and four games left in their first season.
“We’ve been playing some pretty decent hockey lately, if you cross out the last couple second periods,” Driedger said. “Our group’s working towards some real positive things.”
Seattle took a 1-0 lead on former Red Wing Riley Sheahan’s goal, which came only seconds after the Kraken’s power play ended. Sheahan was between Oettinger and a defender when he reached around the goalie to knock in a blocked puck.
Yanni Gourde’s 100th career goal made it 2-0, when he held up his stick to deflect an in-air puck into the net.
“Overall, it wasn’t a terrible game,” Sheahan said. “We just had some lapses where we took the foot off the gas and they capitalized.”
Seattle rookie Matty Beniers (Michigan) failed to have a point for the first time in his six NHL games. He is the only rookie this season to begin his NHL career with a point in four or more consecutive games.
More games
►(At) Florida 3, Toronto 2 (OT): Brandon Montour scored 2:26 into overtime and the NHL-leading Florida Panthers extended their win streak to a franchise-record 13 games by beating the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-2 on Saturday night.
The streak matches the seventh-longest in NHL history and is the league’s longest since Columbus won 16 consecutive games during the 2016-17 season. The victory also marked Florida interim coach Andrew Brunette’s 50th in just 71 games behind the Panthers’ bench.
Claude Giroux had a goal and two assists for Florida. Aleksander Barkov had a goal and an assist and Mason Marchment had two assists. Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 34 shots.
Justin Holl and Mitch Marner scored for Toronto. Jack Campbell finished with 32 saves.
►(At) Tampa Bay 6, Nashville 2: Victor Hedman, Nikita Kucherov and Anthony Cirelli scored in the first period, and the Lightning beat the Predators.
Hedman became the second defenseman in franchise history to score 20 goals in a season, joining Dan Boyle in 2006-07.
Kucherov finished with a goal and two assists, Steve Stamkos also had a goal and two assists, and Ross Colton also scored for the Lightning. Brian Elliott made 19 saves.
Tampa Bay is three points ahead of Boston in the race for third place in the Atlantic Division.
Nashville defensemen Roman Josi and Alexandre Carrier each scored a power-play goal. Josi became the first NHL defenseman to reach the 90-point mark since Boston’s Ray Bourque (91 in 1993-94).
►Carolina 3, (at) New Jersey 2 (OT): Rookie Seth Jarvis scored 1:39 into overtime, lifting the Hurricanes to their third straight win.
Carolina trailed 2-0 before Brady Skjei and Nino Niederreiter scored in the final five minutes of regulation. Rookie Pyotr Kochetkov made 17 saves in winning his NHL debut.
Yegor Sharangovich and Nico Hischier scored for New Jersey. Jon Gillies, who was minutes away from his first NHL shutout, made 26 saves for the Devils in his first start in a month.
Jarvis won the game with a shot from the right circle after he was set up by Tony DeAngelo.
►(At) Boston 3, N.Y. Rangers 1: David Pastrnak scored his team-leading 39th goal after missing the previous eight games with an undisclosed injury, helping the Bruins to the win.
Taylor Hall and Trent Frederic also scored for Boston, which is jockeying for playoff seeding in the Eastern Conference. Linus Ullmark made 30 stops.
The Bruins had lost four of their previous six games.
Mika Zibanejad scored his 29th goal for New York and Igor Shesterkin made 32 saves.
Having locked up home ice in the opening round of the playoffs with a victory over the Islanders on Thursday, the Rangers had their four-game winning streak snapped.
►(At) Buffalo 5, N.Y. Islanders 3: Tage Thompson scored his team-leading 37th goal, and the Sabres beat the Islanders in a matchup of non-playoff teams.
Thompson, Rasmus Dahlin and Vinnie Hinostroza scored for Buffalo in the second period. After New York rallied in the third, Jeff Skinner made it 5-3 when he stuffed in Thompson’s rebound with 7:20 left for his 33rd goal of the season.
Casey Mittelstadt also scored for Buffalo in the first, and Dustin Tokarski stopped 19 shots.
The Sabres hung on for their fourth straight victory, the team’s longest since a 10-game run in November 2018.
Mathew Barzal, Noah Dobson and Kieffer Bellows scored for the Islanders. Ilya Sorokin made 30 saves.
►(At) San Jose 4, Chicago 1: Kaapo Kahkonen stopped 27 shots, leading San Jose to the victory.
Timo Meier had a goal and an assist for the Sharks, who won for just the second time in 13 games. Tomas Hertl, Jasper Weatherby and Nick Bonino also scored.
Chicago outshot San Jose 28-19, but only managed a second-period goal by Tyler Johnson. Kevin Lankinen made 15 saves.
Kahkonen won his second consecutive game after going winless in his first seven starts after coming over in a trade with Minnesota on March 21.
►(At) Ottawa 6, Montreal 4: Mark Kastelic scored his first two NHL goals, powering Ottawa to the win.
Austin Watson, Josh Norris, Parker Kelly and Alex Formenton also scored for the Senators. Anton Forsberg made 44 saves.
Rem Pitlick had a pair of goals and Cole Caufield and Joel Edmundson also scored for Montreal, which has lost eight straight. Carey Price, making his third consecutive start, stopped 20 shots.
The Canadiens had No. 10 patches on their jerseys in honor of Guy Lafleur, who died Friday at age 70. Prior to puck drop, the Senators showed video highlights of Lafleur, which led to a chant of “Guy, Guy,” as many got to their feet.
►St. Louis 5, (at) Arizona 4 (OT): Justin Faulk scored his second goal 30 seconds into overtime and St. Louis extended its point streak to 15 tames.
St. Louis jumped on Arizona early, building leads of 3-0 and 4-1 against one of the NHL’s worst teams. The Coyotes clawed their way back early in the third period, 4-3, on goals by Bokondji Imama and Michael Carcone 46 seconds apart.
J.J. Moser tied it with just under five minutes left, but Faulk ended it quickly in overtime, beating Harri Sateri to pull St. Louis into a tie Minnesota for second in the Central Division with 107 points. The Blues, who are 13-0-2 their past 15 games, are fighting the Wild for home-ice advantage in their first-round playoff series that was locked up earlier this week.
Logan Brown, Ivan Barbashev and Brandon Saad scored for St. Louis. Jordan Binnington had 16 saves while making consecutive starts for the first time since early January.
Nate Smith also scored and Sateri stopped 27 shots for the Coyotes, who have lost 10 straight (0-8-2).
►(At) Los Angeles 4, Anaheim 2: Alexander Edler scored the tiebreaking goal early in the third period, and Los Angeles closed in on its first playoff berth in four years.
Arthur Kaliyev, Matt Roy and Alex Iafallo also scored, and rookie Quinton Byfield and Anze Kopitar had two assists apiece in the Kings’ fourth straight victory. Jonathan Quick overcame an egregious misplay and made 19 saves in Los Angeles’ second win in five days over Anaheim in the Freeway Faceoff rivalry series.
Trevor Zegras became the top rookie scorer in Ducks history with a second-period goal and Gerry Mayhew scored on a spectacular goaltending mistake by Quick. Anthony Stolarz stopped 36 shots in Anaheim’s 18th loss in 21 games.
►(At) Calgary 6, Vancouver 3: Dillon Dube scored twice and Elias Lindholm got his 40th goal to lead Calgary.
Brett Ritchie, Nikita Zadorov and Johnny Gaudreau also scored to help the Flames – assured of first place in the Pacific Division –win for the ninth time in 11 games (9-1-1). Dan Vladar had 28 saves to improve to 12-5-2.
Quinn Hughes, Conor Garland and Elias Pettersson scored for Vancouver, which lost its third straight (0-2-1). Thatcher Demko finished with 25 saves and fell to 33-22-7. With three games remaining, the Canucks trail Nashville and Dallas in the Western Conference wild card race by six points. Vegas is two points ahead of Vancouver.