Dallas Stars advance to Stanley Cup Final

EDMONTON, Alberta—The Dallas Stars punched their ticket to advance to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 2000 last night as they took down the Vegas Golden Knights, 3-2 in overtime. The Stars will await the winner of the Eastern Conference Finals between the New York Islanders and the Tampa Bay Lightning to see who they will face in the final.

Dallas trailed the Golden Knights, 2-0, with just 10:06 remaining in the game before Team Captain Jamie Benn was able to score the first points of the night for the Stars to bring them within one.

Rookie Joel Kiviranta, who scored a hattrick in game seven of the Western Conference Semi Finals, scored the game-tying goal with 3:47 in regulation to force overtime.

Just 3:36 into overtime, Denis Gurianov scored a power-play goal assisted by John Klingberg and Roope Hintz to end the Golden Knights’ season and send the Stars to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in 20 years.

The road to the Stanley Cup Final has be an exciting one for the Stars. After losing the series opener against the Calgary Flames in the opening round of the playoffs, Dallas bounced back and won four of their next five games to advance to the Western Conference Semi Finals.

In the WCSF, the Stars opened the series with a pair of wins over the Colorado Avalanche, winning 5-3 and 5-2. The Stars lost game three, 6-4, but were able to turn around and win game four, 5-4.

Needing just one more win to advance to the Western Conference Finals, the Stars were blown out in games fives and six, losing 6-3 and 4-1, allowing the Avalanche to force a game seven.

Game seven was a back-and-forth affair that found Dallas trialing for much of the game. Kiviranta scored a goal with less than 4 minutes remaining to send it into overtime and went on to score the game-winning goal 7 minutes into the overtime period to send to Stars to the Western Conference Finals.

The Stars went on to take game one in the Conference Finals over the Golden Knights, 1-0. The Golden Knights answered back with a 3-0 win in game two, but it’s been all Stars since. Dallas won games three, four and five, each by one point, with two of the wins coming in overtime.

Now with the chance to get some rest, Dallas will await the winner of the Eastern Conference Finals between the Islanders and Lightning. Information on when the Stanley Cup Final will begin and where it will be aired will be published in upcoming editions of the News-Telegram.