It took a little longer than anticipated, but no one in the 18,532 at the AAC Saturday night was complaining.
Thomas Harley ripped a shot past Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck 1:33 into overtime in Game 6 to send the Dallas Stars to the Western Conference finals for the third year in a row.
And for the second consecutive season, the Stars will match up against the Edmonton Oilers, who took out Vegas in five games earlier this week.
This was the Stars’ toughest home win over the Jets, who got their first good road game of the playoffs from Hellebuyck. But it wasn’t enough to keep Dallas from winning its sixth straight at the AAC. Game 1 is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday in American Airlines Center.
Sports Roundup
Back in the Western Conference finals! Photos from Stars’ Game 6 victory over the Jets
View Gallery
It’s Oilers and Stars — teams with a memorable playoff history — one more time around.
Related:Stars fans donate to charities in honor of Jets C Mark Scheifele after father’s death
At one stretch — one dangerously long stretch for the Stars — Dallas went more than 100 minutes without putting a puck past Hellebuyck from late Game 4 well into Game 6. That included the Jets’ 4-0 home shutout on Thursday but it carried well into the second period Saturday night when Winnipeg had taken a 1-0 lead on the strength of Mark Scheifele sliding a shot past Jake Oettinger early in the second period.
Scheifele is the Jets forward who was victimized by a Jamie Benn punch in the final minutes of Game 5, something that became nothing but a moment in time after Scheifele learned Saturday morning that his father had passed away. Scheifele, who has been with the Winnipeg organization since 2011, told the team later in the day he would play as planned and he managed to set the tone with the first goal of the game.
It was the 10th time in 13 postseason games that the Stars have surrendered the first goal. The fact that they came into the game with a 4-5 record while doing so meant that Game 6 was far from over.
Sure enough, the Stars tied things later in the second period when fourth-liner Sam Steel got his first goal of the playoffs. Hellebuyck stopped a Harley drive but kicked the rebound all the way out to the back of the right face-off circle, where Steel fired the puck past the Jets goalie to make it 1-1.
The score remained tied headed into the third period. Both teams had some wild scoring chances, even if that was not reflected in actual shots on goal (a 23-17 Winnipeg advantage at the end of regulation).
Steel actually came close to taking his first goal up a level to Game 6 hero when he got the puck on a breakaway in the final seconds. Scheifele had to trip him at the blue line to prevent Steel from going in unattended against Hellebuyck with 14.8 seconds left to play.
Now, it would have been an incredibly gutsy call to give Steel a penalty shot there, although it was certainly close to meeting the criteria. In fact, ESPN’s Mark Messier said he thought it should have been a penalty shot for Steel. But the Stars were given a two-minute power play as expected and although they won the face-off and kept the puck in the Jets’ zone, they couldn’t fire off a shot at Hellebuyck in the waning seconds.
Still, there were reasons to feel good about Dallas in overtime and not just because the Stars were going to open with 1:45 of man-advantage time.
Tight games have been Dallas’ friend this spring, although winning games has not coincided with scoring big for Dallas. The Stars beat Colorado in seven games but were outscored 24-21, losing by three or more goals in all three defeats. Against Winnipeg, the Stars carried a 3-2 lead into Saturday night despite having been outscored 13-11. Both losses were by scores of 4-0. But the good news for Dallas, as things remained tight throughout Game 6, was the Stars had a 5-0 record in one-goal or two-goal games.
And this wasn’t likely to be anything but that from the drop of the opening puck. Once it went to sudden death, naturally, a one-goal game was the only option remaining.
And close games belong to the Stars in these Stanley Cup playoffs.
National reaction from Stars-Jets Game 6: ‘Legends are made in the playoffs’Five thoughts from Stars-Jets Game 6: Thomas Harley’s OT goal sends Dallas to next round