With Franchise Record 10th Overtime Goal, Jamie Benn Gives Stars A Much-Needed Win

Dallas Stars captain Jamie Benn set a franchise record with his 10th overtime goal of his career. He surpassed Mike Modano to sit atop the record books alone as his team won, 4-3, over the Calgary Flames.

It was a win the Stars desperately needed, even if it required extra time to get there once again. Dallas came into the game against the Flames with a 0-2-2 record over the past two weeks. They’re still in search of a regulation win, but ending the winless streak is good. So far, the Stars have collected three of four possible points on the road and will end their Canadian swing in Vancouver on Sunday.

Denis Gurianov opened the scoring in the first frame after being a healthy scratch last game. He worked his way to the front of the net on the power play and Miro Heiskanen threaded an unbelievable pass through two Flames players in front of the net for a deft redirect. It came in a period in which the Stars outplayed the Flames, with a few more posts pinged by Stars shooters (they just might lead the league in this category, anecdotally it feels like they do so far.)

The second period was a stark contrast to the first.

Dallas managed to put themselves into penalty trouble and struggled to get out of their own zone. Milan Lucic tied the game 1-1 on a shot that trickled through Anton Khudobin. Late in the frame, Blake Comeau took a penalty that put the Flames’ 4th best power play on the job. Matthew Tkachuk scored his fifth goal of the season, and the Stars appeared to be headed to the third period down 2-1.

Then, Comeau redeemed himself for the late penalty. He skated into the offensive zone after helping to spring the forward motion from his own zone, took a pass from Michael Raffl, and used patience to find an opening. He threaded the puck through the short side of Jacob Markstrom to tie the game with six seconds remaining in the period to tie the game.

Tyler Seguin gave Dallas a go-ahead goal early in the third period after Alexander Radulov shot the puck to the front of the net. That’s where Seguin’s body was, and the puck hit his stick and bounced off his upper body over Markstrom’s head.

The Stars looked bound for their first regulation win, but then penalties continued to stack up for Dallas. The team spent a lot of time in the defensive zone, and Calgary finally broke through with a tying goal off a laser shot from Nikita Zadarov.

Overtime saw Dallas once again struggle to control the puck or play with much possession. But when they finally did get an opportunity, Benn made sure to make it count. He took a drop pass by Joe Pavelski and used Pavelski as a screen to snap home the overtime winner.

Dallas got a bit of a scare in the game when it looked like Miro Heiskanen was injured. He said after the game that he simply took a hit that knocked the wind out of him. “I didn’t see the guy coming, just hit my stomach, blow my air out,” he said. “So I couldn’t breathe for a couple seconds. So yeah, wasn’t that bad.”

Not that bad? Heiskanen finished the game with three assists in a team-high 25:22 of play time. Heiskanen has 10 points in 10 games played so far this season, one point behind the league leaders in blueliner scoring (Kevin Shattenkirk, Adam Fox, and Roman Josi).