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Stars Beat Capitals in Overtime for First Win of the Season

Posted on by Tyler Mair

After starting the season off 0-3-0, the Dallas Stars were in desperate need of a win Tuesday night. And although it wasn’t always pretty, they got it — Tyler Seguin scored less than a minute into overtime to defeat the Washington Capitals 4-3, notching Dallas their first win of the season.

As per usual, the Stars looked heavily outmatched in the first period, but picked up the pace starting in the second. They were badly outshot most of the game, but flipped the script starting in the third period. Roope Hintz found the back of the net once again, as did Alexander Radulov for his first of the season and Nicholas Caamano for the first of his career.

The Stars will return to Dallas tomorrow for their game against the Calgary Flames on Thursday, after which they’ll face the Capitals again on Saturday.

First Period

Stars fans hoping to see something different this game were disappointed early. Dallas consistently struggled to enter the offensive zone, and failed to get much pressure on net when they did. The Capitals did not have such troubles — less than five minutes in, Evgeni Kutznetsov, fresh off of his suspension, scored to put Washington up 1-0.

Dallas got a chance to even the score a couple minutes later when Andrej Sekera drew a tripping penalty by Lars Eller. But this being the Stars’ power play, the ensuing two minutes were largely wasted. The team’s best scoring chance came later on when Nicholas Caamano came streaking down the right side with the puck, but the rookie forward fired his shot too far to the left.

With 5:12 left, Esa Lindell went to the box for roughing, but the Stars’ penalty kill prevailed without him. The Capitals failed to score again, and the first period came to an end with Dallas down by only one.

Score: Washington 1, Dallas 0
Shots: Washington 13, Dallas 5

Second Period

The middle frame started much better for the Stars, as Jamie Benn nearly scored just a few seconds in. Then two minutes into the period, Jamie Olesiak created a turnover and got the puck up to Roope Hintz, who found the back of the net because he’s a lean, mean, scoring machine:

Things were a mixed bag from that point on. An Andrej Sekera shot accidentally hit Joel L’Esperance in the head, who was then forced to leave the game due to get checked out (he eventually returned). Later, Justin Dowling took a dumb penalty by hitting Lars Eller in the head with his hand, putting the Stars a man down once more

On the flip side, the Stars managed to kill off the penalty, and Oleksiak was able to set up another scoring opportunity. The Stars’ next best chance to score, however, came from Mattias Janmark, who was absolutely robbed by Braden Holtby. After a rough first period, the Stars finally looked like they were building some momentum.

Unfortunately, John Carlson killed that momentum on the next shift, as Ben Bishop — who had been stellar all night — let in a soft goal by the Capitals’ defenseman:

Nicholas Caamano later got another scoring opportunity, but fell short once more. Then with less than two minutes left in the period, John Klingberg took a tripping penalty on Ovechkin. The Stars held the Capitals back as time expired, and would head to the locker room down both a goal and a man.

Score: Washington 2, Dallas 1
Shots: Washington 27, Dallas 11

Third Period

Shortly after killing off the rest of the Klingberg penalty, the Stars went up a man themselves thanks to a hooking call against Jonas Siegenthaler. The Stars failed to score on the power play, but it seemed to set the tone for the rest of the period. After getting badly outshot all game, Dallas was now dominating the shot counter. It paid off when Alexander Radulov tallied his first of the season about eight minutes in:

Four minutes later, Nicholas Caamano got yet another scoring chance. But this time he’d find twine, giving Dallas the go-ahead goal. It was also Caamano’s first NHL goal:

What shortly followed can only be described as “Penalty Palooza.” First, Garnet Hathaway took a hooking call to put Dallas on the power play. But then Klingberg got called for a questionable hold, followed by another curious holding call on Tyler Seguin. The Stars’ proceeded to kill off the 4-on-3 and 5-on-3. Shortly after Klingberg came back onto the ice, Washington took another penalty as Evgeni Kutznetsov got called for interference.

Eventually, it was 5-on-5 hockey again. That is, until the Capitals pulled Holtby, which led to a Niklas Backstrom goal to tie it up:

And just like that, the Stars and Capitals would be heading to overtime.

Score: Washington 3, Dallas 3
Shots: Washington 32, Dallas 23

Third Period

Right before the start of overtime, I put this out on Twitter:

Thankfully I only got one of those right:

Final Score: Washington 3, Dallas 4
Final Shots: Washington 32, Dallas 26

Mood:

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