Mikko Rantanen scored a natural hat trick in the second period and the Dallas Stars took a 3-2 victory over the Winnipeg Jets in Game 1 of their second-round NHL playoff series on Wednesday
Jake Oettinger stopped 30 shots for Dallas, which is facing Winnipeg in the post-season for the first time.
Nino Niederreiter and Mark Scheifele scored for the Jets, who snapped a four-game home win streak at Canada Life Centre. Connor Hellebuyck made 21 saves.
Scheifele returned to action after suffering an upper-body injury in Game 5 of Winnipeg’s opening-round series against the St. Louis Blues.
The Stars welcomed back winger Jason Robertson, who injured his knee in the team’s final game of the regular season and missed Dallas’s entire seven-game first-round matchup with the Colorado Avalanche.
Game 2 of the best-of-seven series goes Friday in Winnipeg.
The Jets earned home-ice advantage through the playoffs after finishing the regular season with a league-best 116 points. Dallas was second in the Central Division and third in the Western Conference with 106 points.
Winnipeg won three of four games against the Stars during the regular season, including a 4-0 shutout on April 10 when the clubs were vying for top spot in the division.
The Jets didn’t get their first shot on goal until just over seven minutes into the first period Wednesday. The Stars had eight at that point.
Winnipeg had the first power play of the game, where Gabriel Vilardi tried to put the puck in around the post, but Oettinger stretched his skate against the pipe.
Hellebuyck stopped Wyatt Johnson on a breakaway in the last minute of an opening period that saw the Jets outshoot the visitors 13-12 and outhit them 14-10.
Niederreiter got the sold out crowd cheering when his sharp-angled backhand beat Oettinger at the 3:30 mark of the second period. He became the NHL’s first Swiss-born player to skate in 100 career post-season contests.
Rantanen tied it up at 8:43 with his sixth goal of the playoffs when he poked the puck in after a rebound.
His second goal was a tip of Thomas Harley’s point shot at 14:21, and he made it 3-1 on the power play two minutes later when his shot went in off Jets defenceman Dylan Samberg.
Rantanen, who also scored a third-period hat trick in the Stars’ Game 7 win over Colorado in the first round, is the third player in NHL history — and the first in nearly 40 years — with hat tricks in consecutive playoff games.
Edmonton’s Jari Kurri accomplished the feat in Games 5 and 6 of the 1985 Campbell Conference final, and Chicago’s Doug Bentley did the same in Game 4 and 5 of the 1944 Stanley Cup final.
Rantanen extended his point streak to four games with eight goals and six assists across the stretch. He has 15 points this post-season.
The Finnish sniper’s third tally of the night didn’t hold Winnipeg back for long.
Scheifele cut his team’s deficit to a single goal 57 seconds later with his third goal of the playoffs.
Winnipeg got its fourth power play of the game early in the third and came up empty again.
Hellebuyck was pulled with just under two minutes on the game clock. Oettinger was swarmed, but still stopped Scheifele from in tight.
The Jets relied on late heroics in their Game 7 win over the Blues, where Cole Perfetti levelled the score at 3-3 with three seconds to go in regulation. Captain Adam Lowry then scored in double overtime to send Winnipeg to the second round of the playoffs for the first time since 2021.
