DALLAS — Miro Heiskanen returned from a 42-game absence, Mikael Granlund had his first profession playoff hat trick, Jake Oettinger stopped 31 photographs and the Dallas Stars defeated the Winnipeg Jets 3-1 on Tuesday night time, taking a 3-1 sequence lead over the top-seeded membership within the second spherical of the Western Convention playoffs.
Dallas coach Pete DeBoer, in talking with reporters on Monday, despatched out indicators that Heiskanen’s return was close to, saying “I am nonetheless sticking by what I projected: that we might see him within the second spherical.” And he was proper, as his high blueliner assisted on Granlund’s third aim of the night time, and completed with 19 shifts, masking 14:52 time on ice.
Heiskanen was activated from long-term injured reserve earlier Tuesday and went by way of an optionally available morning skate. He was one of many first gamers on the ice for pregame warmups, drawing cheers from Stars followers, and was within the beginning lineup.
Heiskanen missed the final 32 regular-season video games and the primary 10 playoff video games. He injured his left knee towards Vegas on Jan. 28, when he took a giant hit from Golden Knights captain Mark Stone, and had surgical procedure in February. All through the postseason, although, he has been skating with the crew, build up the drama in the direction of his return.
With Heiskanen again and the Stars up 2-1 within the sequence, DeBoer’s membership went with seven defensemen and 11 forwards for the primary time this postseason, with the coach including “these choices are at all times troublesome since you’re taking out gamers that haven’t solely helped us all season however have made some large contributions to this point within the playoffs.”
His presence on the ice was clearly motivating. Teammate Mikko Rantanen upped his NHL-leading playoff complete to 19 factors, together with 9 targets, with the first help on Granlund’s second aim that broke a 1-1 tie with 2:08 left within the second interval and put the Stars forward to remain.
And Granlund did a double fist pump from his knees, then popped as much as his skates after his third aim, his fourth in these playoffs, on an influence play with 12:37 left within the recreation. The 33-year-old ahead had scored a number of targets just one time in his earlier 69 playoff video games, for Minnesota in 2014.
Sport 5 is at Winnipeg on Thursday, when the Stars could have their first likelihood to advance to the West remaining for the third yr in a row.
Nikolaj Ehlers scored for the Jets, who’ve misplaced all 5 of their highway video games this postseason.
Granlund notched his first aim after skating down the center over each blue traces, and a nifty transfer round Brandon Tanev close to mid-ice, earlier than snapping a 38-foot shot previous Connor Hellebuyck for a 1-0 lead simply 8 1/2 minutes into the sport.
Hellebuyck has now misplaced 9 consecutive playoff highway video games since profitable Sport 1 at Vegas in 2023, earlier than the Golden Knights received 4 in a row. The 2-time Vezina Trophy winner, the odds-on favourite to win the highest goalie award once more this season, has allowed 24 targets within the 5 highway losses in these playoffs.
The Jets started the second interval with a minute left on an influence play and Dallas technically killed the tripping penalty. However Ehlers scored from a extreme angle, his shot from the underside of the circle to left of Oettinger going below the goalie’s legs and ricocheting into the online whereas Tyler Seguin was popping out of the field.
The Related Press contributed to this report.
