Stars Beat Golden Knights in Shootout

The Dallas Stars faced off against the Vegas Golden Knights for the first time this season. Ironically enough, the same day it was announced that Vegas will be the Stars opponent during the Stadium Series at the AT&T Stadium next season. 

The Stars are finally starting to stack some wins together after a rough start to 2026. As part of the three-game road trip, they went to St Louis after just playing them at home and they defeated them twice in a row, with the game-winning goal being scored with a minute (or just over) left in regulation. 

The game started on a positive note with Matt Duchene scoring about 90 seconds into the first period. Jamie Benn drove the net and created a rebound while pulling Adin Hill out of the net. The rebound fell right in front of Duchene who had an empty net, outside of the defender standing in it, to shoot at and he did not miss, notching his eighth goal of the season.

The Knights tied the game up early in the second period after Miro Heiskanen tried to slap the puck around the boards, only for the puck to bounce off of Mitch Marner, directly to Keegan Kolesar who was all alone in front of Jake Oettinger. The Stars, who have historically had bad second periods were determined to not let another second period take momentum from the way they played the first period. 

Mavrik Bourque scored back-to-back goals scoring his ninth and tenth goal of the season to give the Stars a 3-1 lead. The Stars did not take the foot off the gas pedal even after a two-goal lead. With a couple minutes left in the second, the Stars took a face-off in the offensive zone, Wyatt Johnston was able to clean up his own rebound, making the score 4-1. All four goals for the Stars were on 5v5 which is something the Stars have known needed to get better. 

The third period appeared to smooth sailing at the start with the three goals lead they started the final frame with. Especially since the third period started with a power-play attempt, which did not go well for the Stars from the beginning. A turnover by Jason Robertson created a 2-on-1 going the other way and Reilly Smith was able to get it past Oettinger off of the pass.  

After the short-handed goal it appeared the Stars started to take on some water, spending a lot of time in their zone. The Knights would come within one when Ivan Barbashev gets a shot off nearly unchallenged from the middle of the ice with a little over six minutes left in the game. With under two minutes left in the game, Vegas pulled Hill for the extra attacker. With the way the third period had gone, a last minute tie game felt inevitable. And it was, Marner scored his 13th goal of the season with 49 seconds left.

The game would not be settled in 3-on-3 hockey, as both teams have spent a lot of time playing in over time this season. Robertson was up first in the shootout. He was 3/6 going into tonight and would move 4/7 after beating Hill. Duchene took the second attempt, a good coach's call as he has been hot recently, but he was snubbed by Hill. Vegas did not score on their two attempts and Mikko Rantanen took the game home for the Stars.

The Stars now head to Salt Lake City to take on the Utah Mammoth. 

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