The Dallas Stars and Vegas Golden Knights brought the series back to Dallas for game three. Vegas took the first two games in overtime, which gave them a nice 2-0 series lead.
With the series coming back to their home ice, the Stars needed a big game to get back in this series. They say you are never out of it until you lose at home.
Well, Jonathan Marchessault silenced the Dallas crowd just 1:11 into the game by scoring to make it 1-0. From there, things did not go well for the Dallas Stars at all.
Not long after going down 1-0, Jamie Benn made one of the most boneheaded plays you will ever see an NHL player make. He took his stick and used it in a very dangerous way.
Benn cross-checked Mark Stone in the jaw/neck while he was down on the ice. It appears as if there was an intent to injure on the play. A five-minute major and a game misconduct were assessed to Benn.
That was all Vegas needed to keep the domination going. They scored one power-play goal on the five-minute major, as Ivan Barbashev gave them a 2-0 lead.
The Vegas Golden Knights dominated the Dallas Stars in game number three.
Not long after the major expired, William Carrier made it 3-0. The wind was fully out of Dallas’s sails by then. Benn really did his team a disservice, as they pretty much had no chance to come back from the 1-0 deficit once he did that.
In the second period, Alex Pietrangelo scored his first of the playoffs which gave Vegas a 4-0 lead. That felt like the actual endpoint of the game, as it is a big lead halfway through a game.
Vegas hung on to the shutout bid for Adin Hill. It wasn’t easy for him, as Dallas almost doubled Vegas in shots, but that happens with such a big lead sometimes. He has been magnificent in the goal for Vegas so far since coming in.
Now, the Knights have a 3-0 series lead and can sweep the Stars on Thursday night if they win. Both the Eastern Conference and Western Conference Finals are 3-0.
This was the first game of the entire round that wasn’t close though. The bounces just haven’t gone in the way of the Stars, and their captain let them down in game three.
Only four teams in NHL history have ever come back from 3-0 down, but Dallas just has to take it one game at a time. We’ll see if they can make it a series.