Jake Oettinger made 32 saves and Ty Dellandrea scored the go-ahead goal as the Dallas Stars defeated the Vegas Golden Knights 4-2 in Game 4 of their Western Conference first-round series Monday night in Las Vegas.
Roope Hintz, Wyatt Johnston and Evgenii Dadonov also scored for top-seeded Dallas, which evened the best-of-seven series with its second straight road win. Game 5 is Wednesday night in Dallas.
Stars coach Peter DeBoer said of Oettinger: “When he gets in that zone, he’s a really tough guy to beat. We’re going to need that. He has to be one our best players, and I feel like he’s in that zone now.”
Jack Eichel and Michael Amadio scored for Vegas, and Logan Thompson finished with 28 saves.
“So here we are. Tied 2-2,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “All close games. So we have to be the team that makes the right plays the next game like we did up there on the last trip. … We made the plays at the right time to win the hockey game, played winning hockey in the third period, and that will be the task in front of us now again.”
Vegas took a 1-0 lead at the 14:25 mark of the first period when Amadio, a healthy scratch for the first three games of the series, tapped in his own rebound.
Dallas tied it a few minutes later when Dadonov banked a shot in off Thompson’s mask for his first goal of the playoffs.
The Golden Knights regained the lead at 2-1 early in the second period when Eichel tapped in a rebound of a Jonathan Marchessault shot that caromed to him off the post for his third goal of the playoffs.
Dallas tied it midway through the period on a power-play tally by Johnston, who fired in a wrist shot from the low shot for his third goal.
The Stars took their first lead at 3-2 with 1:26 left in period when Craig Smith’s shot from right side of the net hit Dellandrea, stationed by the left post, in the shoulder and caromed into the net for his first goal of the playoffs.
Vegas pulled Thompson for an extra attacker with 1:50 to go, and Hintz, moments after making a big block, made it 4-2 with an empty-netter with 1:22 left.
Dallas defenseman Ryan Suter picked up a hooking penalty with 50.7 seconds to play. The Golden Knights pulled Thompson again for a six-on-four power play but couldn’t manage a shot on goal. Chris Tanev blocked three shots and Eichel and Chandler Stephenson fired shots wide of the goal.
–Field Level Media
