Denis Gurianov’s one-timer goal in overtime sent the Dallas Stars to their first Stanley Cup Final in 20 years. A goal that instantly elevated all the Stars to a celebration and sunk a Golden Knights team that looked ready to play in the Final and likely hoist the Cup themselves. The Goal capped off three unanswered goals for the Stars in the final ten minutes of regulation and overtime, a sign that the Stars have outplayed what can be classified as an overconfident Knights team.
The Knights will likely look at the overtime winner as a robbery of a victory since Zach Whitecloud was penalized for a delay of game as he lifted the puck over the glass in his own territory. This set up the 5 on 4 advantage that gave the Stars the passing lanes that set up Gurianov to fire a shot past Robin Lehner. While the penalty is an annoyance that shouldn’t decide a series or a game, we have to admit that the Stars were the better team throughout the series and despite being outplayed for most of the game, they escaped the game with an overtime victory to put away the favored Golden Knights.
The Golden Knights have to admit something that is difficult to say, they played down to the Stars and let them pass them by. The Knights fell flat in this series and with most of their stars forgetting to show up and the team not scoring with the same frequency they were able to in the earlier rounds (take Rielly Smith as a prime example, while he scored on a top-shelf goal in Game Five, he failed to score the entire series as he was a non-factor for Vegas). We have to credit the Knights that did make some of the games competitive, Shea Theodore was constant pain for the Stars both offensively and defensively and Game Five saw him float a beautiful saucer-pass to Chandler Stephenson to set up a breakaway goal. Robin Lehner played rather well but the lack of support throughout the series only made his efforts a lost cause.
This is where we see the difference between the Stars and the Golden Knights. The players that needed to step up for Dallas, di so at the end of the day. Anton Khudobin has been lights out throughout this series and has become the goalie the Stars need to win a Cup. Jamie Benn was quiet at the beginning of the series but has flipped a switch and scored a goal in each of the last three games, including a goal that gave the Stars the momentum in Game Five as he got to the net and pivoted with the puck to put it past Lehner. Alexander Radulov has scored 8 goals for the Stars in the playoffs, including the Game Three overtime winner.
It might be weird to see the Dallas Stars in the Stanley Cup Final, a team that wasn’t expected to beat one of the more complete teams in the Colorado Avalanche and certainly not beat the top-seeded Golden Knights in five games. Now that they have made it, we have to prepare ourselves to see them winning the Stanley Cup.
As for Vegas, we have to wonder where they will go from here. This was a team that looked defeated after the goal by Gurianov but the expression that really seemed to be prevalent was one of denial. This was a Vegas team that looked almost confident that they were going to play in the Stanley Cup Final like it was their right to play the Tampa Bay Lightning to determine the best team in the NHL, they couldn’t believe they got eliminated by the Dallas Stars. It’s hard to say if they will be back in the Cup conversation, they have the players to compete but are going to facing a difficult cap situation that will likely result in a decent amount of turnover of the roster.
