Rantanen Nets Shootout Winner as Stars Outlast Penguins 3-2

 

Sunday night at American Airlines Center turned into a fierce, low-scoring showdown between the Penguins and the Stars, ultimately becoming a battle of elite goaltending that required a shootout to decide the winner. Both Tristan Jarry and Jake Oettinger were phenomenal, trading spectacular saves all night long in a hard-fought, defensive gem. The Penguins, who got strong efforts and goals from Connor Dewar and Tommy Novak to take the lead, were aiming to extend their win streak. However, the Stars' relentless push, led by Jamie Benn, culminated in Miro Heiskanen scoring a dramatic game-tying goal late in the third period. The defensive deadlock persisted through overtime until Mikko Rantanen netted the decisive goal in the shootout, securing the 3-2 final for Dallas, extending their own impressive winning streak to three games, and snapping Pittsburgh's two-game run.

Pittsburgh Penguins Lineup:

Novak - Crosby - Rust

Mantha - Hayes - Brazeau

McGroarty - Kindel - Koivunen

Dewar - Lizotte - Acciari

Wotherspoon - Karlsson

Shea - Letang

Graves - Dumba

Jarry

Silovs

Dallas Stars Lineup:

Benn - Johnston - Rantanen

Robertson - Hintz - Duchene

Back - Hryckowian - Bourque

Steel - Faska - Blackwell

Lindell - Heiskanen

Kolyachonok - Lundqvist

Capobianco - Petrovic

Oettinger

DeSmith

With little time left to play in the first period, Connor Dewar opened the scoring to give the Penguins a 1-0 lead for his sixth goal of the season. Ryan Graves picked up the puck back in Pittsburgh's zone when it got stuck behind the net, popping out to Dewar, who sent it around from the right to Graves, who shot it out of the left corner to Noel Acciari in the neutral zone. Acciari made a quick pass to Blake Lizotte near the left boards, and as Dewar drove into the Dallas zone, Lizotte handed it over to him for a one-timer from the high slot, beating Jake Oettinger five-hole at 1:42.

Jamie Benn tied it up early in the second at 18:33 for his fourth of the season and second in his past five games when Roope Hintz drove into the Penguins' zone with Benn, feeding him a no-look, cross-ice pass for a snap shot past Tristan Jarry in the high slot. The Penguins answered, breaking the tie 2-1 at 14:04 when Tommy Novak deflected a shot from the point in the low slot by Kris Letang, who took a pass from Sidney Crosby.

Late in the third, just a little time remaining in regulation, Miro Heiskanen found the back of the net for his sixth goal of the season to tie it back up 2-2 to go into overtime with 1:49 left in the third period. He made a pass over to Wyatt Johnston, who was on the left side, and ended up handing the puck back over to Heiskanen, who fired from near the blue line through traffic while Oettinger was pulled for an extra attacker.

After a scoreless overtime, heading into the shootout, Mikko Rantanen scored the only goal in the shootout in the third round for the 3-2 final.

Mikko Rantanen on the Penguins and the game, the importance of digging deep and finding a way, and the key to playing with the urgency the Stars played with against Pittsburgh: "They were obviously playing better than us, but that's what happens sometimes. You know, they're a good team; they've got some good players. JK made some big saves in the third. We got a big one from Miro and find a way again." - "I think in those moments when you might have a lot of games... gotta lean on your system, try to play good, sound defensive hockey, and you know, limit the chances for the other team, and then just try to capitalize when we get chances. Kind of like we did today. In the third, we had more looks than we did, obviously, a bit more urgency being down by one goal. The clock was winding down. Yeah, we'll take the win, but we've got to be better in Winnipeg. ...It's important. Sometimes these games can get frustrating; you know, when you don't create as much. You want to get in, play in the o-zone, but the other team is doing a good job. 6-on-5 had good urgency, you know, we held them in for a while, and eventually found a way with a good screen."

Tristan Jarry on the end result of this game, on his teammates out in front of him, and momentum/building: "A little disappointing. We were right there. I think they obviously had us hemmed in for quite a while on that 6-on-5 goal. It could have gone either way. I think we did a good job in overtime. We're trading chance for chance, and that could have gone either way. And then obviously, in the shootout, it can go either way, too. So I think it's a hard-earned point, but you obviously always want to come out with two." - "It was huge. We played a lot in their zone. We were putting pucks on net, and we were just hemming them in. I thought we had a lot of offensive-zone time. We were hanging on to pucks, and obviously, when we got into our end, and it came down to it, the guys were doing a great job getting in front of pucks, blocking, getting pucks out, and I think that's what a lot of the success for our game was today. ...Every game we want to build. I think just watching video, and going over the things that we do in practice, every game we want to get a little better. We want to get a little bit tighter. I think we've played some really good teams over this road trip, and I think we've played some really good games. So, I think just building off of that and seeing what we can take from it."

Notes:

- Tristan Jarry made a total of 21 saves for Pittsburgh, and Jake Oettinger made a total of 27 saves for Dallas.

- Tommy Novak, over his last five games, has picked up six points: two goals, four assists.

- Miro Heiskanen has four points in now three games straight, recording three goals and one assist.

- The Stars are 20-5-5, won three games in a row, and have extended their point streak to 10 games (8-0-2).

- The Penguins are 14-7-6, and are 4-1-1 in their past six games.

- The Penguins played without Evgeni Malkin after it came out that he would not be playing against Dallas due to an upper-body injury. He's day-to-day.

- Before the game, Noel Acciari and Justin Brazeau were both activated from injured reserve. Boko Imama was reassigned to WBS, and both Harrison Brunicke and Jack St. Ivany were recalled from their conditioning loans with the WBS Penguins.

- After missing extensive time due to injuries, both Matt Duchene and Nils Lundqvist made a return to the Dallas lineup. Duchene (undisclosed) had been out since the 18th of October, and Lundqvist (lower body) since the 16th of October.