Stars roar back to win Game 3 over Oilers
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Jason Robertson's hat-trick goal midway through the third period broke a deadlock and proved to be the eventual winner as the Dallas Stars beat the host Edmonton Oilers 5-3 in Game 3 of the Western Conference Final to take a 2-1 series lead.
Jason Robertson's hat-trick goal midway through the third period was the winner, but the difference in Game 3 of the Western Conference Final came 20 minutes earlier.
That's when the Dallas Stars wrestled control of Monday night's showdown with the host Edmonton Oilers, scoring three times in a three-and-a-half-minute span to take a 3-2 lead, surprising and quieting a lively Rogers Place crowd.
And while Adam Henrique tied the game near the end of the second period to set up a tight-checking third, the Stars made good on a lucky bounce for Robertson's decisive goal, with defenceman Miro Heiskanen adding an empty-netter in the 5-3 Dallas win and a 2-1 playoff series lead.
Robertson's game-winning tally came following a broken play, literally, when defenceman Esa Lindell's stick broke on his point shot, still sending the puck off a pair of Oilers to winger Tyler Seguin, whose backhand pass found the goal-scorer for a bank shot in tight that bounced into the net off Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner.
"In the playoffs, throughout games, there are momentum swings, and when you don't have it, you've got to wrestle it back," Oilers star Connor McDavid told reporters following the game, calling the second-period swoon "as bad as it's been" for his team in this year's playoffs.
"We didn't do that for the better part of that second period ... You have to feel their urgency, their desperation, their level go up, and we just didn't match it."
Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch called the middle frame's collapse a "complete reversal of the first period," in which the Oilers had taken a 2-0 lead and had outshot the Stars 10-3 through 20 minutes. Dallas answered with 16 shots to Edmonton's seven in the second, scoring three goals to the home side's one.
