Cody Eakin scored just under three minutes into overtime as the Dallas Stars evened their second-round Western Conference series at two games each with a 3-2 win over the St Louis Blues on Thursday.
The Stars, who were blown out in Game 3 of the best-of-seven series, responded with a spirited performance in Game 4 in front of a crowd of 19,700 at the Scottrade Center.
“We were embarrassed,” Dallas coach Lindy Ruff said. “I said it’s time for us to man up. And I thought we did. I thought our leaders were our leaders, and we had some young guys who played extremely well.”
Photo: AFP
Game 5 is to be played in Dallas today.
In Nashville, the Predators evened their second-round series with the San Jose Sharks at 2-2 after Mike Fisher scored his second goal of the game 11 minutes, 12 seconds into overtime for a 4-3 victory.
It was the longest game in Predators franchise history.
Patrick Sharp fed a pass to Eakin, who beat goaltender Brian Elliott 2 minutes, 58 seconds into the third extra session for his first goal of the playoffs. The Stars had lost their first two overtime playoff contests, including the second game of this NHL series.
“I just had a little bit of room and found a little hole,” Eakin said. “It just opened up.”
The game did not start all that well for Dallas as the Blues’ Vladimir Tarasenko scored a breakaway goal midway through the first period.
St Louis coach Ken Hitchcock said that despite getting the early lead, his team sat back and did not play aggressively enough.
“We didn’t bury them when we had the chances in the first period when we had all the odd-man rushes and breakaways,” Hitchcock said. “Then we let them off the mat with those two quick goals. We didn’t extend the 1-0 lead.”
The Blues tied the game 2-2 on their own power-play goal, on a four-on-three advantage, when Paul Stastny deflected a pass from Tarasenko past goaltender Kari Lehtonen in the second period.
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