Joel Kiviranta on Friday capped his hat-trick by scoring the overtime winner as the Dallas Stars punched their ticket to the NHL Western Conference finals with a 5-4 win in Game 7 over the Colorado Avalanche.
Kiviranta got open in front of the Colorado net and took a pass from Andrej Sekera, then beat Avalanche goaltender Michael Hutchinson with a one-timer 7:24 into the overtime.
It was the first career hat-trick for the 24-year-old Finn, who also scored in the second period to tie the game 2-2 and in the third to tie it 4-4, which set the stage for his overtime heroics in the NHL’s quarantine hub in Edmonton, Alberta.
Photo: AFP
“This is what you dream about when you are a young kid,” said the rookie forward, who scored just one goal in the regular season. “This is the first Game 7 in my life. I didn’t know what to expect.”
Kiviranta’s second goal came late in the third and just 10 seconds after Vladislav Namestnikov had scored to give Colorado a 4-3 lead with 3:40 left.
The Stars advanced to the NHL’s final four, where they next face the Vegas Golden Knights, who shut out the Vancouver Canucks 3-0 to win their series in seven games.
The first game of the series is today in Edmonton.
Despite having to rally three times from deficits on Friday — from 2-1, 3-2 and 4-3 — the Stars controlled the play and looked more confident with the puck in overtime.
Whenever the Stars and Avalanche have met, there has been plenty of fireworks and this series was no different. In seven games, the two teams combined for 57 goals.
Stars defenseman Sekera started the play on the winning goal by skating along the boards, then stopping behind the Avalanche net and waiting for Kiviranta to give the defense the slip and get open.
“Their defense lost me a bit and they didn’t know who was going to pick me up. I tried to find a soft spot and it was a great pass,” Kiviranta said.
Kiviranta is an undrafted free agent inserted into the lineup halfway through the series to replace injured forward Andrew Cogliano.
“We had a secret Finnish weapon,” Stars captain Jamie Benn said.
Russian Alexander Radulov also scored twice for Dallas, who advanced to their first conference finals since 2008.
Namestnikov scored twice and Andre Burakovsky and Nazem Kadri had one goal apiece for Colorado.
Vegas goaltender Robin Lehner stopped 14 shots for the shutout and the Golden Knights killed off a five-minute penalty to Ryan Reaves — who was thrown out of the game for a vicious check to the head on Canucks forward Tyler Motte.
The Golden Knights finally solved Vancouver’s rookie netminder Thatcher Demko, who was coming off two straight wins over Vegas and kept Friday’s winner-take-all showdown close until the final minutes.
Defenseman Shea Theodore scored the eventual winner with just over six minutes left in the third period, snapping the 0-0 tie by sneaking a long wrist shot through a maze of players and into the top corner of the Vancouver net.
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