ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Jake Oettinger produced another brilliant playoff performance for the Dallas Stars, all the way down to the closing seconds.
The good show put on by the Minnesota Wild just left them with a heap of frustration.
Tyler Seguin scored two power-play goals and Oettinger made 33 saves in his home state to help the Stars bounce back from a lopsided loss and beat the Wild 3-2 in Game 4 on Sunday night to even their first-round NHL playoff series.
“Every guy on our team is going to have moments where they need to step up in these playoffs, so it was my turn tonight,” Oettinger said.
Evgenii Dadonov gave the Stars a two-score lead early in the third period just 8 seconds after escaping the penalty box, his third goal of the series. John Klingberg responded by scoring for the Wild less than three minutes later against his former team right after a goal-line block on the other end, but the Stars closed out a critical victory on the strength of their star goalie and their potent power play.
“We didn’t make them pay for taking penalties last game,” said Stars coach Peter DeBoer, whose team lost 5-1 in Game 3. “We wanted to make sure we did tonight.”
Both of Seguin’s goals followed questionable penalties on Minnesota’s feisty right wing Marcus Foligno, who was called for tripping with 4:49 remaining before Seguin delivered his third goal of the series and the second multi-goal playoff game of his career.
“It’s not a tripping call when you hit a guy clean on,” said an angry Foligno, beginning and ending his answer to a question about the officiating with the same expletive.
Frederick Gaudreau gave the Wild another opening on his power-play goal with 1:20 left, but Oettinger didn’t budge. He finished off another golden playoff performance by getting a glove on Marcus Johansson’s close-range slap shot from the right circle with 12 seconds left as just about everyone on the Wild bench winced with disappointment.
The Central Division foes will relocate for Game 5 in Dallas on Tuesday night.
