Stars align: Duchene 2OT hero after no-goal call
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Ryan S. Clark, NHL reporter
Matt Duchene‘s heroics Friday put his current team in the Western Conference finals at the expense of the team that drafted him more than a decade ago.
An unmarked Duchene flicked his wrists, and in less than a second scored the winning goal that sent the Dallas Stars to a 2-1 double-overtime win in Game 6 against the Colorado Avalanche to close out their semifinal series.
“Those guys mucked hard at the end, and it just popped out to me,” Duchene told Turner Sports after the game. “I put it in and then blacked out pretty much. I was so tired, I started skating and I got tired, and I don’t even know what I did after that. I was pretty pumped up.”
Duchene’s goal and the events that led to it came with several moving parts.
Most notably, it sends the Stars back to the Western Conference final for a second straight season and for the third time in the past five years. They will face either the Vancouver Canucks or the Edmonton Oilers. The Canucks have a 3-2 series lead and could end the series Saturday in Edmonton, or the Oilers could force a Game 7 set for Monday in Vancouver.
In last season’s conference final, the Stars lost in six games to the eventual champions, the Vegas Golden Knights.
The goal also came after some controversy in the first extra period, when Duchene was involved in a Mason Marchment goal that was called back because of goaltender interference.
With 7:29 remaining in the first overtime, Duchene was battling with Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar for position in front of Avs goaltender Alexandar Georgiev. Marchment fired a shot on net that beat Georgiev. However, the goal was reviewed, with Duchene appearing to have impeded Georgiev in the crease while contacting Makar.
The NHL Situation Room, which is charged with reviewing goals, determined that Duchene impaired Georgiev’s “ability to play his position in the crease prior to the puck entering the Colorado net.” The ruling was made in accordance with Rule 69.1, which states that “an attacking player, either by his positioning or by contact, impairs the goalkeeper’s ability to move freely within his crease or defend his goal.”
“Duchy’s ass was over the line,” Marchment told reporters after the game. “His feet were outside, but his ass was over the line. So that’s the explanation I got.”
Duchene opened the second overtime with a chance to win it early. Stars defenseman Esa Lindell recovered the puck near the Stars’ bench and played a pass through the seam that allowed Duchene to get the edge and skate toward the net. Duchene got a breakaway before Avs defenseman Josh Manson lunged forward and used his stick to disrupt Duchene’s stick, which saw his offering reach the net but get stopped by Georgiev’s right leg pad.
Duchene’s series-ending goal came soon after.
“You can imagine how we felt on the no-goal call,” Duchene told Turner Sports. “Then the breakaway, I felt like I had a really good chance to score there. Obviously, it was a slash, but it got me on the stick, so it was a legal play.”
Duchene’s winning goal eliminated the club that drafted him with the No. 3 pick in 2009. Since he requested a trade in 2017, the Avs won the Stanley Cup in 2022 while Duchene played in three markets before signing a one-year deal with the Stars last offseason.
Duchene was part of a youth movement in Colorado that was built around promising stars such as Gabriel Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen but had gone through a challenging 2016-17 season that saw them finish with 48 points. At the time, that was the fewest points in the salary-cap era.
Finishing with the worst record in the league led to the Avs getting the No. 4 pick and drafting future Norris Trophy winner Makar. Months after they drafted Makar, Duchene requested a trade.
A childhood Avalanche fan, he was traded to the Ottawa Senators as part of a three-team trade that saw the Avs receive defenseman Samuel Girard along with draft picks that later became Bowen Byram and Justus Annunen.
It was a trade that would help the Avalanche strengthen a foundation that eventually saw them win the third Cup in franchise history back in 2022.
“I have a lot of fond memories of being an Avs and they were my favorite team growing up,” Duchene told TNT. “It was an absolute honor to be here, and it was one of the hardest things I had to do was to ask out. We were just at a crossroads, and they turned it around really quick, and I was happy for them when they won.”
Duchene lasted a season and a half in Ottawa before he was traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets. He helped the Jackets reached the playoffs that year before signing a seven-year contract with the Nashville Predators worth $8 million annually.
His time with the Predators was mixed. In 2021-22, he scored a career-high 43 goals and 86 points in 78 games. The following season saw him fall 30 points shy of 86 points while playing in seven fewer games.
A front-office shift led to the Predators making changes with one of those adjustments coming in the form of buying out Duchene. It made him a free agent and someone the Stars signed to a one-year deal worth $3 million.
With the Stars this season, Duchene reached the 20-goal mark for the 11th time in his career while hitting the 60-point plateau for the fourth time.
“God had a plan for me, and I’m just living out that plan,” Duchene told TNT. “It’s kind of fitting I guess that things went the way they did last night in a barn and in a place that meant a lot to me. … I’ve nothing but fond memories as an Av and nothing but good feelings toward them.”
While fans in Edmonton and Dallas are always singing about how they have friends in low places, only one of them has the high ground in the Western Conference finals. And that’s the Oilers after their 6-1 win Sunday in Game 3 to take a 2-1 series lead.
With the series tied heading into Sunday, the objective for Game 3 was to gain a firm grasp of the conference finals, and the Oilers did just that by having five players with multipoint performances. As for the Stars, losing Game 3 left them trailing a series for the second time this postseason, with the only other such occurrence coming after Game 1 against the Colorado Avalanche in the first round.
Now that the Oilers are in control of the series, what does it mean for them going forward? What must the Stars do differently ahead of Game 4 for them to return home tied rather than a game away from elimination? Ryan S. Clark and Greg Wyshynski examine those questions while delving into what lies ahead for two teams that not only faced each other in the conference finals last season but between them have been involved in every conference final since 2020.
Edmonton Oilers
Grade: A
Much could change between now and whenever the playoffs end. But for now, the argument could be made that this was the most important playoff game the Oilers have had this postseason.
The Oilers have had numerous strong performances, such as Game 3 against the Los Angeles Kings in the first round or their final two games against the Vegas Golden Knights in the conference semifinals. But what made the Oilers’ performance in Game 3 against Dallas arguably their most important was that they found a balance between being difficult in the defensive zone while not relying on a shutout to accomplish that objective.
The Stars finished with 37 shots, 13 high-danger chances in 5-on-5 play and scored only once. Connor McDavid has repeatedly stressed that the Oilers can play defense, and that has been made clear over their past five games. But Sunday proved they didn’t need Stuart Skinner or their defensive structure to blank an opponent to win. — Ryan S. Clark
Dallas Stars
Grade: C+
The final score doesn’t reflect the majority of this game, which Dallas coach Pete DeBoer can mine for positives among the many (many) negatives and some mitigating circumstances. Having Roope Hintz warm up but not be able to go because of the foot injury he suffered from a Darnell Nurse slash in Game 2? That’s deflating. Having the on-ice officials miss a delay of game call on Brett Kulak in the first period only to have Evan Bouchard open the scoring 10 seconds later? Also deflating.
So it’s to the Stars’ credit that they got to their game at 5-on-5 in Game 3 better than they have in any game of the series, at least before Edmonton ran up the score in the third. The results weren’t there and a loss is a loss — and a loss by this margin is difficult to stomach — but their second period and the performances from some of their slumbering depth players give the Stars at least a glimmer.
However, there’s no question Edmonton has this thing in well in-hand and the Stars have to find a way to solve Skinner, which is not something I thought I’d be writing at this stage of the postseason. — Greg Wyshynski
Three Stars of Game 3
Two goals and an assist for his seventh career multigoal playoff game. Hyman’s second goal was the Oilers’ fourth off the rush, the most in one game by any team this postseason. Hyman also was plus-5 Sunday.
Bouchard scored his sixth goal of the postseason and these two were on the ice for the first two Edmonton goals. At 5-on-5 this postseason, the Oilers are outscoring their opponents 7-1, and 5-0 in this series, when Bouchard and Kulak are on the ice.
0:48
Connor McDavid restores Oilers’ 2-goal lead
Connor McDavid finds the back of the net to restore the Oilers’ two-goal lead vs. the Stars.
3. Connor McDavid
C, Oilers
For all the talk about the lack of goals from the best hockey player in the world (which was odd because he had 20 points in 13 games and was a plus-7 entering Game 3 despite having only three goals), McDavid punched out a pair of tucks for his sixth career multigoal playoff game. Also, seeing McDavid with the puck barreling toward the net on a 3-on-1 is nightmare fuel for opponents. — Arda Ćcal
Players to watch in Game 4
Zach Hyman
LW, Oilers
To go from 16 goals last postseason to just three goals entering Game 3 of the conference finals is one way to assess Hyman. Another is to realize that he’s been the most physical player on a team that is among the tallest and heaviest in the NHL.
Hyman came into Game 3 leading the NHL with 99 hits. He remained physical Sunday by leading the way with six hits in a game that saw the Oilers continue their punishing style with 47. But to then see Hyman score two goals and finish with three points in addition to that physicality? It once again adds to the narrative that the Oilers might not only have more dimensions than last year’s team, they could be better than the team that finished Stanley Cup runner-up in 2024. — Clark
0:53
Zach Hyman’s 2nd goal puts Oilers up 4
Zach Hyman taps home his second goal of the game to put the Oilers up 5-1 vs. the Stars.
This is the first two-game losing streak for the Dallas goaltender in the playoffs. A lot of what happened in Game 3 wasn’t necessarily on him — a Connor McDavid beauty and a Zach Hyman breakaway were among the Edmonton tallies — but outside of the third period of Game 1, he’s not been a difference-maker in this series. Oettinger came into the game leading the playoffs with 5.58 goals saved above expected, according to Stathletes. The Stars have been able to depend on him as a slump-breaker. But this is his third game with a save percentage south of .900 in the series. As the Stars try to build on some positives from this game, they need Otter to provide the foundation for it — and in the process, silence those “U.S. backup!” chants from the Oilers fans. — Wyshynski
Big questions for Game 4
Are the Oilers about to do to the Stars what they did to the Golden Knights?
Simply put, the Oilers are where hope goes to die. Teams in a championship window that have yet to win a title are always being judged on their evolution. What the Oilers did to the Stars a year ago in the conference finals by winning the last three games showed that they could close out a series after trailing. This postseason Edmonton has shown a calculated and methodical coldness when it comes to putting away opponents.
The Golden Knights won Game 3 on a last-second goal to create the belief they may have found an opening. They didn’t score again for the rest of the playoffs after being in the top five of goals per game throughout the regular season. Breaking out for six goals to open the series seemed to be a sign the Stars may have found an opening. Since then? They’ve scored only once in the last six periods while facing questions about what’s happened to another team that went from being in the top five in goals per game in the regular season. — Clark
Can Dallas make Edmonton uncomfortable at all?
Our colleague Mark Messier made this point between periods of Game 3: The Stars have yet to do anything to get McDavid or Leon Draisaitl off their games. That extends to the rest of the Oilers. Outside of an anomalous run of three power-play goals in the third period of Game 1, there have been precious few instances of the Stars carrying play for long stretches or putting a scare into Edmonton at 5-on-5.
They had that for a bit in Game 3 with a dominant second period: plus-14 in shot attempts, plus-11 in scoring chances and a 10-1 advantage in high-danger shot attempts. But they were digging out of a 2-0 hole, only managed to get one goal of their own on the board and then McDavid stuck a dagger in them with 19 seconds left in the second.
The Stars need a lead. They need zone time. They need to get their rush game going: Skinner had a .897 save percentage on shots off the rush entering the game. Edmonton is playing with a champion’s confidence. Dallas has to find a way to inject a little doubt into its opponent or this series is going to end quickly. — Wyshynski
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