Sports
Kraken Is Eliminated In Game 7 Of The Western Conference Finals By The Stars
(CTN News) – Following a 2-1 win over the Seattle Kraken in Game 7 of the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Dallas Stars advanced to the Western Conference finals.
Next month, the Stars will face the Vegas Golden Knights for the right to represent the West in the Stanley Cup Finals.
The Kraken were trying to reach the conference finals after only two seasons as a team, but the Stars’ rock-solid performance on both ends of the ice ended their hopes.
Thanks to tight defense, Dallas goaltender Jake Oettinger only had to make 22 saves, and the team was able to capitalize on two opportunities against Kraken goaltender Philipp Grubauer.
Roope Hintz was the first to take advantage of a Kraken miscue with four minutes remaining in the second period. When he flew off the bench into the ice, Hintz had other things on his mind when the Stars flipped the puck out of their zone to get a line change.
During a rush to the blue line, he stole the puck from Jamie Oleksiak and placed it over Grubauer’s right shoulder to give Dallas a 1-0 lead.
Next, it was Wyatt Johnston who found the puck at his stick in the Kraken zone after Evgenii Dadonov launched a pass down the ice without seeing anyone else.
With 7:12 left to play in the third period, Johnston picked up the puck off the corner wall, made his way to the goal and flicked the puck over Grubauer’s left shoulder for the 2-0 lead.
The way the game was unfolding, it appeared that was the dagger in the Kraken’s back, but Seattle was not going to surrender so easily.
Oliver Bjorkstrand finally scored with 17.6 seconds left in the decisive game by using his backhand to beat Oettinger. Despite that, his reaction was melancholy, as he knew there was still a long way to go before the Kraken could pull off the impossible.
Despite having an empty net on the other end, the Kraken were able to win a draw in their zone with nine seconds left in the game. Oettinger threw one last shot at him, but it did him no good – he turned his back on the shot and swatted it away, giving the Stars the victory they deserved.
There has been only one Stanley Cup in the possession of Dallas, although the team has won three conference championships during their career.
The last Stanley Cup victory came in the 2019-20 season, while the previous Stanley Cup victory took place in the 1998-99 season.
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