Stars, Mikko Rantanen gain upper hand on Jets with Game 3 victory: Takeaways

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DALLAS — Winnipeg Jets coach Scott Arniel chuckled when asked before Sunday’s game what had worked so well against preposterously hot Mikko Rantanen in a Game 2 shutout of the Dallas Stars.

“Well, we’re not done with him yet,” Arniel said.

Not by a long shot. For the fifth time in his last six games, Rantanen had at least three points, chipping in a goal and two assists in Dallas’ 5-2 victory over Winnipeg in Game 3 of their second-round series. Dallas now leads the series 2-1, with Game 4 set for Tuesday night.

Rantanen’s goal at 4:40 of the third, 49 seconds after Alex Petrovic’s go-ahead tally, broke open what had been a tight contest. The big Finn took a Roope Hintz leave, waited out Dylan Samberg and fired a rising wrister through a Neal Pionk screen past Connor Hellebuyck to make it 4-2. Rantanen also had primary assists on goals by Hintz (a power-play tally to open the scoring early in the first) and on Petrovic’s goal.

The Hintz goal ran Rantanen’s astounding streak to 13 consecutive Dallas goals that he either scored or assisted on. That streak was snapped when Thomas Harley scored late in the first period, but Rantanen more than made up for it in the third.

It was another dicey road outing for Hellebuyck. The Jets goalie is a lock to win his third Vezina Trophy as the league’s best goaltender. But that’s a regular-season award, and the Jets star followed up his Game 2 shutout at home by giving up five goals on 26 shots at American Airlines Center. And Petrovic’s go-ahead goal was knocked in by Hellebuyck — something even the referee was compelled to point out after a review. At least he wasn’t pulled in this one; it’s the first road game of this postseason in which he made it to the end of the game. In four road games, he’s given up 21 goals has a save percentage south of .800.

Ain’t that a kick in the head?

It’s the Year of the Own-Goal, and we got another one Sunday afternoon. Petrovic’s go-ahead goal at 3:51 of the third period went in off Hellebuyck’s stick — something even referee Graham Skilliter felt compelled to point out after a review.

The review lasted nearly eight full minutes, as the officials tried to determine if Petrovic kicked the puck in or not. The puck clearly went in off Petrovic’s left skate, and there might even have been a distinct kicking motion. But it went through a latticework of sticks on the way, and nearly all of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” played as the review dragged on and on and on. Finally, the officials determined the puck was put in by Hellebuyck, rendering the kicking motion moot.

It was a big moment for Petrovic, a 33-year-old veteran who has emerged as a postseason security blanket for Stars coach Pete DeBoer. Petrovic played just five games for the Stars this year and just one last year, spending 128 games in the AHL over those two seasons. But he’s played in all 10 playoff games, after playing in seven last spring.

Morrissey delivers his first signature playoff moment

The Jets were down 2-1 in the second period and had nothing going: no sustained offensive zone shifts, nothing working off the rush.

Josh Morrissey changed that with a head fake and a shimmy around Colin Blackwell, then wired a perfect cross-seam pass through Stars coverage to Nino Niederreiter waiting in the corner. It was Winnipeg’s best and perhaps only scoring chance to that point of the period and Niederreiter made no mistake, corralling the puck and then burying it into a mostly empty net.

OH MY, JOSH MORRISSEY! 🥵

What a move to set up Nino Niederreiter to tie the game! #StanleyCup

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Morrissey looked off Blackwell as he received Dylan DeMelo’s pass, selling shot before pulling the puck to himself in the middle of the ice, then picked a seam through Evgenii Dadonov and Harley to make the play.

Morrissey’s virtuoso moment got the Jets to the second intermission with a tie. It was his fifth point of his injury-interrupted playoffs and his first signature moment from the offensive line.

High event game from Winnipeg’s top line

Matchups were a big story in the pregame, with the Stars having last change and Arniel talking about a “cat-and-mouse” game to check the Stars’ top players. In the end, Rantanen, Hintz, and Granlund went head-to-head and controlled the power-vs.-power matchup.

Kyle Connor got the Jets on the board in the first period, jumping onto a Gabriel Vilardi rebound and wrapping the puck around Oettinger too quickly for the Stars’ goaltender to respond. After that, it was a long night for the Jets’ top line.

They spent much of the second period responding to attacks from Rantanen’s line and struggled to transition the puck up ice to give themselves a chance to score. Rantanen’s 4-2 goal also burned them in the third period, while earning roughly one-quarter of shot attempts head-to-head with Rantanen’s line over the full course of the game. Some of this is about the greatness of Rantanen’s line, while some is about flying the zone before the puck was safe and Rantanen’s goal was a 3-on-2 with limited backpressure and poor transition defence.

The Jets stars tried to pour it on after the Stars went up 4-2, but it was too little, too late.

Special teams disparity

Late in the first period, with the Jets on the power play, Morrissey entered the zone and executed a nifty give-and-go with Mark Scheifele, who left the puck for Morrissey in the low slot with an open net in front of him, as Jake Oettinger had followed Scheifele out wide. But Wyatt Johnston, fresh off the bench, snuck up behind Morrissey and tied up his stick to break up the scoring chance.

Less than a minute later, Mikael Granlund, from his knees after being tripped by Niederreiter, found Harley in the slot for a Stars goal and a massive two-tally swing.

Dallas’ special teams was the difference early on. With Chris Rooney and Skilliter calling the game tightly (for the first period, at least; things got a lot looser after that), each team had two first-period power plays. Dallas got a goal from Hintz on its second power play, the center redirecting a Rantanen pass past Hellebuyck just 2:27 into the game. Dallas, meanwhile, hounded the Jets on their power plays, applying particular pressure at the blue line on entries and down low, denying the low-to-high passes. Dallas has successfully killed off 11-of-12 Jets power plays in the series and have the second-best PK in the playoffs with an 87.5-percent kill rate.

Frustration mounts for Marchment

Mason Marchment might have crossed a line in the final minute of the second period, slashing referee Graham Skilliter on the ankle — not viciously, but apparently making contact — after a rather blatant Scheifele interference went uncalled. Scheifele hit Marchment well after he had sent the puck up ice, and was slow to get up. When he finally did get up from one knee, he rapped Skilliter on the leg, presumably on the shin pad.

Skilliter didn’t react or respond in any way, but Marchment continued barking at him from the bench. Marchment likely can expect a call from the league after that one.

Marchment has a goal and two assists in 10 playoff games, and doesn’t have a point in his last five.

(Photo of Thomas Harley and Mikko Rantanen: Sam Hodde / Getty Images)

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