Stars eliminate Jets in Game 6 on Thomas Harley’s overtime goal: Takeaways

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DALLAS — It’s a Western Conference final rematch.

Thomas Harley scored a power-play goal at 1:33 of overtime to give the Dallas Stars a 2-1 victory over the Winnipeg Jets in Game 6 of the second-round series. The goal gave the Stars a 4-2 series win and sent them back to the conference final, where they’ll face Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and the Edmonton Oilers for the second straight spring.

The Stars never seem to make it easy on themselves, and Game 6 was no exception. Despite an utterly dominant first period, they found themselves down 1-0 early in the second period when Winnipeg’s Mark Scheifele — mere hours after the death of his father, Brad — tucked a Kyle Connor rebound between Jake Oettinger’s pads for an emotional and inspirational goal.

But Dallas is as well-equipped to handle the wild emotional swings of playoff hockey as well as just about any team in the West, and that proved true again in Game 6, as Sam Steel beat Connor Hellebuyck with a rising one-timer of a Thomas Harley rebound to tie it up less than six minutes later.

And before Harley could win the game, Oettinger first had to save the game. He did so at 11:28 of the third period, when Adam Lowry sent a cross-slot pass to Mason Appleton, who had a yawning cage to shoot into. But Appleton didn’t quite get all of it, and Oettinger made a spectacular dive to his right to keep the puck out of the net. Appleton put his hands on his head in disbelief.

“We have a mature group,” said Stars coach Pete DeBoer, who won’t have to put his astounding 9-0 record in Game 7s on the line again. “We have a weathered, battle-tested group that’s been through these before. They understand (that) to waste energy overreacting to the highs or the lows in the playoffs is not helpful. That’s our group, the key guys in our room, having been on long runs before. (They) understand that. That’s a big part of playoff hockey.”

Oettinger made 22 saves to get the better of Hellebuyck, who made 18 saves.

The Jets, the Presidents’ Trophy winners, had their season ended with their 10th consecutive playoff road loss.

Here are some takeaways:

Scheifele scores

Scheifele was already the main storyline of the night, by virtue of tragedy. He became the man of the moment by burying a rebound goal that lifted the Jets to a 1-0 lead in the second period.

Scheifele snuck behind Alex Petrovic to finish off Kyle Connor’s rebound attempt just over five minutes into the period.

THAT ONE WAS FOR DAD 💙 pic.twitter.com/gI5Zj2MeGd

— Winnipeg Jets (@NHLJets) May 18, 2025

“Mark will be playing tonight,” Scott Arniel said before the game. “As he said, that’d be the wishes of his dad. He would have wanted him to play … He’s with us, and Mark really wants to play for him.”

It was a fitting goal, a moment of tribute that the whole hockey world — save Dallas, perhaps — could celebrate.

Dallas scored its overtime goal with 13 seconds remaining on Scheifele’s tripping penalty, which prevented a breakaway. When he came out of the penalty box, Scheifele’s teammates huddled around him, hugging him as the series-ending handshakes began.

Squandered opportunities

At the end of the first period, the Stars had a ludicrous 15-1 edge in scoring chances and a 6-0 lead in high-danger chances, per Natural Stat Trick. And yet the score was 0-0. Not only that, Dallas had just six shots on goal. How? The Stars simply couldn’t hit the net.

In a dominant but sloppy and downright bizarre opening period, Dallas probably should have scored a handful of goals. But Wyatt Johnston failed to complete a wraparound when he had Hellebuyck beat. Evgenii Dadonov — who was playing like his hair was on fire — missed the net twice on Grade-A looks. Tyler Seguin sent a backhander wide after he put himself in position to have a wide-open net to shoot at (to be fair, Luke Schenn did manage to get in the way and up the degree of difficulty). And that’s just a small sampling of the squandered opportunities.

Dallas had 24 shot attempts in the period, and missed the net on 11 of them, with seven more getting blocked. And the few chances that did reach the net — such as Matt Duchene’s one-timer off a Mikko Rantanen feed — were stopped by Hellebuyck. Winnipeg was extremely fortunate to go into the locker room even.

Predictably, after all those missed opportunities for Dallas, Winnipeg got on the board first early in the second on Scheifele’s rebound goal.

Hellebuyck shines

Hellebuyck kept Winnipeg in the game through the Stars’ dominant first period, but saved his best work for the third period.

The Jets left Rantanen, of all people, all alone just a minute into the third period, free to attack Hellebuyck from the right wing and into the slot. Rantanen went forehand, backhand, forehand, stretching Hellebuyck to the limit, but Winnipeg’s goaltender got his right skate on Rantanen’s shot.

As the minutes died down and the game turned into a “next goal wins” scenario, the Stars tilted the ice in Dallas’ favor, pouncing on poor coverage and a Luke Schenn giveaway to create a pair of chances for Mikael Granlund.

Hellebuyck extended his left pad just in time to stop Granlund’s attempt from the low slot, then covered up the rebound effort that followed it.

Jets lose Morrissey to injury

The Jets’ Josh Morrissey left Game 6 late in the second period and did not return after crashing into the boards with Rantanen.

Rantanen fell on Morrissey’s left leg, bending it awkwardly as the two players crashed to the ice. Morrissey got up under his own power and finished his shift but left the ice as soon as Hellebuyck covered the puck. He held his left knee with his left glove on his way off the ice and then struggled to put weight on his left leg on his way off the ice.

Josh Morrissey has gone down the tunnel after a scary play in the Jets end pic.twitter.com/Cqz3siCd4s

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) May 18, 2025

It was Morrissey’s second game-ending injury of the playoffs. He also left Game 7 against St. Louis in the first period, watching Winnipeg’s history-making, double-overtime win from the sidelines.

The Jets forced overtime without Morrissey, again, but this time they had their season ended.

Put the whistles away

In what was perhaps the sloppiest and most physical game of the series, the officials were content to let just about everything go. There were no penalties called in the first 19 minutes, 45 seconds (other than a delayed high-sticking call that was negated by Scheifele’s goal), even though there were almost certainly penalties committed.

The clearer it became that the line was basically nonexistent, both teams gleefully started crossing it — particularly the Jets, who were credited with a series-high 54 hits, more than double the Stars’ total of 26. Scheifele alone had nine hits.

The officials drew the ire of the home crowd when a series of borderline plays by the Jets went uncalled. First, Morrissey swept Mikko Rantanen’s leg and then pulled him down on the play on which he was injured. Then, Matt Duchene was hit from behind in the corner by Adam Lowry. Shortly after that, Mason Marchment — who is unlikely to get the benefit of the doubt after his frustrated slash of referee Graham Skilliter in Game 3 — was tripped up by Luke Schenn.

Finally, with 14.8 seconds left in the third period, Scheifele tripped Sam Steel to prevent a breakaway — officials decided not to call for a penalty shot — putting Dallas on the power play for the start of overtime. That led to Harley’s goal at the 1:33 mark.

(Photo of Connor Hellebuyck and Sam Steel: Sam Hodde / Getty Images)

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