– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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DALLAS — An early deficit and an early departure of one of the team’s most indispensable players due to injury made for tough watching for the Dallas Stars on Friday night. How the team responded after that early adversity made for a thrilling comeback victory, even if it was hard to explain what happened for much of the game before the final buzzer.
Former Ottawa player Matt Duchene had a goal and an assist, with his game-winning tally coming midway through the third period as the Stars scored the final three goals of the game to defeat the Ottawa Senators 5-4 inside American Airlines Center. Reserve goalkeeper Scott Wedgewood came in for an injured Jake Oettinger in the first period and made 25 saves on the 27 shots he faced as Dallas overcame deficits of 2-0 and 4-2 to win their second straight.
“First off, a gutsy win by us. Over 82 win you’re not going to have all perfect games, but there were different opportunities in that game where we could’ve lost that game 6-2 and we kept battling back and fighting back,” Stars head coach Pete DeBoer said. “Showed a lot of guts, a lot of character for two really important point here. So that was the biggest takeaway for me. Obviously, there’s somethings we have to clean up, getting in an early hole like that isn’t good. The big takeaway for me is our resiliency and finding a way to get two points.”
The Senators scored with their first shots on goal of the game, from a long-range effort from Travis Hamonic that deflected off the leg of Dallas defenseman Esa Lindell before beating Oettinger and a Drake Batherson rebound from the slot, building a 2-0 lead just 2:51 into the contest. After his only save about five minutes later, when he extended his right pad to the post, Oettinger signaled to an official for a timeout and skated to the tunnel at center ice.
In stepped Wedgewood, who promptly allowed a goal to Josh Norris on a breakaway at the 13:20 mark of the first period. By that time, however, the Stars had responded to Ottawa’s two early goals with a goal of their own to halve the deficit, and then Lindell scored just 10 seconds after Norris’ goal to once again cut the Senators lead to one again.
From that point, Wedgewood found his footing, and so did the Stars as they were well on their way heading on the comeback trail.
“[It’s] just a tough situation, and one that they pay me for. It’s a little difficult,” Wedgewood said about having to come in and replace the injured Oettinger. “I wish my skates were a little tighter, wish my gear to be wetter from warmups and stuff like that. You get in there and unfortunately [the Senators] got another one after we woke ourselves up. I challenge that to getting my mind in the game and for the rest of the 40-plus minutes after that I felt like I got into my hockey game. We came to play for the win and you’re not going to draw them up like that every week, but we’ll take them.”
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Friday evening’s contest, with photos taken by Dallas-area photographer Ross James. After clicking on the first photo to enlarge the picture, make sure to press the left and right arrow buttons to scroll through the rest of the pictures. There are 28 pictures in total.
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