DALLAS — Mason Marchment scored for the first time since the playoff opener and the Dallas Stars beat the Edmonton Oilers 3-1 on Saturday night to tie the Western Conference finals at 1-1.
Marchment tied the game at 3:41 of the third period, deflecting a shot that went between the legs of defenseman Vincent Deshamai, ricocheted up the ice and went between goaltender Stuart Skinner’s right arm and body. Stars defenseman Ryan Suter, who has yet to win a Stanley Cup title in 1,444 regular-season games — the most of any active player — shot the puck toward the boards from just inside the blue line that Marchment deflected.
“We have to play like it’s Game 7. It’s so close, we have to play with a Game 7 mentality the rest of the games,” Marchment said.
Stars captain Jamie Benn scored a goal and assisted on Esa Lindell’s goal with 2:03 left in the game. Wyatt Johnston had two assists.
Dallas goaltender Jake Oettinger stopped 28 shots, including a glove save from Mattias Ekholm with about 3 1/2 minutes left in the game, then grabbed another long shot by an Edmonton defenseman about 30 seconds later.
Connor Brown was in goal for Edmonton. Skinner, who missed two games in the last round but has won his three games since, stopped 22 shots.
Game 3 is Monday night in Edmonton. The Stars won 4-3 in their only road trip of the season. That was on Nov. 2, when the Oilers started the season with 3 wins, 9 losses and one tie, leading to the firing of head coach Jay Woodcroft and the replacement by Chris Knobloch.
It will be the seventh straight time the Stars have played in Game 2 of a best-of-seven playoff series after losing, including three games this season. Marchment scored in a 4-3 loss to Vegas in the playoff opener on April 22, left Game 2 with an unnamed injury and then missed six games before returning for Game 2 of the second round against Colorado.
The Oilers took the lead in the series on Thursday with a 3-2 win in Game 1 on a Connor McDavid goal 32 seconds into double overtime.
Edmonton centre Leon Draisaitl was held scoreless, ending his 13-game point streak to open the playoffs, one shy of matching the franchise record set by Mark Messier in 1988.
The two teams traded goals 44 seconds apart early in the first period.
Benn scored Dallas’ first shot of the game 3 minutes and 39 seconds into the game when a wrist shot from the top of the right circle went past Skinner and into the bottom left corner of the goal.
Edmonton outshot the Stars 17-4 in the first period and tied the game when Brown scored on a rebound off a shot by Cody Ceci, who first received the puck from Brown. It was Brown’s first goal of the postseason and his only other goal was against Boston in 2018 for Toronto.
The Stars went scoreless on five straight power plays in the series opener and then failed to score on their only power play in Game 2 after receiving a double-minor penalty early in overtime that gave them a four-minute man advantage.
This extended Edmonton’s streak of 20 penalty kicks in six or more games since allowing a power-play goal in Game 3 of their second-round series against Vancouver.
