Thursday's Stanley Cup Playoffs featured two vital games. The earlier, Eastern Conference game ended in a thrilling overtime victory for the Hurricanes against the Devils. The loss ends New Jersey's season, while Carolina rolls on into the Eastern Conference Final.
The second game of the night saw the Dallas Stars hand the Seattle Kraken a 5-2 loss in Game 5. Roope Hintz and Joe Pavelski continued their hot streaks for the Stars, and Dallas has a 3-2 series lead heading into Game 6 on Saturday.
Below are deeper recaps of Thursday's games, and here's a look at all the scores for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Hurricanes defeat Devils in OT, advance to ECF
The Carolina Hurricanes are headed to the Eastern Conference Finals thanks to an overtime goal from Jesper Fast. With 7:09 elapsed in overtime, Fast deflected a Jesperi Kotkaniemi shot past Akira Schmid to end the series with a 3-2 win in Game 5.
It was a very on-brand win for the Hurricanes, who scored all three of their goals on shots from the point. Two defensemen, Jaccob Slavin and Brent Burns, beat Schmid with seeing-eye shots in the second period, and Kotkaniemi's shot caught a piece of Fast on the way to the net in overtime.
For the Devils, it's a frustrating end to a frustrating series. With 5:44 remaining in the second period, Timo Meier was standing in front of a wide open net with the puck on his stick. All he had to do was jam it home to give New Jersey a 3-1 lead, but he flubbed his shot and sent the puck skittering harmlessly through the crease.
The Devils had more missed chances like that throughout the game, and those will haunt them all offseason.
Those squandered chances aside, the Hurricanes did control most of this series with three blowout wins prior to this overtime victory. Carolina will now get some time to rest as it awaits the winner of the series between the Florida Panthers and Toronto Maple Leafs.
Hintz, Pavelski lead Stars to Game 5 win over Kraken
The Dallas Stars defended home ice with a 5-2 win in Game 5, and now they have pushed the Seattle Kraken to the brink of elimination. As has been the case for the rest of the series, Rooper Hintz and Joe Pavelski did most of the heavy lifting for Dallas.
Wyatt Johnston got the Stars on the board early in the first period, and Hintz and Pavelski took over from there. Less than two minutes later, Hintz ripped a laser past Philipp Grubauer to double Dallas' lead. In the second period, Pavelski made it 3-0 in favor of the Stars with a goal off the rush. That was his seventh goal of the series, and it was assisted by none other than Hintz and Jason Robertson.
The Kraken were able to push back in the second period with a pair of goals of their own, but Hintz struck again in the third period. That goal was Hintz's 18th point of the playoffs, which tied him with Leon Draisaitl for the most in the postseason.
The Kraken didn't play as poorly as the scoreboard might indicate, but Grubauer really struggled in net. While he did face a handful of highly dangerous scoring chances, Grubauer allowed four goals on the 20 shots he faced. Dallas doesn't need any help generating offense, but Grubauer gave it to them anyway.
The Stars will take a 3-2 series lead into Seattle for Game 6, and they can punch their ticket to the Western Conference Final with a win in that game.
