Round 2 of the NHL playoffs kicked off for the Winnipeg Jets on Wednesday night when they hosted the Dallas Stars at the Canada Life Centre. With both franchises coming in off Game 7 wins, which one would grab the early lead this round?? Read on to find out….
GAME RECAP
When the puck finally dropped just before 9 pm, it was the visiting Stars that started the game off with more energy. Dallas used this extra jump to out-shoot Winnipeg 8-0 in the opening 7 minutes of play, but the Jets’ Connor Hellebuyck appeared to be on the top of his game as he turned aside a few high danger scoring opportunities. Finally a powerplay look for the hometown club allowed the True Northers spend some quality time in the Stars’ zone, letting them test goalie Jake Oettinger a few times with the man-advantage. In the latter parts of the opening frame, the franchises traded great looks when a Dallas 2 on 1 was stopped by Bucky’s blocker and Gabriel Vilardi was denied on a great chance from the low slot.
An early 2nd period powerplay didn’t pan out for the Jets, but Winnipeg was able to open up the scoring shortly after when defenseman Haydn Fleury sent a pass from behind his own goal line to Mason Appleton at Dallas’ blueline. The Jets’ winger was able to deflect the puck into the high slot, allowing Nino Niederreiter to skate into it before going 1 on 1 with the goalie before pocketing a perfectly aimed shot to the farside. WPG 1-0. The Stars picked up their pace and 5 minutes later they were able to even things up when Winnipeg’s defenders lost coverage on a rush, allowing a cross ice pass to set up a dangerous 1 timer from the right face-off circle. Hellebuyck was able to slide across to deny the shot, but during the net front battle, Mikko Rantanen was able to bat in the rebound as defenseman Dylan Samberg threw him to the ice. TIE 1-1. The Jets had an opportunity to retake the lead when they got a 3rd PP look in the game, but all they could produce was a contested bumper shot from Mark Scheifele. Approximately 4 minutes later, the Stars had a short cycle shift that resulted in a deflected point shot right in front of Hellebuyck, giving the road team their first lead of the match. DAL 2-1. Things got worse for the True Northers when they took their first penalty of the game, giving Dallas the chance to add to their lead with the man-advantage when a cross ice 1 timer from Rantanen deflected off a Jets’ defender to give him a natural hattrick. DAL 3-1. Winnipeg responded well to this unfortunate turn of events, picking up their forecheck and it eventually paid off when Vilardi stole the puck along the Stars’ back boards, giving him the chance to send the puck into the slot for a Scheifele snipe. DAL 3-2.
The final frame saw Winnipeg out-shoot Dallas 10-4 as they searched for the game tying goal. The True Northers did get some decent opportunities to knot the game, including a Cole Perfetti neutral zone steal & rush that saw the youngster come close to a 5 hole goal and a quality chance for Scheifele from the right face-off circle. During the Jets’ push for offense, they allowed some quality counter attacks from the Stars including a great chance for Mikael Granlund that Bucky denied with a flashed glove. With a smidge under 2 minutes left in the game, head coach Scott Arniel tried to pull the goalie to help his club find the needed goal. The extra skater certainly helped Winnipeg gain the offensive zone and when a point shot created a scramble in front for the rebound, the Jets out-numbered the defenders but still weren’t able to jam the puck past Oettinger. A bit later, Scheifele niftily deflected a shot between his legs, but once again Dallas’ tender was there to get in the way. After a couple of Stars’ icings, the Jets got their final look when Nikolaj Ehlers set up Scheifele for a shot from the low left face-off circle but once again the puck couldn’t find twine and time ran out on Winnipeg’s comeback attempt.
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FINAL SCORE: DALLAS STARS 3 WINNIPEG JETS 2
FINAL STATS
Shots: 32-24 WPG / Hits: 46-24 WPG / Face-Offs: 55.1% DAL / x Goals: 3.19 DAL – 3.04 WPG /
MoneyPuck’s Deserve to Win: 53% DAL / High-Medium Danger Scoring Chances: 10 to 9 DAL
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SCORING SUMMARY from ESPN
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SHOT CHART from MoneyPuck
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ADVANCED SKATER STATS from MoneyPuck
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GOALIE STATS from ESPN & MoneyPuck
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If you would like to dive deeper into the game’s stats, follow the links below to the game pages:
MoneyPuck: Dallas Stars vs. Winnipeg Jets – Wednesday May 7 2025 – MoneyPuck.com
NaturalStatTrick: Dallas Stars @ Winnipeg Jets, 2025-05-07
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BOJA’s Observations:
- These will be pretty brief today because I am quite a bit behind due to some internet issues this morning. The Winnipeg Jets started off too slow and weren’t able to mount yet another comeback after they fell apart for a 8 minute stretch in the 2nd period. That being said, this game felt fairly close throughout, even if it was the Dallas Stars that were much better at creating dangerous scoring chances (6-4 in high danger attempts).
- I thought Connor Hellebuyck looked pretty much like his normal regular season self in Game 1, so that is a good thing. Though we will need him to do that on the road in Texas, there is no way the True Northers can win this series without him being near the top of his game.
- Winnipeg’s forwards struggled to create offense, other than the top unit of Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor, & Gabriel Vilardi (97.5% xG). The other 3 units were all 10% or below in that statistic, showing how tilted the ice was when they were playing.
- Dylan Samberg was unlucky to have one of the goals against go in off him, but once again the stats show his value by both of his defensive pairings getting more than 50% of the xG’s.
Well, the Winnipeg Jets dropped their first home game of the playoffs and will now need to dig in deep to ensure they don’t leave the Canada Life Centre down two games. The coaching staff will be back to work in practice on Thursday to start their plan to create more offense when the two franchises meet again on Friday.
UP NEXT: Dallas Stars @ Winnipeg Jets – Friday, May 9th @ 8:30 pm CST
