How an 'elite' 20-year-old pulled the Dallas Stars back into series against Vegas

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LAS VEGAS — Dallas Stars forward Wyatt Johnston isn't old enough to sit down at a slot machine at one of the many casinos within walking distance of T-Mobile Arena, but Saturday night he hit a jackpot on the Las Vegas Strip.

The 20-year-old put together dominant shift after dominant shift, willing the Stars into overtime. Once there, he caught a pass from Jason Robertson with speed through the neutral zone, cruised around Vegas defenseman Shea Theodore and won the game with a perfectly placed shot off the crossbar and into the net.

The 3-2 victory was the Stars' first of the postseason, closing their first-round series deficit to 2-1.

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! pic.twitter.com/C8NS6cWHxS

— z - Dallas Stars (@DallasStars) April 28, 2024

"What a player," Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said after. "A really incredible play by one of the great young players, the next generation of stars in this league. I thought he was just outstanding tonight. For a kid to be under 21 years old and be on that ice, with that level of play, and look like he did all night tonight, he's just an outstanding player."

The Stars dominated Saturday's game, needing overtime only because of a herculean effort by Vegas goalie Logan Thompson. He stopped 43 shots, tying Marc-André Fleury's franchise playoff record, to hold the Golden Knights in the game.

"He was like Dominik Hasek down there, it was incredible," Stars goalie Jake Oettinger said of Thompson's effort.

Facing the potential of falling behind in the series 3-0 with a loss, the Stars unsurprisingly took the ice with a noticeable edge in urgency.

"You can't manufacture (the feeling of having) your back against the wall, staring at 3-0," DeBoer said. "I think our group understood the situation tonight and played that way right from the start of the game."

Dallas outshot Vegas 18-7 in the opening frame and generated 21 high-danger chances in the first two periods. It was a barrage of offense by the Stars, led by Johnston and his 15 shot attempts. Thompson stood on his head for Vegas, turning away breakaway after breakaway, but the Stars eventually found an answer: Their 20-year-old star with the playoff composure of a grizzled vet.

"Wyatt Johnston," Tyler Seguin said, laughing. "That's kind of how we solved (Thompson). He's a great goalie and made some good saves tonight. We have a kid here that's elite, and won the game for us."

Johnston's rise to stardom happened quickly in Dallas. He's played every game for the Stars over the last two seasons, racking up 56 goals and 50 assists in the regular season over that span. Even more impressive, especially at his age, Johnston has elevated his game in the postseason.

He scored two game winners during last year's run to the conference finals, and added another Saturday night in Vegas.

"It definitely feels a lot different (in my second postseason)," Johnston said. "Obviously we got to experience a pretty good run by us last year, and so I think just learning from last year, the playoff style of hockey, and trying my best to learn (in all) areas."

"Johnny is just a stud and made a huge play," Oettinger said of Johnston. "Biggest play of the season so far.

"Everyone in here knows how good he is, and what a good person he is. The sky's the limit for him. When he does stuff like that, no one in here is surprised. I'm just so happy for him. He's such a good kid. I'm happy he's in green and white."

In a high-stakes playoff game with Stanley Cup pedigree all over the ice, Johnston still found a way to stand out. With Johnston on the ice at even strength the Stars held commanding advantages in shot attempts (30-15), shots (15-6), high-danger chances (8-0) and, most importantly, goals (2-0).

"Seeing him last year, and how much he's evolved this year," Seguin said. "It's one thing to be elite in the regular season, but to do it in the playoffs at his age, that's great."

Johnston's overtime goal was a perfect example of his unique composure for such a young player. Thompson had stopped him six times in the game, including a big save earlier in the overtime period, but Johnston eventually solved the puzzle.

"I tried a couple (shots) low and it didn't work, so I figured I'd try to throw one up high," he said, "and lucky enough it worked."

The Stars were the faster team early on, winning races to every loose puck and breaking the puck out of their zone with much more speed and efficiency than the previous two games. It came as no surprise to either coach.

"Probably because they were down 2-0 so they obviously had a level of urgency that we weren't able to match," Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. "Sometimes that happens. You have a successful road trip, you win a couple and then you come home and think maybe it's going to be easy. We should be further along than that, so I have to prepare the guys better, clearly."

The Stars' dangerous transition attack that Vegas held in check so well over the first two games in Dallas was suddenly alive. If not for heroics by Thompson, the game would've been out of reach early. Johnston got the Stars on the board midway through the first period, out-battling Vegas' Nicolas Roy in front of the net for a rebound goal.

Don't like: backhanded compliments

Like: Johnny backhanded goals pic.twitter.com/eoAlNjeHeZ

— z - Dallas Stars (@DallasStars) April 28, 2024

"We had great desperation to our game," DeBoer said. "I would guess Butch would say they didn't. I think when both teams are on it's really hard for either team to look like that. It's probably the first time in the series that a team has grabbed that type of an advantage for that long of a period."

Despite the massive edge in shots and scoring chances for the Stars, Vegas climbed right back into the game in a matter of minutes in the second period. First, defenseman Brayden McNabb scored with a gorgeous shot through traffic that found the top corner. Less than four minutes later, Jack Eichel skated down the ice short-handed and beat Oettinger with a hard wrist shot to the same corner.

"That's the danger of their team," said DeBoer, who knows the opponent well after coaching the Golden Knights for three seasons. "Their quick-strike offense can turn a game really quickly, especially in this building. I wasn't surprised. As the chances kept going, and we kept missing or LT kept making saves, I knew that we were playing with fire, and sure enough, they did get back in it. But I loved our response. I thought we had good composure and got it back on the rails."

On one hand, Dallas finally looked like the team that earned the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, and DeBoer was thrilled with his team's ability to improve as each game has gone along in this series. He's hoping this is just another step in his team building its game.

On the other hand, the Stars controlled play for the vast majority of Saturday's game and still needed overtime theatrics to pull out a win. The fact a 27-4 edge in high-danger chances resulted in a nail-biter shows just how tough this Vegas team is to beat. The Golden Knights didn't play particularly well, and yet were one shot away from taking a 3-0 stranglehold on the series.

"They executed better than we did," Cassidy said. "You could see it in overtime, they had more jump, more urgency. We just didn't have that level that we needed to have tonight to win a playoff hockey game. We're going to need to be a lot better on Monday, and I'm going to make sure to prepare the guys so we are."

Dallas had a decided edge in urgency in Game 3. That shouldn't be the case when the teams meet on Monday with the momentum of the series hanging in the balance. Both sides know the ramifications. Home teams that win Game 4 to take a 3-1 series lead have gone on to win the series 86.3 percent of the time in NHL history. Road teams that win to tie the series 2-2 have gone on to win the series 58.7 percent of the time.

"We knew the situation coming into Vegas," Seguin said. "Our message today was focusing on your first shift and that first period. We had to come in here and steal one no matter what, and now we want to steal two."

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(Photo: David Becker / NHLI via Getty Images)

Jesse Granger is a staff writer for The Athletic NHL based in Las Vegas. He has covered the Golden Knights since its inception and was previously an award-winning reporter for the Las Vegas Sun. Follow Jesse on Twitter @JesseGranger_