San Antonio

Seguin Has Only Goal in Shootout, Stars Beat Avalanche 4-3

Tyler Seguin tied the game in the third period, nullified a winning goal in overtime and then scored the only goal in a shootout Saturday night.

The Dallas center helped the Stars earn their only shootout win of the season with a 4-3 victory over the Colorado Avalanche.

Dallas appeared to have the win with 1:08 left in overtime when John Klingberg put a shot past Colorado's Jeremy Smith. The goal was disallowed when a video replay showed that Seguin was offside.

"My apologies to (Klingberg) for taking away that goal," Seguin said.

Dallas finished 34-37-11, amid speculation that Lindy Ruff was coaching the Stars for the last time. They had the best regular-season record in the Western Conference last season, but were 11th in the West and out of the playoffs in 2016-17.

Ruff expressed frustration after the game.

"I think it kind of sums up the year, actually," Ruff said. "We were leaving and got reviewed. We had plenty of great opportunities in overtime to put it away, a breakaway, a 2-on-0. We could never get on a good run where you go 6 or 7 and 1, or you win five in a row. Probably the biggest disappointment was there was games where we really deserved to win if we finished some of the plays and didn't hit posts, missed empty nets."

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A Stars spokesman said general manager Jim Nill would meet with the team at 10 a.m. CDT on Monday.

Seguin beat Smith on Dallas' first shootout attempt with a shot inside the right goalpost.

"Usually what it always is," Seguin said. "Come down, slow up, keep my head up and try to find a spot."

Kari Lehtonen stopped all three attempts by the Avalanche, by Matt Duchene, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen, and Jamie Benn couldn't beat Smith with Dallas' second shootout attempt.

Seguin had tied the game at 3 with 6:16 remaining in regulation, reaching around a defenseman to tip in Esa Lindell's shot from the blue line.

Devin Shore and Benn also scored in regulation as Dallas. Colorado got goals from Rantanen, Gabriel Landeskog and MacKinnon to go ahead 3-2 at 8:24 of the third period.

The Avalanche (22-55-4) have one game remaining and will finish with their lowest points total for an 82-game season since moving from Quebec in 1995.

Lehtonen made 21 saves and finished 22-25-7 for Dallas, while Smith (1-6-1) stopped a career-high 42 shots.

"I thought Smitty played really well tonight, and he deserved a better fate than how we played in front of him," Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. "The first period, we didn't play well at all. I thought Smitty did a really good job of keeping us in that game."

Dallas dominated the first period, outshooting the Avalanche 18-4, and finally scored at 13:40. Greg Pateryn shot the puck down the slot from the blue line, and it hit the Stars' Cody Eakin and slid behind Smith within inches of the goal line. Shore skated by and swatted the puck into the net.

Dallas took a 2-0 lead 37 seconds into the second period. Klingberg skated in from the right and when Smith slid to that side, Klingberg passed across to Benn, who put a short snap shot into the empty left side.

Rantanen, who finished with a team-high 19 goals on Benn's power-play goal.

NOTES: Four of Dallas' starters spent most of the season with the AHL's Texas Stars. Among them, they had played 31 NHL games this season. ... RW Denis Gurianov was making his NHL debut. ... Colorado D Duncan Siemens and C Rocco Grimaldi were with San Antonio in the AHL, and totaled only seven games in the NHL in 2016-17. ... Duchene finished the season with the NHL's best faceoff percentage (63). ... Seguin led Dallas with 72 points and 46 assists, and tied Benn for the team high with 26 goals. MacKinnon had Colorado team highs of 53 points and 36 assists. ... Shore and Seguin played in all 82 Stars games. No one from Colorado had perfect attendance. ... Each team scored on its only power play. ... Peter MacDougall refereed an NHL game for the first time.

UP NEXT

Avalanche: Finish the season on Sunday at St. Louis.

Stars: Season is over.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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