DALLAS– Joe Pavelsky had a wry smile on his face when asked to come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a best-of-7 Stanley Cup Playoff series, after experiencing the frustrating end of that scenario ago almost 10 years.
“They’re no fun when you’re on the other side,” said the forward, who played for the San Jose Sharks as they led 3-0 and lost in seven games to the Los Kings. Angeles at the 2014 Western Conference Premiership. Round.
“The one against LA, yeah, you never think that could happen. The guys are in competition. … there were a few tight games. And you don’t want to be in those situations but when you’re on the other side, You understand that it can happen. It’s happened before. It’s such a fine line at this time of year.
The Stars are hoping to be the last team to pull off the rare feat of winning four straight after trailing 3-0. They will continue their comeback bid against the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday (8 p.m. ET; ABC, ESPN+, CBC, TVAS, SN).
Dallas will be without a striker again Jamie Bennwho will serve the second of his two-game suspension for his cross-control over the Vegas striker mark the stone 1:53 into Game 3 on Tuesday. They will also be frontless Yevgeny Dadonovwho will miss his second game due to a lower body injury sustained in a collision with his teammate Roope Hintz in the first half of Game 3.
Despite missing those two players, the Stars staved off elimination with a 3-2 overtime win at home against the Golden Knights in Game 4 on Thursday, with Pavelski scoring the game-winning goal at 3:18.
As they prepare for Game 5, do the Stars believe in momentum?
“We have no choice but to believe it, do we? This is where we are,” Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said Friday. “I believe in it, and I think there’s always a team that gets in there and out. It doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens enough, why not us?”
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That hadn’t happened since 2014, when the Kings became the fourth of 205 teams in NHL history to return from a three-game deficit. The other three were the Toronto Maple Leafs against the Detroit Red Wings in the 1942 Stanley Cup Finals, the New York Islanders against the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1975 quarter-finals, and the Philadelphia Flyers against the Bruins Boston in the 2010 Eastern Conference Semifinals.
The Stars feel more confident now, but others’ upbeat words never hurt.
Before Luke Glendening got a quick pep talk from former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo after Game 4.
“It was cool to meet him, but he just said ‘That’s one’ and ‘Go to Vegas and you know we’ll be waiting for you when you get back,'” Glendening said.
To do that, the Stars will need to be at their best, which they don’t believe they’ve been yet.
“I think Game 2 (a 3-2 overtime loss) was as close as it gets to a really good game from us,” the Stars forward said. march of the masons said. “I think they made 10 shots in five minutes into the third period. So I think if we bring that and bring energy, we’re tough to beat. So a lot is on us. , and I think we’re ready for that.”
Daniel Brière played for the Philadelphia team in 2010 which returned after three games. The Flyers also trailed the Bruins 3-0 late in the first period of Game 7 before responding with four unanswered goals. Brière scored the tying goal in the second period before Simon Gagné scored the game-winning goal on the power play in the third.
“The more you go on, the more the pressure mounts on the other side,” said Briere, who was named Flyers general manager on May 11, retiring the interim tag he had held since March 10. “When you get to that point, I think that’s all you’re trying to do. You try to push as long as you can, then the pressure starts to mount on the other team.
Justin Williams, a Kings forward in that comeback against the Sharks in 2014, remembers the confidence Los Angeles felt in that series despite going 0-3.
“We hadn’t played well (the first three games), but we had that championship pedigree, that kind of swagger from two years ago, and losing in the conference finals the year before, that we can all do,” he said of the Kings, who won the Stanley Cup in 2012 and won it again in 2014.
“Winning game 4 was important, but I think winning game 5, after that we were confident we would win. We thought we could win in games 4 and 5, but we were pretty confident we could win after that. winning Game 5 at San Jose 3-0.”
The Stars are still alive, still have a chance to become the fifth team in League history to close a three-game deficit. They still have a long way to go, but the conviction is there.
“You’re fine, all of a sudden you look and you’re in a 3-0 hole,” Pavelski said after Thursday’s game. “A few overtime losses (including 4-3 in overtime in Game 1) and playing great hockey along the way, and you just have to keep putting your game forward and believing we can buy more time and save more time.
“So we’ll see where it takes us. We’re excited about tonight, we’re going to rest and look to do it again, keep trying to put a little doubt in their minds.”
NHL.com writers Amalie Benjamin and Tom Gulitti contributed to this report
