8 hours Ago By Lia Assimakopoulos | The Dallas Morning News
DENVER — The 15-minute intermission between the end of regulation and overtime Wednesday night must’ve been the longest 15 minutes of Mason Marchment’s life. With 39 seconds remaining in regulation, the Dallas Stars forward was called for a double-minor high-sticking penalty against Brock Nelson. It put Colorado on the power play for the remainder of regulation and gave them 3:21 on the man advantage to open the overtime period.
“I had anxiety for him,” his linemate Tyler Seguin said. But Marchment’s teammates had his back, killing off the penalty to open overtime and going a perfect 6 for 6 on the PK in the game. Just two minutes later, Marchment got redemption, setting up Seguin for the game-winning goal to claim the 2-1 win and 2-1 series lead.
“Knowing Mason and how he was feeling about that penalty, you couldn’t have written a better script for how it ended,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said postgame. The resilient finish for Marchment came almost a year after Matt Duchene had a similar storybook finish in Game 6 of the series with Colorado last playoff run. Also at Ball Arena, Duchene was called for a goaltender interference penalty, negating a goal Marchment scored, but bounced back in double-overtime to score the series clincher.
From that moment last May until now, the Stars’ story has been defined by perseverance. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: We’ve been through a lot this year,” Stars captain Jamie Benn said postgame. From injuries to key players like Miro Heiskanen, Jason Robertson, Seguin and Marchment, to losing the final seven games of the regular season, to drawing a first-round matchup with a Colorado team favored to beat them despite being the higher seed, the Stars have been challenged in their 2024-25 campaign.
In the series against Colorado, it’s been the same. Dallas has led for just 62 seconds in regulation through three games of the series, but somehow manages to hold a 2-1 advantage. Dallas has sacrificed the first goal in all three contests.
It’s come back from deficits entering the third period twice. And it’s won in overtime both times it’s gotten there. “I think we’ve just stuck with it,” DeBoer said.
“When you throw those stats out, it feels like the ice has been tilted against us, but I don’t feel that’s the way. I think we’ve been behind, but I’ve liked long stretches of our game. I like how we’ve just stuck with it, and we finally got rewarded.
” Dallas even stuck with it after arguably its toughest stretch of the series early in Game 3. In the first period, Mikko Rantanen was called for a phantom tripping call while on the power play, sending the game to 4-on-4 where Colorado’s Val Nichuskin gave his team a 1-0 lead after ending up with a 1-on-1 against Jake Oettinger from the slot. But it was a missed interference call that led to what may have been a two-goal swing.
Nevertheless, Benn, who was on a 19-game goal drought, broke through midway through the third period to force overtime. Marchment got his redemption story, and Seguin continued to build his with the game winner, recording two goals and an assist in four games since returning from hip surgery that sidelined him for four months. Every good sports story — and every championship team — has to be resilient at times.
That’s especially true when you’re competing in the toughest division and toughest conference for the toughest trophy to win in sports. But through all their setbacks this year, the Stars have found a way to be resilient, even when the odds are against them. And they did it again Wednesday night, taking back home-ice advantage in the series, overcoming their 1-0 deficit and getting halfway to their first milestone of the postseason.
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