Stars win Game 7, eliminate defending champion Golden Knights

Dallas, which is the No. 1 seed from the Central Division and Western Conference, won four of the final five games of the series after losing Games 1 and 2 at home.

“Really wanted to win this series. We wanted our turn,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “We felt we did all the right things all year to get the first seed, and then you draw a team like Vegas. I honestly think they’ve got a deeper team than they had last year. To plow through the adversity of being down 2-0, there’s a lot to unpack.”

The Stars will face the Colorado Avalanche, who eliminated the Winnipeg Jets in five games, in the second round.

“There’s probably a lot of doubters out there after Game 2, that probably thought we couldn’t come back. A lot of believers in this room, in this organization,” Dallas captain Jamie Benn said. “We played two pretty good games in the first two and we felt we were the better team. Fortunately, we came out on top.”

Radek Faksa and Wyatt Johnston scored, and Jake Oettinger made 22 saves for the Stars.

“[DeBoer] has a message that’s worked for many different groups of guys. For us, it was we felt like we had been the better team the whole series. If we played our best game, I think we would be happy with the outcome,” Oettinger said. “The focus on the defensive side of the game is what I was really impressed with from the message. If we take care of our own end, those 50-50 plays, if we go to the defensive side like he was talking about, we were going to score. We have a lot of great guys that can put the puck in the net.”