DALLAS — Wyatt Johnston scored the quickest goal ever to start a playoff game for the Dallas Stars, who had a well-timed immediate response back at home in their first-round series against the Colorado Avalanche.
Wyatt Johnston scored 9 seconds into Game 5, then added another goal and an assist for the Stars in a 6-2 win Monday night to take a 3-2 series lead.
“We did probably our best job generating chances tonight and it showed. … Just a huge win,” Johnston said.
“I’m not surprised by our response. We’ve got a proud group,” said coach Pete DeBoer, whose team lost 4-0 in Game 4 on the road two nights earlier. “The last game, we played a poor game. It happens. In a seven-game series you’re going to have a night where you’re off. And we were off and we owned it and we fixed it, and we responded.”
Mikko Rantanen, who was with the Avalanche in the playoffs the past seven seasons, scored his first postseason goal and had two assists for the Stars as they took a 3-2 series lead.
“We knew as the top guys we needed to step up a little bit and play a little bit better defensively and try to get on the scoresheet a little bit more,” Rantanen said.
Game 6 is Thursday night in Colorado, where the Stars clinched their second-round series last season.
After Artturi Lehkonen and Nathan MacKinnon scored 2 1/2 minutes apart for the Avs in the second period to get them to 3-2, Johnston scored on a power play that included a secondary assist from Rantanen.
Mason Marchment restored Dallas’ three-goal lead before the end of the second period when he deflected Alexander Petrovic’s long slap shot past goalie Mackenzie Blackwood.
Dallas goalie Jake Oettinger stopped 27 shots.
Blackwood, who allowed only seven goals the first four games, gave up five on 18 shots before Scott Wedgewood took over in net to start the third period. Wedgewood, who was Oettinger’s backup the past two seasons, had eight saves.
Johnston’s record-setting starter goal came off the opening faceoff, when he shot from the immediate left of the net. The 21-year-old forward already in his 43rd career playoff game was skating toward the back wall and passing the red line when he took the shot that ricocheted off Blackwood.
“I just saw just a little opening,” Johnston said. “Figured why not, let’s try it. Got lucky.”
It was the first goal this postseason for Johnston, and his third multigoal playoff game.
The previous fastest goal to start a Stars playoff game came when Jeff Halpern scored 24 seconds into Game 2 of a first-round series against Vancouver on April 13, 2007.
Johnston became just the eighth player in NHL history to score within the first 9 seconds of a playoff game. The record is still held by Don Kozak for the Los Angeles Kings, who scored 6 seconds into a game against Boston on April 17, 1977.
Dallas had led only 62 seconds in the first four games, which included two four-goal losses and back-to-back overtime wins in Games 2 and 3.
“I think we answered really well. It’s also big to start the way we did,” Rantanen said. “It’s a lot easier when you play with a lead, and I think that was our first lead for a while in the series. So it’s a key factor.”
Then in the final minute of the first period, Johnston got the assist on Thomas Harley’s goal that Blackwood initially blocked with his right arm. But the puck popped up in the air and came down behind the goalie, bouncing off his back and into the net.
“It’s easy to fall down three when we give up those first two. A couple of strange goals for sure,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “We definitely needed to get sharper on the defensive side early in the game, but we pushed back and created some good chances at the other end.”
Rantanen made it 3-0 early in the second period on a break with fellow Finnish player Roope Hintz, who after initially getting the puck sent it back with a cross-ice pass to set up Rantanen’s short snap shot for his 35th career playoff goal.
Hintz added an empty-net goal with 2:05 left, on an assist from Rantanen.
Colorado traded Rantanen on Jan. 24 to Carolina in the East, where he played only 13 games. A deadline deal March 7 sent him back to the Central Division with the Stars and included a $96 million, eight-year contract extension.