Anton Khudobin made 22 of his 35 saves in the third period and the Dallas Stars defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1 in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Saturday.

Anton Khudobin made 22 of his 35 saves in the third period and the Dallas Stars defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1 in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Saturday.”It’s a team effort, it’s a team performance,” Khudobin said. “I made a couple good saves, I would say, but at the same time, we played together, we played as a team, it’s a team sport.”
Joel Hanley scored his first NHL goal, and Jamie Oleksiak, Joel Kiviranta and Jason Dickinson scored for Dallas.
Game 2 of the best-of-7 series is in Edmonton, the hub city for the Cup Final, on Monday (8 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, SN, TVAS).
Yanni Gourde scored, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 16 saves for the Lightning, who were 0-for-3 on the power play in the third period, when they outshot the Stars 22-2.
“I wasn’t thinking anything else [but] focusing on the puck,” Khudobin said. “They did a heck of a job trying to stay in front of me and trying to screen me. I didn’t think about anything else, just to stop the pucks.”
Hanley gave the Stars a 1-0 lead at 5:40 of the first period, scoring with a high blocker-side shot from between the circles off a pass from behind the net by Roope Hintz.
Hanley is the first defenseman to score his first NHL goal in the Cup Final since Jim Paek did it with the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 6 of the 1991 Final against the Minnesota North Stars.
The Lightning made it 1-1 at 12:32, when Gourde scored after the puck pinballed off his left skate and Hintz’s right skate before going into the net.
“Been a few days here, we got some rest,” Dallas captain Jamie Benn said. “I thought we had a good start to the game, they got a lucky one but it didn’t faze us and we just kept playing our game.”
Oleksiak made it 2-1 at 12:30 of the second period, scoring off his own rebound from the bottom of the left circle after Vasilevskiy stopped the initial shot with his blocker.
Stars defensemen had five points (two goals, three assists).
“They’re a big part of our group, a big part of our offense,” Benn said. “We’ve got a lot of good players back there so we try to use them a little more.”
Kiviranta made it 3-1 at 19:32, also scoring off his own rebound after his initial shot was blocked by Mikhail Sergachev.Dickinson scored into the empty net at 18:42 of the third period for the 4-1 final.
“They’re a good team, they’re going to get their chances,” Benn said. “[Khudobin] made a lot of great saves there in the third period, kept us in it, and we found a way to win.”