The Dallas Stars’ best players came through with their biggest performances of the Western Conference Final on Thursday.

The Dallas Stars’ best players came through with their biggest performances of the Western Conference Final on Thursday.It was just enough for Dallas to inch one win closer to its first Stanley Cup Final appearance in 20 years.
The Stars defeated the Vegas Golden Knights 3-2 in overtime in Game 3 at Rogers Place in Edmonton to take the lead in the best-of-7 series. The three goals tripled Dallas’ offense from the first two games of the series.
“You get in these tight games, your top-end guys have to come through,” Stars coach Rick Bowness said, “and ours did.”
[RELATED: Complete Golden Knights vs. Stars series coverage]
Game 4 is in Edmonton, the hub city for the conference finals and Cup Final, on Saturday (8 p.m. ET; NBC, CBC, SN, TVAS).
Anton Khudobin made the biggest difference with his 38 saves, including 16 in a back-and-forth third period when Dallas was outshot 18-4.
“We don’t get anywhere without [Khudobin] tonight,” Stars forward Jamie Benn. “Unreal performance.”
Video: VGK@DAL, Gm3: Khudobin stones Tuch with his pad
Teams that win Game 3 after a Stanley Cup Playoff series is tied 1-1 are 359-154 (70.0 percent) winning a best-of-7 series, including 9-1 in the first two rounds.
Dallas’ top line of Alexander Radulov, Tyler Seguin and Benn was reunited for the first time since Game 6 of the second round against the Colorado Avalanche because the Stars needed more offense after scoring one goal in the first two games, none in the final 117:24.
“You go to them and say, ‘OK, it’s time to get this thing rolling,'” Bowness said.
Radulov scored the winner 31 seconds into overtime with a shot from the right circle that rang in off the far post. He came streaking through the neutral zone down the right side and Joe Pavelski found him with a pass from the far boards.
“The whole bench was yelling, ‘Wide, wide, wide,’ and [Pavelski] made a great play over to Rads,” Bowness said. “That was just a fantastic shot. Take it and run.”
Video: VGK@DAL, Gm3: Radulov wins Game 3 in overtime
Benn had a goal in the third period to put Dallas up 2-1 at 7:35, nearly scored to beat the buzzer at the end of regulation, added an assist on Radulov’s game-winner when he got the puck in the defensive zone and quickly moved it up to Pavelski, and had six shots on goal and five hits.
Bowness called his performance “inspirational.”
“Our team feeds off of Jamie Benn,” the coach said. “It does. That’s why he’s our captain, he’s our leader. You come to the rink this morning and you can see the determination in his eyes. He leads the way.”
Seguin had an assist on Benn’s goal and won eight of 13 face-offs (62 percent).
“We challenged all our veterans last night,” Bowness said. “We can’t be counting on Denis [Gurianov] and Kivi [Joel Kiviranta] and Roope [Hintz] and the younger guys to carry the offense. The older veterans have to kick in and they did tonight.”
It was, however, the unlikeliest of goals from the unlikeliest of goal-scorers that finally got the Stars on the board in Game 3.
Jamie Oleksiak, their 6-foot-7, 255-pound defenseman who scored three goals in 69 regular-season games, scored on a breakaway at 19:43 of the second period to give Dallas a 1-0 lead and end the Stars’ scoring drought at 157:07.
Video: VGK@DAL, Gm3: Oleksiak buries backhand on breakaway
Oleksiak and Miro Heiskanen, his defense partner, actually led the rush, which certainly isn’t by design, Bowness said.
“I was kind of sucking wind on that breakaway, it wasn’t the fastest breakaway,” Oleksiak said, “but it went in.”
The Stars still didn’t make it easy on themselves, committing two penalties in the first 2:32 of the third period — a puck-over-the-glass delay of game by John Klingberg at 1:33 and a hooking call on Blake Comeau 59 seconds later.
They killed the 61-second 5-on-3, but Shea Theodore scored on Vegas’ 5-on-4 power play at 3:49 to make it 1-1.
Benn gave the Stars the lead again, Mark Stone evened it 2-2 at 12:46, and the Golden Knights got a power play to boot because of an unsuccessful goaltender interference challenge against Stone.
That’s when Khudobin made his biggest impact, helping the Stars kill the penalty.
He challenged Max Pacioretty on a wide-open chance and came up with the save. He made back-to-back left pad stops on Alex Tuch and Paul Stastny, and back-to-back right pad stops on Reilly Smith.
It looked like Khudobin was laboring after his second save on Smith, but he said he wasn’t injured. He stayed in the game, kept battling and made two more saves before overtime.
“We’re not in overtime without him,” Bowness said. “We talk about bending not breaking and a big part of that is your goaltender. Dobby was fantastic tonight.”
Then Radulov scored on the only shot in overtime and the Stars moved closer to advancing.
“I think we still can play better,” Benn said.
They can prove it on Saturday.