Alexander Radulov sent a sigh of relief through the arena on Tuesday night.
Radulov scored 40 seconds into overtime as the Dallas Stars beat the Philadelphia Flyers 3-2 to end an eight-game winless streak.
On a two-man breakaway
http://www.patriotsauthorizedshop.com/authentic-jason-mccourty-jersey , Tyler Seguin passed from the right side across to Radulov, who beat Philadelphia goalie Petr Mrazek for the game-winner.
”I was going in shooting the whole time,” said Seguin, whot got his 500th career point on the play. ”but when I knew it was Radulov and the goalie was probably all over me. I knew he wasn’t going to miss that.”
The Stars were 0-6-2 during their longest stretch without a win since moving to Dallas in 1993. With five games left, the Stars are five points out of the Western Conference’s final playoff berth.
Dallas coach Ken Hitchcock felt the reaction.
”For everybody it’s relief, and now you can move forward,” he said. ”We can’t live on frenetic effort every shift with no structure. … Today didn’t have much structure in it.”
Seguin had two assists and Radulov had one. Kari Lehtonen stopped 31 shots to end a personal seven-game winless streak.
”It wasn’t a pretty one today, but Kari had some huge saves, you know,” Radulov said. ”The guys blocked shots, and at some point we had luck too.”
Philadelphia extended its points streak to six games (3-0-3) and remained two points ahead of New Jersey for the Eastern Conference’s top wild card.
”We don’t like the way we gave up the second point
Youth Malik Jefferson Jersey , which we do too much in OT,” Flyers coach Dave Hakstol said. ”Sometimes when you try to do too much 3-on-3 things like that happen.”
Radek Faksa had the game’s first goal just past midway into the first period for Dallas and Brett Ritchie tied it 2-2 on the power play midway through the second.
In between, Travis Konecny and Ivan Provorov scored for Philadelphia, with Shayne Gostisbehere assisting on both goals. For 38 minutes after that, Lehtonen gave up nothing.
”Things have been tough and now we just kept going and get rewarded at the end, so it was sweet,” Lehtonen said. ”The fun part was that they were getting shots and I was able to keep making the saves. It goes to focus on the next shift and believe that we are gonna get that one or two chances, able to score a goal.”
Mrazek made 20 saves for the Flyers.
Until Radulov scored, there wasn’t much indication that Dallas could win.
”We had five people for 2 1/2 periods staring at the puck and all moving towards the puck, trying to help,” Hitchcock said. ”It’s a little bit like kids’ soccer.”
Faksa scored with 9:10 remaining in the first. Antoine Roussel’s shot from above the left faceoff circle went wide left
Buccaneers Cheap Jerseys , bouncing off the boards and out to Faksa at the right of the net. He put in a backhand off Mrazek’s left skate as the goalie scrambled to get back to that side.
Konecny tied it with 3:09 left in the opening period with a wrist shot from just inside the right circle that went under the crossbar.
Dallas had seven of the first eight shots on goal, but Philadelphia outshot the Stars 10-3 for the remainder of the first period.
The Flyers took the lead just 2:03 into the second. Wayne Simmonds passed to Provorov in the slot. Before he fell to the ice, Provorov put a wrist shot inside the left goalpost.
It took the Stars just 19 seconds into their first power play of the second to tie it. Standing just to the left of the net, Ritchie tipped in Radulov’s shot from the right circle.
NOTES: Konecny has 17 of his 23 goals in the last 31 games. … Claude Giroux’s assist on Konecny’s goal was his eighth in the last four games and 66th of the season. … Radulov reached 40 assists for the first time in his career. … Before Ritchie’s goal, Philadelphia had killed 12 of 13 penalties over six-plus games.
UP NEXT
Flyers: Finish a three-game trip on Wednesday at Colorado.
Stars: Visit Minnesota on Thursday before returning for the home finale on Saturday vs. the Wild.
Even with the conference finals going on, the NBA’s eyes turn to the future this week.
A future that, perhaps, will have less tanking.
The draft lottery – the last before changes come next year to dissuade tanking – is Tuesday night, and then about 70 players will partake in the draft combine that starts on Wednesday. Those events are both happening in Chicago, as are some various league meetings such as a gathering of NBA general managers and other front-office executives.
But the biggest news will be made by 14 pingpong balls that will decide who drafts No. 1 next month.
”We’ve got to see what happens in the lottery first and see where our position is,” Memphis executive vice president of basketball operations John Hollinger said. ”That’s going to dictate a lot of the decisions that come after that and how we use our time after that.”
Phoenix has a 25 percent chance of winning the No. 1 pick
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Many of those teams were at the center of tanking questions this season. Now they’ll see if it pays off.
”We did this year what we felt was in the long-term best interest of the Bulls,” Chicago vice president of basketball operations John Paxson said. ”It’s not a situation that any of us want to ever be in again. And it goes against everything as a competitive person that you believe in. But it’s the way the system’s set up.”
For now. The NBA is changing the system.
Starting in 2019
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”My sense is we’re still going to have some work to do,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said.
Tanking got plenty of attention this season, and a few minutes on Jan. 29 might have decided the race.
Phoenix and Memphis played that night. The Grizzlies scored 42 points in the second quarter – their only 40-point period all season – and forced the Suns into 10 consecutive misses in one stretch, on the way to a 120-109 win.
The Suns finished one game worse than the Grizzlies. Flip that Jan. 29 outcome, and it would been the Grizzlies with the best chance at the No. 1 pick.
”The league has been beating us up right now,” said Phoenix guard Devin Booker, who hasn’t come even close to making the playoffs and is already on the fourth head coach of his three-year career now that the Suns have hired Igor Kokoskov. ”But I think it’s going to be motivational for us. I know for myself, working out, I think about that all the time. I never want to be in these situations again.”
The new lottery format isn’t the only looming change related to drafts. It seems likely that by 2020
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If that was the case this season, the rights to draft phenoms like R.J. Barrett, Zion Williamson and Cameron Reddish would probably be decided by those pingpong balls in Chicago on Tuesday. Instead, they’re all going to Duke this fall.
So they won’t be at the combine, nor will the likely top two picks in the June 21 draft – Arizona’s Deandre Ayton, and Slovenia’s Luka Doncic. Ayton declined the invitation to participate in Chicago, and Doncic’s season in Europe isn’t over yet.
”We sort of expected this, that we might not see the top couple guys there,” Hollinger said. ”So we just have to adjust from that and get our information in other ways.”
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