Stars are looking north

Dallas awaits winner of Monday's Game 7 between Oilers and Canucks

Vancouver's J.T. Miller and Edmonton's Mattias Janmark mix it up on Saturday. The Oilers won 5-1 to force Game 7.

The Dallas Stars finally get a little bit of a breather after avoiding another Game 7 on the way to their second Western Conference final in a row.

They knocked out the last two Stanley Cup champions while playing 13 games in 26 nights. The last one stretched past midnight into early Saturday, when Matt Duchene's game-winning goal in double overtime ended Game 6 at Colorado. That came nearly an hour after Dallas thought it had won in the first extra period against the 2022 champions.

Dallas began these playoffs with a seven-game series against the Vegas Golden Knights, who last year beat the Stars in a six-game West final and then won the Stanley Cup.

"For the guys that were here last year, all we wanted was an opportunity to be in the position that we were last year, and snap your fingers and we're back," Stars goalie Jake Oettinger said. "Now it's up to us to change the ending. We couldn't ask for more than just another opportunity to get another run at it."