Jason Spezza scored his seventh NHL hat trick, and Antti Niemi made 28 saves to help the Dallas Stars win the Central Division with a 3-2 victory against the Nashville Predators at American Airlines Center on Saturday. Dallas (50-23-9, 109 points) will be the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Stars will play the Minnesota Wild, the second wild card into the playoffs from the West, in the best-of-7 first round.
It is the Stars’ first division title since 2005-06, when they won the Pacific Division, and their first time as the No. 1 seed in the West since 2002-03.
Spezza, who scored 30 or more goals for the fifth time in his NHL career, had two goals in the second period before completing the hat trick with the game-winner with 1:00 remaining in the third period when he beat goalie Carter Hutton with a wrist shot high to the far post.
Ryan Ellis and Calle Jarnkrok scored for Nashville (41-27-14), which rested forwards Mike Fisher and Mike Ribeiro, defensemen Roman Josi and Shea Weber, and goaltender Pekka Rinne.
The Predators, the first wild card from the West, will face the Pacific Division champion, either the Anaheim Ducks or Los Angeles Kings, in the first round.
Ellis scored 19 seconds into the first period by beating Niemi with a slap shot from the right circle. Ruff was not happy with the Stars’ performance in the first period, when they were outshot 15-6.
Jarnkrok gave the Predators a 2-0 lead at 8:23 of the second period when he knocked a loose puck past Niemi from below the right faceoff circle on a 5-on-3 power play. Stars defenseman Jason Demers whiffed while trying to play the puck, which had deflected off an official after Forsberg hit the right goal post with a slap shot. Spezza cut the Predators lead to 2-1 when he beat Hutton with a slap shot from the right circle at 10:46 of the second. He tied it 2:19 later when he scored on the power play for the 300th goal of his NHL career. Hutton made a save against Colton Sceviour on a breakaway 6:18 into the third period to keep it tied.
Stars Quotes
Lindy Ruff: "It's a heck of an accomplishment. First, to finish on top of this division, there weren't a lot of people that picked us to be there. To be honest, I didn't think we could get there ourselves, but as the year went on, I thought we had a chance.""We didn't play well at all. Talked to the team after the first. I didn't like the way we skated, I didn't like the way we competed.”“They were winning battles, they were outskating us. We were stuck on the outside."
"[Spezza] did a great job of coming out and shooting the puck and driving the middle of the ice. The last goal and the other even-strength goal were both driving down the middle of the ice. He's got a tremendous shot when his feet are moving. To score all three tonight and help us clinch, we didn't have to look for help [from another team]. We ended up winning it ourselves. You've got to tip the cap to him for sure."
Jason Spezza: “The work just starts now. We've known that we were going to be in the playoffs. It doesn't matter who you're going to play in the first round, it's going to be a tough matchup. And we wanted to win the game just to finish what we set off to do. You kind of raise your standards and want to win the division. It feels good to win that game ourselves and you always want to be playing good hockey going into the playoffs."
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