The Dallas Stars are going to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in twenty years

After two decades of waiting, the Dallas Stars are finally getting another crack at the Stanley Cup after knocking off the Vegas Golden Knights with an overtime win in Game 5.

The Dallas Stars continue their incredible playoff run, and are heading to their first Stanley Cup Final in twenty years.

The Stars defeated the Vegas Golden Knights in five games, capping off the series with a 3-2 overtime win. The overtime winner was scored on the power play by rookie Denis Gurianov 3:36 into overtime, with an absolute howitzer of a one timer to beat Robin Lehner and start the celebration

The Stars trailed 2-0 early in the third period, but clutch goals from Jamie Benn and Joel Kiviranta tied the game and eventually sent it to overtime.

The Stars have had quite a journey so far in these unprecedented playoffs to get to the Final. In the round robin, they looked awful and went 1-2 and scoring only five goals. In the first round against the Calgary Flames, the Stars overcame a 2-1 deficit to take the series in six games. In the second round, they were able to hold off a comeback from the Colorado Avalanche with a Game 7 overtime hat trick from Joel Kiviranta. The Stars did not waste their first Conference Finals appearance since 2008, and outed the Golden Knights in five games, with two overtime victories.

Anton Khudobin deserves a ton of praise for his performance throughout the playoffs. With Ben Bishop hurt, Khudobin was forced into the starting role and has outperformed even the optimistic expectations. The Western Conference Final was his magnum opus, posting a staggering .950 save percentage in five games. Should the Stars finish the job and win the Stanley Cup, it’ll be hard to against him winning the Conn Smythe.

This will be the Stars fifth appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals. The Stars last made the Stanley Cup Finals in 2000, when they lost in six games to the New Jersey Devils, on an overtime goal by Jason Arnott. This was a year after they won the Stanley Cup in six games over the Buffalo Sabres, their first and only Stanley Cup in franchise history.

The Stars will await the winner of the Eastern Conference Final between the Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Islanders, a series that the Lightning lead 3-1 with a potential elimination Game 5 on Tuesday night.

Hardly anybody expected the Dallas Stars to much of anything in these playoffs, but they’ve run through everybody in their path with everything a team needs to succeed in the postseason, and are now just a mere four wins away from their second Stanley Cup in franchise history.