The Dallas Stars are in a tight spot heading back home for Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals, down 3-1 in the series. Their opponents, the Edmonton Oilers, took Game 4 with a 4-1 score and looked poised to return to the Stanley Cup Finals for the second consecutive year.
However, all hope isn't entirely lost. The Stars will have to perform some black magic at American Airlines Arena to become just the 33rd team in NHL history to successfully complete a series comeback down 3-1.
They could find that sorcery in a method conjured up by the team's ice crew. which was already proven effective earlier in the series against Edmonton.
The Dallas ice crew figured out that if the team was down late in the second period, soliciting a fan to buy them a hot dog from a concessions stand was the key to turning things around.
"Several years ago, we talked just a random stranger into buying us hot dogs," Stars assistant director of operations Max Niewenski explained in a video feature posted to the NHL's YouTube page on Tuesday. "He handed us one of them and as it touched from their hand to ours, we scored, and we came all the way back and won the game and we all said the hot dog saved the day."
That hypothesis was tested again and documented during Game 1 against Edmonton when the Stars were losing 3-1 at the end of the second frame.
After bribing a young fan to bring them a hot dog in exchange for a "signed stick," Dallas went on to score five unanswered goals in the third period for the 6-3 win. Although, Niewenski didn't specify which signatures and what kind of stick. He wound up trading a small piece of wood autographed by he and his crew for the apparent game-winning glizzy.
The Dallas Stars need a lot of fan-bought hot dogs to save their Stanley Cup hopes
There's a reason 3-1 comebacks are so rare in sports. It's not easy to win three consecutive games, especially in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Stars were eliminated by the Oilers in the same round last season and if they can't claw themselves back into the series, it'll be their third consecutive Western Conference Finals loss.
But with Dallas' new-found witchcraft, it could pull off a miracle of its own and find a way back to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 2020.
"Every time we get a stranger to buy us a hot dog, we win for some reason," Niewenski said. "So, it's awesome."
They better start figuring out more valuable bartering chips to trade than a vague "signed stick." The Stars will need as many hot dogs as they can stomach to pull off the nearly impossible.