FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sunday, September 27th, 2020

NOTES AND QUOTES – STANLEY CUP FINAL GAME 5 ON NBC

Dallas Stars Defeat Tampa Bay Lightning 3-2 in Double Overtime at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

“An incredible hockey game. Theater galore.” – Eddie Olczyk

“Corey Perry was the best player on the ice in this game. He deserved to score the game-winning goal.” – Keith Jones

Lightning Can Win Stanley Cup in Game 6 – Monday at 8 p.m. ET on NBC – Pre-game Coverage on NHL Live Starts at 7 p.m. ET on NBCSN

STAMFORD, Conn. – Sept. 27, 2020 – NBC Sports continued its exclusive presentation of the 2020 Stanley Cup Final last night with Game 5 between the Dallas Stars and Tampa Bay Lightning at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, on NBC. Stars forward Corey Perry scored the game-winning goal as Dallas defeated Tampa Bay 3-2 in double overtime to avoid elimination and cut Tampa Bay’s series lead to 3-2. All Stanley Cup Final games are being played at Rogers Place.

Game 6 takes place Monday night at 8 p.m. ET on NBC. Pre-game coverage begins at 7 p.m. ET with NHL Live on NBCSN. With a victory, Tampa Bay can win the franchise’s second Stanley Cup (2004), while Dallas will look to force a decisive Game 7.

Mike ‘Doc’ Emrick, Eddie Olczyk, and Brian Boucher called the game along with Pierre McGuire providing reports and player interviews. Olczyk, Boucher and McGuire were on site at Rogers Place, while Emrick called the action from a home studio. Kathryn Tappen, Keith Jones, Anson Carter and Patrick Sharp provided studio commentary during intermissions and post-game from NBC Sports’ headquarters in Stamford, Conn.

Following are notes and quotes from Game 5:

POST-GAME

Jones on Dallas RW Corey Perry: “Corey Perry was the best player on the ice in this game. He deserved to score the game-winning goal. He was the most-noticeable and most-effective player.”

Sharp on impact of Dallas’ C Joe Pavelski and Perry: “Pavelski scores goals when his team needs him the most…when these guys get opportunities, they know what to do with it.”

Carter: “Amazing Corey Perry. I had no idea he still had that in his skill set. I really didn’t.”

DOUBLE OVERTIME

Olczyk: “The Dallas Stars a gutsy performance here in Game 5…an incredible hockey game. Theater galore.”

Emrick on Dallas goaltender Anton Khudobin: “So many questions asked about his ability to play back-to-back games. Size, age and all of that. Question mark replaced by an exclamation point thus far.”

SECOND OVERTIME INTERMISSION

Jones on Khudobin: “This guy has been one of the biggest stories of the playoffs and he doesn’t want his story to end just yet. The final chapter has not been written and he’s doing his part to keep this thing going.”

OVERTIME

Emrick: “Is there enough drama for you?”

OVERTIME INTERMISSION

Jones on impact of Pavelski and Perry: “They are refusing to go home. Both players have had major influences on the Dallas Stars really all Playoffs long and tonight they have been exceptional, especially Corey Perry…this is vintage Corey Perry, we haven’t seen this for a couple of years. There’s no question that if Dallas didn’t have Perry and Pavelski going, we wouldn’t be talking about overtime.”

THIRD PERIOD

Emrick: “Playoff hockey is a battle of wills. Marvelous action.”

Olczyk: “What a gutsy effort by the Stars, who are banged up, but they found a way to get to overtime here in Game 5.”

Boucher on C Pavelski’s game-tying goal, tied 2-2: “Joe Pavelski, who was awesome in Game 4, comes through here in Game 5…the rebound by Pavelski, he puts it home. That is a historic goal for Joe Pavelski.”

Boucher on D Mikhail Sergachev’s go-ahead goal, 2-1 Lightning: “I don’t think (Anton) Khudobin was able to locate this puck, but (Mikhail) Sergachev got a lot on it. No tip. Through the screen, inside the post – a perfect shot by Sergachev.”

SECOND INTERMISSION

Jones on Stars: “Follow Corey Perry’s lead. He’s been outstanding…I don’t mind the Dallas Stars’ top players’ performance so far in this game, but if they’re going to beat (Andrei) Vasilevskiy, it’s going to be on the sticks of Perry, (Tyler) Seguin and (Jamie) Benn.”

Sharp on Tampa Bay LW Ondrej Palat: “He’s not undervalued inside that locker room…I bet every forward on that team wants to play on a line with Ondrej Palat…he does the little things, wins a ton of battles, he gets to the front of the net and he scores beautiful goals.”

Carter on Tampa Bay’s urgency throughout the first two periods: “They’ve got to stay on the body…Tampa Bay forwards (need to) get back to pounding. They’ve gotten this far by being physical, making them pay the price and they can’t deviate from that if they want to hoist the Cup tonight.”

SECOND PERIOD

Olczyk on Palat’s goal, tied 1-1: “I don’t know why (Anton) Khudobin did not poke check that puck. He just stayed in his net. I’m sure for Palat, his eyes got awfully large as he took the puck to the blue point and he was able to skate from one side to the other.”

FIRST INTERMISSION

Jones on Khudobin: “He looks confident, which is what impresses me the most…anytime you think that the cracks in the armor are really going to start to show, he finds a way to come up with a big performance.”

Carter on Tampa Bay LW Pat Maroon: “He wasn’t brought in to score goals. After last season’s disappointment, he was brought in because the Tampa Bay Lightning needed an attitude adjustment…whenever something was going on during the regular season, the first guy to stand up in the room and say, ‘Hey boys, that’s not the way to do it. This is how we did it in St. Louis,’ is a guy like Patty Maroon. Now he has the hardware on his finger, so the guys are more likely to listen to him, as opposed to someone that comes to the room and hasn’t won a championship before.”

FIRST PERIOD

Boucher on Perry’s goal, 1-0 Stars: “Shoots this one through the arm of (Andrei) Vasilevskiy, kind of an odd first period with very little whistles. Tough for a goaltender to get into the groove.”

Olczyk: “Mikhail Sergachev was struggling the last 20 seconds of that shift…he runs right into (Alexander) Radulov and you see him leaning over, so Tampa Bay was basically playing with only four players because Sergachev really never moved.”

PRE-GAME

Emrick: “Will it be the bubble again or champagne bubbles?”

–NBC SPORTS–