5 takeaways: Stars come up just short in heartbreaking 3-2 OT loss

CALGARY, Alberta -- The playoffs can be as rewarding as they are heartbreaking. And in a game that featured one of the greatest postseason goaltending performances ever, the Stars fell just short.

In the blink of an eye their season ended at the hands of Johnny Gaudreau, who needed a perfect shot to beat Jake Oettinger to send the Flames into the second round following a 3-2 overtime victory in a winner-take-all Game 7.
Here are the five takeaways of the game.

LEGENDARY PERFORMANCE

What more needs to be said? Oettinger's performance will go down as one of the best in a Game 7.
With 64 saves, he became just the second goaltender in NHL history to record at least 60 saves in a Game 7 (since 1955 when shots on goal were first tracked), following the Islanders' Kelly Hrudey (73 saves in 1987 DSF at Washington).
As crushing as the loss was, Oettinger should be proud of the job he did not only in Game 7, but throughout the entirety of the series.

HINTZ A LATE SCRATCH, GLENDENING OUT WITH INJURY

Roope Hintz didn't take part in the morning skate, but Stars coach Rick Bowness said he and Tyler Seguin were likely good to go for the game. Though both took line rushes in warmups, Hintz was a last-minute scratch.
Glendening didn't skate in the morning or in pregame warmups. He was injured on a hit by Flames defenseman Nikita Zadorov in the second period of Game 6 on Friday.
It marked the first game of the series Hintz and Glendening missed.
After the game, Bowness said Hintz "had a reaction" to treatment for an oblique injury, which forced them to pull him from the lineup right before game time.

STARS LOSE FAKSA IN THE SECOND PERIOD

If losing Hintz and Glendening weren't bad enough, the Stars were forced to play with 11 forwards at the start of the third period and throughout overtime when Radek Faksa left the game with an upper-body injury in the second period.
Stepping up in Faksa's absence was Ty Dellandrea, recalled earlier in the series from Texas of the American Hockey League and thrust into his playoff debut - in Game 7.
Dellandrea finished the game with one shot and two hits in 19:15 TOI.

OETTINGER FACES 43 SHOTS THROUGH TWO PERIODS

Of the 43, only two got past Oettinger.
With 41 saves through 40 minutes, Oettinger had already made the second most saves in Stars/North Stars history in a Game 7. (Ben Bishop (52 saves) set the record in the 2019 Second Round in St. Louis - a contest that extended to double overtime.)
The score at the end of two periods was 2-2, but it could've been a lot worse if not for Oettinger's performance.

STARS PUSH FLAMES TO THE EDGE

The Stars took the Pacific Division's top team (and one of the hottest down the stretch) to a seventh and final game, which even required overtime.
It came down to a one-shot game, one in which the Flames prevailed.
The Stars gave it everything they had and fell just short of pulling off the upset.
What a story that would've been.
This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.
Kyle Shohara is the Digital Manager for DallasStars.com and writes about the Stars/NHL. Follow him on Twitter @kyleshohara.