Joel Hanley and Joel Kiviranta – two players who spent a majority of the 2019-20 season in the American Hockey League – provided an offensive spark to help the Dallas Stars to a 4-1 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 1 of the 2020 Stanley Cup Final on Saturday night.
Game 2 of the series is set for Monday in Edmonton.
Hanley, who played 40 games for the AHL’s Texas Stars this season, netted the first goal of his National Hockey League career to open the scoring 5:40 into the contest.
Hanley is a veteran of 359 AHL contests with Texas, Tucson, St. John’s and Portland. He skated in eight regular-season games with Dallas earlier this year, and was making his seventh appearance of the playoffs.
Kiviranta made his North American debut with Texas this year, recording 12 goals and 11 assists in 48 AHL games. He added one goal in 11 regular-season games with Dallas, and now has five goals in nine postseason contests, including a hat trick in Game 7 of the Stars’ second-round series vs. Colorado and the tying goal in the series-clinching win over Vegas earlier this week.
Jamie Oleksiak, a Calder Cup champion with Texas in 2014, and Jason Dickinson, who reached the Calder Cup finals with the AHL Stars in 2018, also scored for Dallas in Game 1. Former AHL All-Star goaltender Anton Khudobin finished with 35 saves, 22 of them in the third period.
Yanni Gourde, a veteran of 298 AHL games and an AHL All-Star in 2017, scored for the Lightning.
