Predators, Stars even NHL playoff series with overtime victories

Mike Fisher scored at 11:12 of the third overtime, and the Nashville Predators beat the San Jose Sharks, 4-3, early Friday morning in the longest game in franchise history.

With the victory, the Predators won their first overtime game on home ice. More importantly, they tied this second-round, best-of-seven series at 2-2.

James Neal scored with 4:21 left in the third period tying it up at 3-3, and the teams went scoreless during the first two overtimes and headed to a third extra period — the first in the NHL playoffs this year.

The Predators killed off six penalties, including one shortly before Fisher’s winning goal at 1:03 a.m. Goalie Pekka Rinne made 44 saves.

This was the longest game for the Sharks since a four-overtime game in Dallas in 2008.

Game 5 is Saturday night in San Jose.

Dallas 3, at St. Louis 2 (OT): Cody Eakin scored at 2:58 of overtime and the Stars beat the Blues to tie their Western Conference series at two games each.

Patrick Sharp set up the winner and also scored for Dallas, which was coming off a 6-1 loss in Game 3. Rookie Radek Faksa had the other goal.

Vladimir Tarasenko scored his sixth goal of the playoffs on a first-period breakaway and added an assist for St. Louis, giving him five points in the last two games. Paul Stastny also scored off a deflection from Tarasenko.

Eakin has a goal and seven assists in the postseason. He beat Brian Elliott on a three-on-two break after the Blues pressured goalie Kari Lehtonen on the opposite end.

Lehtonen made 24 saves, and Elliott stopped 25 shots.

Tarasenko’s goal was an exception to the rule in a tight-checking first period. Somehow he found the defense napping and scored his 16th career goal in 24 playoff games, beating Lehtonen between the pads.

The Stars looked worse on the play given they had six men on the ice, an infraction that went undetected.

Faksa, who had the deciding goal in the Stars’ Game 1 victory, tied it on an unassisted goal off a giveaway by fellow rookie Joel Edmundson. Sharp had a tap-in for his first point of the series on a power play off an assist by Jamie Benn, giving the Stars two goals in 1:09 and the lead. They’d been 0 for 12 with the man advantage before Sharp’s fourth of the playoffs overall.

Edmundson played sparingly the rest of the period, totaling 2:38 in four shifts.

Stastny’s first goal of the playoffs on a deflection from Tarasenko tied it on a four-on-three power play at 13:06 of the second.