Gaudreau's heroic OT winner lifts Flames past Stars in thrilling Game 7, move on to 2nd round

The Calgary Flames won a playoff series for just the second time in the last 17 years with Sunday's 3-2 overtime win over the visiting Dallas Stars in the seventh and deciding game of their series.

Johnny Gaudreau scored the overtime winner at 15:09.

He collected a rebound and put a sharp-angled shot over Stars goalie Jake Oettinger, who made 61 saves in the game.

Tyler Toffoli and Matthew Tkachuk scored their first goals of the series for the Flames. Calgary's goalie Jacob Markstrom stopped 26 shots and had an assist in the win.

Jamie Benn and Vladislav Namestnikov scored for the Stars.

WATCH l Gaudreau hands OT victory, series win to Flames:

After reaching the Stanley Cup final in 2004 when Calgary fell in seven games to the Tampa Bay Lightning — 2005 was a lockout year — the Flames didn't win another playoff series until 2015 when Calgary was bounced in the second round by Anaheim.

Calgary (50-21-11) headed into this year's playoffs the higher seed atop the Pacific Division, while Dallas (46-30-6) earned the first wild-card spot in the conference.

Playoff success scant in recent years, the Flames were under considerable pressure to win the first Game 7 in 16 years in front of a sellout at the Saddledome, and back up a stellar regular season with some post-season progress.

Calgary outshot Dallas 52-23 over three periods Sunday, but the score was deadlocked heading into the first overtime period of the series.

The Flames drew even in the second period on Tkachuk's goal a second after a Dallas minor expired.

Markstrom head-manned the puck to Gaudreau, who dished to Tkachuk for a sharp-angled shot top corner at 8:44.

Namestnikov made it 2-1 for Dallas just 31 seconds after Toffoli had tied the game.

Namestnikov one-timed a wrist shot by Markstrom on a lateral feed from Joe Pavelski off the rush at 2:17.