"It's pretty impressive what he's doing, I mean you know considering the opponent (Jets) and time of year, you know and how he's dominating games. Really impressive. You know I think it's the first time we've won a game one since 2019. I thought our group did a lot of great stuff."
Jake Oettinger turned aside 29 shots for Dallas.
Nino Niederreiter and Mark Scheifele scored for the Jets, who suffered their first home loss of the NHL Playoffs.
Connor Hellebuyck made 21 saves for Winnipeg.
There was no scoring in the first period.
Nino Niederreiter opened the scoring 3:30 into the second period when Hayden Fleury hit Mason Appleton with a stretch pass at the Dallas blue line and the Jet winger relayed to Niederreiter who skated in and beat Oettinger with a high backhand shot.
The goal was his 3rd of the playoffs.
Mikko Rantanen evened the contest at 8:43 when Mikko Rantanen snapped up a rebound off a Evgenii Dadonov one timer and slid the disc past Hellebuyck from close in.
Rantanen scored again at 14:21, tipping a Thomas Harley shot from the left point past Hellebuyck to give the Stars a 2-1 lead.
Rantanen netted a power play goal at 16:38 to score a natural hat trick when his shot after a cross-ice feed from Matt Duchene went through Hellebuyck's pads after hitting Jet defenceman Hayden Fleury's skate.
The goal was his 8th of the playoffs.
Mark Scheifele replied just under a minute later when Gabriel Vilardi found him cruising in from the top of the circle and slid him the puck from behind the goal line.
Scheifele made no mistake, beating Oettinger glove side with a wrister at 17:35 to make it 3-2.
The goal was his 3rd of the playoffs.
There was no scoring in the third period.
Jets scorer Nino Niederreiter said it came down to battles won and lost.
“They are extremely skilled throughout the whole lineup and we know we’ve got to out-work them, out-battle them, but I think they won most of the battles there tonight," he said.
Game 2 goes Friday night in Winnipeg.
SHOTS-DALLAS 24 WINNIPEG 31
ATTENDANCE-15,225
