Jason Robertson scored on the power play at 16:51 after Rantanen fed him a pass from the opposite circle. Robertson snapped a shot over Nedeljkovic’s glove to make it 3-1 Dallas.
“Me and Mikko (Rantanen) talked,” Harley said. “He’s talkative. …he wants to win, and he’s coming from the right place. He’s just competitive.”
Ivar Stenbergcut the Dallas lead to 3-2 with a goal 2:47 into the second period on a 2-on-1 rush with Celebrini.
“I think the attention to detail, the will to work every single shift, I think it’s been there a lot these last two days,” Nedeljkovic said. “I don’t think we can say that, honestly, about the couple of games before that. So it’s a different feeling of frustration. Obviously it sucks losing. I’m not gonna sugarcoat that.”
Harley scored Dallas’ third power-play goal of the game at 14:30. Johnston fed a pass back to the point, and Harley one-timed a shot under Nedeljkovic’s right pad to give Dallas a 4-2 lead.
“(Rantanen) told me I should be a little bit lower in the zone,” Harley said. “Still in the middle, but their forwards play so low that I can come in and creep in and be a shot threat. …I just came over the top and tried to hit it hard.”
Smith pulled San Jose to within 4-3 with a 5-on-3 power-play goal at 17:02 after Mason Marchment found him with a cross-crease pass to the back door that Smith shot into the open net.
“It’s really tough,” Smith said. “Coming off the back to back, playing against a really good team, it definitely hurts. Especially when we have a good effort like that.”