DALLAS (AP) — Wyatt Johnston saw just a little opening and figured why not take a shot on the opening shift.
That snap decision became the quickest goal ever to open a playoff game for the Dallas Stars, who got that score from Johnston only 9 seconds in and went on to a 6-2 win in Game 5 of their first-round series against the Colorado Avalanche on Monday night.
“Got lucky,” Johnston said. “I’s the biggest cliché. I hate to say it, but when you get pucks on net good things happen. Sometimes you see something, and you try it. You never know.”
That was the first goal this postseason for the 21-year-old Johnston, who added another one and also had an assist as the Stars took a 3-2 series lead.
Game 6 is Thursday night in Colorado, where the Stars wrapped up their second-round series against the Avs last season.
Johnston’s record-setting starter goal came on a shot from the immediate left of the net. The 21-year-old forward already in his 43rd career playoff game was skating toward the back wall and passing the red line when he took the shot that ricocheted off goalie Mackenzie Blackwood.
“It was nice to throw something on net and go in,” Johnston said.
Blackwood saw the puck coming and thought it was in a good spot — “It just found a fluky little hole,” he said.
The previous fastest goal for the Stars to open a playoff game was Jeff Halpern scoring 24 seconds into Game 2 of a first-round series against Vancouver on April 13, 2007.
Only seven other players in NHL history have scored within the first 9 seconds of a playoff game. The record was set by Don Kozak for the Los Angeles Kings, when he scored 6 seconds into a quarterfinals game against Boston on April 17, 1977.
Johnston got his assist in the final minute of the first period, which came on Thomas Harley’s goal that Blackwood initially blocked with his right arm. But the puck popped up in the air and came down behind the goalie, bouncing off his back and into the net.
“I’ve had bad goals go in before. It sucks that there were two in the first period in a playoff game,” Blackwood said. "That’s unfortunate, but there’s not much you can do about it now. You just try and reset.”
AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
Dallas Stars center Wyatt Johnston (53) celebrates after scoring during the second period of Game 5 of a first-round NHL hockey playoff series against the Colorado Avalanche in Dallas, Monday, April 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Gareth Patterson)
Colorado Avalanche goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood (39) stops a shot during a first-round NHL hockey playoff game against the Dallas Stars in Dallas, Monday, April 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Gareth Patterson)
Dallas Stars center Wyatt Johnston skates after scoring during the first period of Game 5 of a first-round NHL hockey playoff series against the Colorado Avalanche in Dallas, Monday, April 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Gareth Patterson)
Dallas Stars left wing Jamie Benn, left, celebrates with center Wyatt Johnston, right, after Johnston scored during the first period of Game 5 of a first-round NHL hockey playoff series against the Colorado Avalanche in Dallas, Monday, April 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Gareth Patterson)
Twenty-three men have died by court-ordered execution so far this year in the U.S., and seven other people are scheduled to be put to death in five states during the remainder of 2025.
A South Carolina man's execution on Friday evening was the state's sixth in the past nine months. Stephen Stanko was put to death after a federal judge ruled that the man’s lawyers didn’t have evidence there were problems with the state’s lethal injection process.
A day earlier, an Oklahoma man was put to death after an appeals court lifted a temporary stay of execution issued by a district court. That followed the execution Tuesday of two men in Florida and in Alabama.
So far this year, executions have been carried out in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
States with scheduled executions this year are Florida, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas, though Ohio’s governor has routinely postponed the actions as the dates near.
All of 2024 saw 25 executions, matching the number for 2018. Those were the highest totals since 28 executions in 2015.
Here's a look at recent executions and those scheduled for the rest of the year, by state:
Anthony Wainwright, 54, died by lethal injection Tuesday for the kidnapping, rape and murder of Carmen Gayheart in 1994. Gayheart was abducted from a grocery store parking lot with another man in Lake City, Florida.
Thomas Lee Gudinas, 51, is set to die by lethal injection June 24. Gudinas was convicted in 1995 and sentenced to death for raping and killing Michelle McGrath near a bar. He would be the seventh person to be executed in Florida this year.
Gregory Hunt, 65, died by nitrogen gas Tuesday for the 1988 beating death of Karen Lane. She was found dead in an apartment in Cordova. Hunt had been dating Lane for about a month.
Alabama last year became the first state to carry out an execution with nitrogen gas. Nitrogen has now been used in five executions — four in Alabama and one in Louisiana. The method involves using a gas mask to force a person to breathe pure nitrogen gas, depriving them of the oxygen needed to stay alive.
John Fitzgerald Hanson, 61, died by lethal injection Thursday after he was convicted of carjacking, kidnapping and killing a Tulsa woman in 1999.
A judge temporarily delayed the execution on Monday after Hanson’s lawyers argued that he did not receive a fair clemency hearing last month before the state’s Pardon and Parole Board. They claimed board member Sean Malloy was biased because he worked for the district attorney’s office when Hanson was being prosecuted.
Malloy has said he never worked on Hanson’s case at the time and was unfamiliar with it before the clemency hearing. Malloy was one of three members who voted 3-2 to deny Hanson a clemency recommendation.
On Wednesday, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals lifted the stay. The court wrote that the district judge didn’t have the authority to issue the stay.
Hanson was transferred to Oklahoma custody in March by federal officials following through on President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order to more actively support the death penalty.
Stanko was executed for killing his 74-year-old friend Henry Turner in April 2006.
Stanko, 57, was also on death row for killing a woman he was living with and raping her teenage daughter.
Stanko chose to die by lethal injection instead of in the electric chair or by firing squad.
Mikal Mahdi was executed by firing squad in South Carolina on April 11. Mahdi’s lawyers released autopsy results that show the shots that killed him barely hit his heart and suggested he was in agonizing pain for three or four times longer than experts say he would have been if his heart had been hit directly.
The state Supreme Court rejected a request from Stanko’s lawyers to delay his execution so they could get more information about the death of Mahdi. A doctor hired by the defense said Mahdi suffered a lingering death of about 45 seconds to a minute because his heart was not destroyed as planned.
On Wednesday, a federal judge allowed the execution to go on despite arguments from Stanko's lawyers that inmates in the past three lethal injection executions died a lingering death — still conscious as they felt like they were drowning when fluid rushed into their lungs.
Mississippi’s longest-serving death row inmate is set to be executed on June 25.
Richard Gerald Jordan, 78, was sentenced to death in 1976 for kidnapping and killing a woman in a forest. Jordan has filed multiple death sentence appeals, which have been denied.
Mississippi allows death sentences to be carried out using lethal injection, nitrogen gas, electrocution or firing squad.
Byron Black, 69, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Aug. 5. Black was convicted in 1989 of three counts of first-degree murder for the shooting deaths of his girlfriend, Angela Clay, and her two daughters.
Harold Nichols, 64, is also scheduled to die by lethal injection on Dec. 11. Nichols was convicted of rape and first-degree felony murder in the 1988 death of Karen Pulley in Hamilton County.
Blaine Milam, 35, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Sept. 25. Milam was convicted of killing his girlfriend’s 13-month-old daughter during what the couple had said was part of an “exorcism” in Rusk County in East Texas in December 2008.
Milam’s girlfriend, Jesseca Carson, was also convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Ohio has two executions set for later this year, with Timothy Coleman scheduled to die on Oct. 30 and Kareem Jackson scheduled to be executed on Dec. 10.
However, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine already has postponed into 2028 three executions that were scheduled for June, July and August of this year. DeWine has said that he does not anticipate any further executions will happen during his term, which runs through 2026.
Associated Press reporters Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, and Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed.
FILE - A guard stands in a tower at Indiana State Prison on Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in Michigan City, Ind. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley, File)
This photo provided by Florida Department of Corrections shows death row inmate Glen Rogers. (Florida Department of Corrections via AP)
