Dallas Stars look to knock out Winnipeg in Game 6, and not let Hellebuyck have another shot at home

DALLAS (AP) — The Dallas Stars may just want to wrap up their second-round Western Conference series when they have a chance in Game 6, and not let Connor Hellebuyck and the Jets get another game in Winnipeg.

While the Stars have a 3-2 series lead and aren't facing elimination Saturday night at home, a loss would send them quickly back to Winnipeg for a series-deciding game. That is where Hellebuyck has back-to-back shutouts and hasn't allowed a goal to Dallas in more than 141 minutes on the ice since Mikko Rantanen's hat trick in the second period of Game 1 that was enough for a 3-2 win.

“We felt like we needed to win this one. You don’t want to give them any life at all. We don’t want to come back here for Game 7," Stars forward Matt Duchene said after their 4-0 loss Thursday night extended the series. “Obviously up 3-1 at one point, it might take seven. They’re a good enough team, it could.”

Hellebuyck and the Jets, however, have lost nine consecutive playoff road games since winning their postseason opener at Vegas in 2023, including Games 3 and 4 of this series in Dallas. The Presidents' Trophy winner has been outscored 25-8 away from home in these playoffs.

“We’ve got to win a road game," Jets captain Adam Lowry said. “We haven’t played well on the road at all this playoff, so no better time than now to start.”

When/Where to Watch: Game 6, Saturday, 8 p.m. EDT (ABC)

Series: Stars lead 3-2.

The winner of this series, which will have home-ice advantage in the next round, advances to play a resting Edmonton team in the Western Conference Final. The Oilers wrapped up their second round-victory over Vegas with a 1-0 overtime win in Game 5 on Wednesday night.

Dallas is trying to reach the West final for the third season in a row, and lost in six games to Edmonton last year. Winnipeg's last conference final was in 2018.

Stars captain Jamie Benn sucker-punched Winnipeg center Mark Scheifele during a late scrum in Game 5. Benn was given a misconduct penalty then, and on Friday was fined by the NHL the maximum-allowed $5,000, but avoided a suspension.

“My face hurts. There’s not much I can really say in this situation,” Scheifele said Friday before the Jets flew to Texas.

Scheifele got credited with the opening goal Thursday on a wrist shot that deflected off two Dallas players and past goaltender Jake Oettinger, who had 31 saves. The Jets had a two-man advantage after consecutive tripping periods early in the third period and went ahead 2-0 when Nikolaj Ehlers scored — he added a late empty-netter for his fifth goal in the series.

“They played with a desperation level like it was an elimination game. We’re a little bit off that," Stars coach Pete DeBoer said.

Dallas has won five home games in a row since starting the postseason against Colorado with its eighth consecutive Game 1 loss — an unexplainable streak that finally ended with the Rantanen-led win to open this series. That was after his four-point third period with a hat trick in Game 7 against the Avalanche, his former team.

If the Stars do need another Game 7 on Monday night, they have won all three they have played under DeBoer over three seasons. He is the only coach or player in NHL history to be part of nine Game 7 victories, with four different teams, and hasn't lost one.

Still, with a chance now to close out the series at home, Dallas would prefer not to have to play another one.

“We have to approach this like a Game 7, even though we have the luxury of it not being a Game 7,” DeBoer said.

The Jets, meanwhile, are trying to stave off elimination for the third time this postseason.

“It would mean that we’re not going on vacation yet,” Ehlers said. “We want to go to Dallas and win that game. ... It’s been so special to play here in front of this crowd, and we want to repay them by coming back and playing a Game 7 here.”

AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Winnipeg Jets' Neal Pionk (right) checks Dallas Stars' Jamie Benn (14) during first period NHL playoff hockey action in Winnipeg, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Fred Greenslade/The Canadian Press via AP)

Winnipeg Jets' Adam Lowry (17) and Dallas Stars players push and shove at the end of a play during third period NHL playoff hockey action in Winnipeg, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Fred Greenslade/The Canadian Press via AP)

Dallas Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger (29) makes a save on a Winnipeg Jets shot as Brandon Tanev (73) looks for the rebound during third period NHL playoff hockey action in Winnipeg, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Fred Greenslade/The Canadian Press via AP)

Winnipeg Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck (37) makes a save on a Dallas Stars shot as Tyler Seguin (91) and Thomas Harley (55) look for the rebound during second period NHL playoff hockey action in Winnipeg, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Fred Greenslade/The Canadian Press via AP)

Winnipeg Jets' Vladislav Namestnikov (7) returns to the bench with teammates after scoring on the Dallas Stars during the third period of an NHL playoff hockey game in Winnipeg, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Fred Greenslade/The Canadian Press via AP)

The latest version of Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok is echoing the views of its billionaire creator, so much so that it will sometimes search online for Musk's stance on an issue before offering up an opinion.

The unusual behavior of Grok 4, the AI model that Musk's company xAI released late Wednesday, has surprised some experts.

Built using huge amounts of computing power at a Tennessee data center, Grok is Musk's attempt to outdo rivals such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini in building an AI assistant that shows its reasoning before answering a question.

Musk's deliberate efforts to mold Grok into a challenger of what he considers the tech industry's “woke” orthodoxy on race, gender and politics has repeatedly got the chatbot into trouble, most recently when it spouted antisemitic tropes, praised Adolf Hitler and made other hateful commentary to users of Musk's X social media platform just days before Grok 4's launch.

But its tendency to consult with Musk's opinions appears to be a different problem.

“It’s extraordinary,” said Simon Willison, an independent AI researcher who's been testing the tool. "You can ask it a sort of pointed question that is around controversial topics. And then you can watch it literally do a search on X for what Elon Musk said about this, as part of its research into how it should reply."

One example widely shared on social media — and which Willison duplicated — asked Grok to comment on the conflict in the Middle East. The prompted question made no mention of Musk, but the chatbot looked for his guidance anyway.

As a so-called reasoning model, much like those made by rivals OpenAI or Anthropic, Grok 4 shows its “thinking” as it goes through the steps of processing a question and coming up with an answer. Part of that thinking this week involved searching X, the former Twitter that's now merged into xAI, for anything Musk said about Israel, Palestine, Gaza or Hamas.

“Elon Musk’s stance could provide context, given his influence,” the chatbot told Willison, according to a video of the interaction. “Currently looking at his views to see if they guide the answer.”

Musk and his xAI co-founders introduced the new chatbot in a livestreamed event Wednesday night but haven't published a technical explanation of its workings — known as a system card — that companies in the AI industry typically provide when introducing a new model.

The company also didn't respond to an emailed request for comment Friday.

The lack of transparency is troubling for computer scientist Talia Ringer, a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who earlier in the week criticized the company's handling of the technology's antisemitic outbursts.

Ringer said the most plausible explanation for Grok's search for Musk's guidance is assuming the person asking it a question is actually xAI or Musk.

“I think people are expecting opinions out of a reasoning model that cannot respond with opinions," she said. "So for example it interprets ‘Who do you support, Israel or Palestine?’ as 'Who does xAI leadership support?”

Willison also said he finds Grok 4's capabilities impressive but said people buying software "don’t want surprises like it turning into ‘mechaHitler’ or deciding to search for what Musk thinks about issues.”

“Grok 4 looks like it’s a very strong model. It’s doing great in all of the benchmarks,” Willison said. “But if I’m going to build software on top of it, I need transparency.”

FILE - Tesla and SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk attends the first plenary session on of the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park, on Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023 in Bletchley, England. (Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP, File)