Stars' Wyatt Johnston Gets Hilarious Last-Minute Birthday 'Cake' From ESPN
Dallas Stars center Wyatt Johnston is celebrating a birthday on Tuesday and it's a biggie. He's 21, meaning he can legally buy beer in the United States and if he needed it, he'd still have another 5 years on his parents' health insurance.
Johnston gets the day off (at least from games) on his birthday, but he had to play the night before. And after the game, ESPN's Leah Hextall helped him celebrate a little early with the Charlie Brown Christmas tree of birthday cakes.
The former first-round pick in 2021 had a heck of a night with 2 goals and 1 assist in the Stars' 5-1 win over the Colorado Avalanche on the road in Denver.
Considering his banner night, Johnston did a post-game interview with Hextall, and since it was after midnight on the East Coast, she presented him with the "cake" that looked like a pretty serious fire hazard.
It's the thought that counts, isn't it?
Whoever assembled that raided the press room snack table and put together some kind of modern art piece with a weird twisty candle; one that I thought was a Twizzler (or perhaps Red Vine) that had been lit on fire.
Obviously, there's a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup front and center, which might seem off-putting, but we all know it deserves to headline.
That blue wrapper, I can't quite tell. Although having grown up near the world capital of chocolate — Hershey, Pennsylvania — I know a thing or two about candy wrappers. That certainly looks like an Almond Joy to me, which would be a nice addition because while coconut can be polarizing, it's a very underrated candy.
Anyway, cool of Hextall and the ESPN crew to have some fun with Johnston, who went off on Monday night. He got the scoring started with this shorthanded beauty.
God, I loved that. The aggressive forecheck, the way he went hard to the net, the way you can hear Cale Makar yell "s--t" when he coughs up the puck.
Just a thing of beauty.
The Stars are now firmly in the driver's seat as the series shifts back to Dallas for Game 5 and an opportunity to close things out and move on to the Western Conference Final.