In St Paul, the Dallas Stars held off the Minnesota Wild on Sunday in a 3-2 win in Game 4.
The decision knots the series at 2-2, heading back to Dallas for Game 5 on Tuesday.
After a scoreless first period, Tyler Seguin scored off the power play at 15:42 of the middle frame to give the Stars a 1-0 lead.
“We needed ‘Seggy’ to fill in,” Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said. “That’s a big hole with [Stars forward Joe Pavelski] out … I think [Roope Hintz] missed some time (earlier this season), and Tyler jumped in there at center with those guys and really got us through a tough stretch of games with Roope out of the lineup. So, he’s doing it again now, and that’s what depth gives you the ability to do.”
Dallas pushed the lead to 2-0 at 3:05 pf the third on a goal from Evgenii Dadonov.
“Just tried to hide it as much as possible, just use the bodies as a screen, just get a puck through,” Dadonov said.
Jake Oettinger made 33 saves for the Dallas win.
“It starts with Jake and ends with Jake, especially tonight,” Seguin said. “He was phenomenal. He makes the big saves, especially on the road in this rink. I don’t know what really happened with a few seconds left, but to even make that save, I mean, he’s incredible.
“He loves these moments, he believes in himself, and we have all the confidence in the world with him. So, he’s the star tonight.”
The Wild got on the board on a goal from John Klingberg at 5:58 of the third to trim the Dallas lead to 2-1.
“I think we had our looks,” Klingberg said. “Obviously, at 5-on-5 we had a few breakaways, 2-on-1s, but I think [the power play] didn’t really click today. We were a little scrambly on the outside and in gaining entrance that easy, so that’s something we’ll look at and see if we can do a better job next game.”
At 16:29, the Stars’ Seguin scored his second of the game, off the power play, to give Dallas a 3-1 advantage.
Dallas scored twice on three power play chances.
Seguin’s goal would prove to the be the game-winner when Minnesota’s Frederick Gaudreau hit on a lte power play with 80 seconds left on the game clock for the 3-2 final.
“Obviously, we capitalized when we needed to, and we’re happy with a couple tonight,” Seguin said.
The Wild scored only once on four power play chances.
“Our game was really good,” Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. “If anything, we should’ve scored, could’ve scored earlier. We had lots of good chances, so we liked the way that we were playing the game. Hard, physical, finishing our checks the right way, how playoff hockey should be played. It should be physical, it should be intense, it should be hitting hard. That’s what playoff hockey is. We were doing that.”
Filip Gustavsson made 21 saves in the Wild loss.
“We take this game, throw it in the garbage bin, and then we look at the video tomorrow before we travel to Dallas,” Gustavsson said. “We’ve been there. We’ve beat them in their own arena, and we know what it’s going to take.”
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