In Dallas, the Minnesota Wild had nine shots on goal through 40 minutes of play on Wednesday night, and it showed on the scoreboard with the Stars carrying a 3-0 lead into the third period.
The Wild had 14 shots in the third, but the Stars posted four goals in the period to the Wild’s two in a 7-2 win to Dallas.
Scott Wedgewood made 21 saves in the win.
“I held onto the first four or five [shots] that I needed to,” Wedgewood said. “Same thing as the game two nights ago — early surge and make a couple of saves. We jump out to a lead, and we did a good job holding it. They got a bounce on a 5-on-3. It’s just a good win. We’re happy with it.”
The Stars improved to 24-11-5.
Dallas grabbed a 1-0 lead in the opening stanza on a marker from Joe Pavelski 16:45.
In the middle frame, Matt Duchene hit for a goal at 4:28 to push the advantage to 2-0.
“You look at the three games we lost, other than the Colorado game (5-4 in overtime last Thursday), I think in those two combined losses to Nashville (4-3 on Jan. 6) and Montreal (4-3 on Jan. 2), I think we gave up 40 shots in two games. You usually win those games,” Duchene said. “We’ve had great goaltending. We’ve got a little bit of everything right now. The three-game skid didn’t really feel like it should have been a three-game skid, and now we’re kind of getting rewarded.”
Roope Hintz scored with 15 minutes gone in the second to expand the lead to 3-0 to Dallas.
The Wild dropped to 17-19-4.
“I thought there were times early in the game where we couldn’t get the goal or get the momentum going, where we did have some looks,” Minnesota coach John Hynes said. “Even right after they scored the goal, we had a look before that and right after that. There were moments in the game where you need to score at a certain time when you have looks, and we didn’t have that, particularly early in the game.”
Matt Boldy scored at 4:22 of the third to trim the deficit to 3-1, but that was just cosmetic.
“We played a good team, but they really didn’t have to work too hard to get the goals in,” Minnesota’s Mats Zuccarello said. “I gave away the first one. It happens, but we didn’t bounce back, and we had some chances where we could have gotten some bounces and some goals and build a game there. We played a solid third period, and they still got three goals. They got some bounces, and they’re a good team. If you give them chances, they are going to score.
“It’s not a performance that we like. We have to play smarter hockey.”
Jason Robertson replied at 8:05 of the third with a shot from the left side for a 4-1 lead to Dallas.
“Feels good to get the first one. Good to get the first one out of the way. Took me a while, but better now than never,” Lundkvist said.
Minnesota’s Ryan Hartman applied a little more cosmetic at 11:03 off a two-skater power play for a 5-2 count.
“We didn’t generate really anything on our forecheck. We made a gameplan to get pucks behind them, and they just continuously [chipped] it past us and sent guys out of the zone and created odd-man rushes,” the Wild’s Jake Middleton said. “We didn’t adjust properly as a group throughout the game, and that kind of led to where we are at right now.”
Tyler Seguin connected at 16:10 for a 6-2 score.
Sam Steel added the last of the alt to the wound at 18:17 for the 7-2 final count on the scoreboard..
Jesper Wallstedt made 27 saves in his NHL debut.
“I was definitely nervous in the beginning,” Wallstedt said. “I had a lot of pucks just bouncing off me. Didn’t feel like I could catch anything. I remember there was one shot from their [defense], and I tried to glove it and it just jumped out of my hand. The nerves were definitely hitting me early. After that, I felt more and more comfortable.
“At the end, it definitely ran away a little bit. I feel like I could have made a couple of better saves there to keep us in the game that maybe could have turned the tide a little bit.”
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