Before anyone counts out the Minnesota Wild, you might want to let them play out the series with the Dallas Stars.
On Friday night, the Wild squandered leads but in the end, rallied late in regulation and defeated the Stars, 5-4, in overtime.
The win sends the series back to St Paul as the Wild trimmed their deficit to 2-3.
Mikael Granlund caused a turnover in the Stars end early in the first period and beat Antti Niemi who flubbed the initial shot. Granlund stayed with it while the Dallas defense relaxed to get the goal.
Minnesota added a second goal less than two minutes later when Jordan Schroeder scored.
The two goals took some of the life out of the Dallas home crowd but it was restored when Johnny Oduya, got one back on a shot from inside the blue line that beat Devan Dubnyk to the left side.
Dubnyk, who went down to the ice in the second period on an apparent injury, rebounded and stopped 37 shots on the night for the win.
Dubnyk’s real challenge and best effort was in the third period when despite yielding three goals was outstanding in giving his club a chance to stay close.
Jamie Benn tied the game at the one minute mark of the third before the Wild regained the lead on a goal from Nino Niederreiter.
But the Dallas offense geared up with two markers in a 28-second span to take the lead, 4-3.
Jason Spezza and Alex Goligoski scored the two goals for Dallas.
It appeared the Stars would finally move on to the second round as time wound down.
With 3:09 left in regulation Mikko Koivu rapped home the game-tying goal off a pass from Granlund below the goal line.
Koivu then ended the match just 4:55 into the extra session with a perfect deflection of a shot from the point from Ryan Sutter.
Game 6 is at Xcel Energy Center on Sunday (3 p.m. ET; NBC, SN, TVA Sports).
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