In St Paul, the Wild slide continued on Sunday when Jason Robertson hit for his second straight hat trick in a 6-3 win for the Dallas Stars.
It was his second straight game with a hat trick.
“I’m just glad we won the game and didn’t blow that lead,” Robertson said. “It was pretty neat. … My linemates worked really hard today and got those opportunities, and when you start feeling good, you start to shoot the puck more with more confidence.”
Jake Oettinger made 32 saves in the Dallas win.
“It was a great hockey game,” Stars coach Rick Bowness said. “They’re a good team. I thought we played really well. Simple as that.”
Minnesota’s Kirill Kaprizov struck for a double, and Nico Sturm scored for the Wild.
“The teams behind us or around us (in the standings) are playing really well,” Sturm said. “It’s almost like, I don’t want to say panic or scared to lose, but everybody realizes what’s going on. And we’re grasping at something trying to stop it and it’s not working out right now.
“I don’t really have the answers right now. I just know that it’s not for a lack of effort.”
Joe Pavelski and Jamie Benn added single markers and two points each in the Dallas effort.
Dallas improved to 32-20-3.
Riley Tufte also scored for the Stars.
“I started falling down when I scored, so I wasn’t sure if it went in right away, but I saw it going back in the net and it was an awesome feeling,” Tufte said. “Coming home and being able to play here and getting the first one here tops it off.”
Minnesota fell to 32-19-3.
“What we’ve done is praised our group all year for just staying the course and not panicking and all that good stuff and competing,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “But human nature, we are a fragile group right now. … And we talked to the group. Nobody feels sorry for us. The Dallas Stars don’t feel sorry for us, nobody else in the league feels sorry for us. So we’re not going to feel sorry for ourselves.
“We’re gonna come to work tomorrow and figure some stuff out and stick together and play a [very] hard game whenever that next one is.”
Kaapo Kahkonen got the start for the Wild and surrendered four goals and made 17 saves, before getting the hook in the middle frame.
“It seems like one little thing starts a little bit of a snowball effect in a game like that,” Kahkonen said. “It’s not the way it should be, but we just really have to dig ourselves out of this.”
Cam Talbot made three saves in a mop up role.
You must be logged in to post a comment.