In Dallas, the Stars broke open a scoreless game in the middle frame to take a 3-0 lead on the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday night.
The Stars clamped down on the defensive end for a 4-1 win.
“Good win,” Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said. “They made it difficult. They’re a big, physical team that came in here and I think tried to impose that game on us. And I loved our response. I thought we didn’t back down, physically didn’t take a step back. I thought we played exactly how you have to play against a team like that.”
Jamie Benn and Radek Faksa scored to give Dallas a 2-0 lead in the second.
Jake Oettinger made 39 saves in the Stars win
Dallas improved to 30-13-10.
Dallas is 4-0-3 in their last seven games.
Jani Hakanpää extended the Dallas lead to 3-0 in the second.
“That’s not really the way I expect to score,” Hakanpaa said. “It was nice it went in. I just felt something touch my stick, and then the guys were around me celebrating. So, always a good feeling for sure.”
The Wild finally stopped the Dallas run with a power play strike from Joel Eriksson Ek to make it 3-1 to Dallas headed to the third period.
Minnesota dropped to 27-19-4.
“We just didn’t find a way to score a goal,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “We’re doing a lot of real good things. A lot of positives in this hockey game. We have to obviously stay as positive as we can. We play tomorrow night.”
The Wild are 2-5-0 in their last seven matches.
“The last six, seven minutes of the second period there, we really played strong and played well,” Minnesota defenseman Jake Middleton said. “There was a big belief for us in that second intermission that we kind of have momentum going into the third. Again, it just goes back to we didn’t finish. we haven’t been scoring and that’s got to change. That’s on us, right? There’s no if ands or buts about it. It’s just us as players. We got to bear down and finish.”
Roope Hintz scored at 17:49 for Dallas into an empty net for the 4-1 final.
Filip Gustavsson made 33 saves in the Wild loss.
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