In St Paul, Matt Boldy had a goal in the penalties phase of the Wild’s match with the Dallas Stars on Friday night, the goal was the deciding marker in a 2-1 win for the Wild.
The win ended a six-game stretch of stinkers for the Wild, they had lost five of six.
“Obviously it’s nice to get rewarded positively in a game like that against a team like that,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “To play the way that we played defensively, but the way that we worked, was again positive. We’ve had them for a while now. We just haven’t got the two points on a consistent basis. We need to keep doing it.”
Filip Gustavsson made 29 saves in the Minnesota win.
“We’re good in shootouts, we’re good in overtime,” Gustavsson said. “You just have to stay calm there and treat it like any other game.”
The Wild improved to 29-21-5, they had been 1-4-1 in the last six.
After a scoreless first period, the Wild took a 1-0 lead at 6:37 on Mats Zuccarello‘s 20th goal of the campaign.
“[Goals have] been hard to come by as of late, but yeah, it’s a really good feeling,” Zuccarello said.
The Stars dropped to 30-14-15.
Dallas has lost three straight, 0-1-2.
“We played a [heck] of a road game against a tough, desperate team,” Stars coach Peter DeBoer said. “We didn’t get the extra point, but you can’t throw out all the good work we did, and that’s the story. There’s a lot of good stuff there. We battled hard against a real desperate team. That team needs to win that game. I thought we had lots of chances and fought back, got behind, so a lot of good stuff.”
Dallas tied the game about four minutes later on a strike by Jamie Benn. 
Jake Oettinger made 31 saves in the Dallas loss.
“It was a great game,” Oettinger said. “[Gustavsson] is a great goalie, made some huge saves. It felt like a playoff game. They’re a great team over there. They’re going to be a tough team to beat in a seven-game (playoff) series. It’s tight out there. I had the chance to end the game in the shootout, [but] I didn’t do it.”
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