It was a stressful Sunday night in St. Paul as the Dallas Stars obliterated the Minnesota Wild 8-3 behind five power play goals and two shorthanded goals
As Wild beat writer Michael Russo described in a post on X, the play by the Wild in the first period was “heinous.” And it really didn't improve in the second or third periods as Dallas went 5-of-8 on the power play while the Wild were 1-of-5 with the man advantage.
Joe Pavelski scored 57 seconds into the game -- and just six seconds into a power play -- after Brandon Duhaime was whistled for interference less than a minute into the game.
About nine minutes later the Stars got a shorthanded goal from Matt Duchene after Vinny Lettieri let a puck bounce off the side boards, directly to Duchene who then beat Marc-Andre Fleury in a one-on-one break to extend the lead.
After a goal by Duhaime, the Stars made it 3-1 when Roman Faksa got behind Mats Zuccarello and scored after a feed got by three Wild sticks for an opening right in front of the goal.
If you’re keeping track, that’s a bad penalty followed by awful defense in front of the net followed by a terrible penalty kill that featured a turnover that led to a shorty. Not exactly championship caliber hockey on display in the State of Hockey.
Lettieri scored with 48 seconds left in the first period only to have the Wild give up another power play goal just 2 minutes, 34 seconds into the second period, this one scored by Wyatt Johntson, for a 4-2 cushion.
Evgenii Dadonov took advantage on another power play to give Dallas a 5-2 lead before the Wild trimmed the hole to 5-3 on Mats Zuccarello's goal with 4:01 left in the second.
It then got ugly as Duhaime was ejected and given a five-minute major for a boarding penalty that saw Thomas Harley leave the ice with a blood-stained visor after Duhaimed checked from behind into the boards.
It happened with 1:46 left in the second period so Dallas carried the five-minute power play into the third period and they took advantage with back-to-back goals by Jason Robertson to push the margin to 7-3.
Johnston then scored Dallas' second shorthanded goal of the night with just over two minutes left in the game for the eight-goal thumping in St. Paul.
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