The Minnesota Wild and Dallas Stars faced off for the fourth and final time of the regular season on Sunday afternoon, Apr. 6 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Before the puck drop, NHL history was made, as Alex Ovechkin officially surpassed Wayne Gretzky in all-time goals, as he scored number 895 against the New York Islanders.
The Wild’s injury list was the same as it has been for the past few weeks with Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek still rehabbing their injuries but they also added Jake Middleton who was injured in their loss to the New York Islanders on Friday, Apr. 4. He is listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury. The Stars also had a full injury list as Tyler Seguin, Nils Lundkvist, and Miro Heiskanen were all out of the lineup, but Jamie Benn was back after missing the past couple of games.
The goaltending matchup was between Filip Gustavsson for the Wild and Jake Oettinger for the Stars. The game started out in the Stars’ favor, but the Wild fought back, as did the Stars. They needed extra time to declare a winner, and the Wild came out on top 3-2. This moved the Wild’s record to 42-29-7 and the Stars’ to 50-22-5.
Game Recap
The game started out intense for both sides but the Stars were the first to convert as Jason Robertson knocked one past Gustavsson just over five minutes into the first period. He was assisted by Mikko Rantanen and Esa Lindell. That was the only goal of the first and the Stars took the lead into the intermission.
There were some close calls for both teams in the second period, but neither could get it past the goaltenders, and the score remained 1-0 going into the third. The Wild took over in the third, Matt Boldy took a golf-like swing at the puck as he fell and knocked it in to tie the game 1-1. Ryan Hartman and Declan Chisholm assisted him. That goal gave the Wild added momentum as Marcus Foligno forced one past Oettinger just under two minutes later to take a 2-1 lead. Foligno was assisted by Marco Rossi and Boldy.
The Stars answered back as Thomas Harley shot one from the point that made it past a screened Gustavsson to tie the game 2-2. Mason Marchment and Matt Duchene assisted Harley. That was the final goal of the third period, and overtime was required to determine the winner. The Wild drew a penalty at the beginning of overtime and had a perfect passing play back and forth from Boldy to Mats Zuccarello to set up Rossi for the game winner.
The Wild will remain at home for one more game this coming week as they host the San Jose Sharks on Wednesday, Apr. 9. The Stars will head back home as they host the Vancouver Canucks, Tuesday, Apr. 8.
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