*Photo from the Mitchell Daily Republic*
Dallas wins series 4-2
The knockout punch has been delivered. Mason Marchment had a goal and an assist, Wyatt Johnston scored the game winner, and the Dallas Stars beat the Minnesota Wild with a 4-1 victory on Friday night in Saint Paul.
On the road, the Stars took care of business to knock out the team right behind them in the Central Division standings and secure their spot in the second round. Marchment and Max Domi were the only multi point players for the Stars, with each having a goal and an assist.
Marchment said after the game that "I think it just says we can play any way. You want to play physical, you want to play skill, when we play our game, that's the most important. We play our game, we're hard to beat. So just keep sticking to the details and that's all we can do."
The only goal of the first period came from Roope Hintz, giving the Stars a 1-0 lead with his 5th goal of the series. At the 13:37 mark of the second period, Johnston scored the eventual game winning goal to double the lead. Marchment then made it 3-0 Stars with his goal in the final seconds of the period, assisted by Domi.
In the 3rd period, the Wild tried to claw back. Frederick Gaudreau scored his 3rd goal of the playoffs, cutting the deficit to 3-1 with Jake Middleton and Gustav Nyquist assisting. With 57 seconds left in the game, Domi took advantage of the empty net and sealed the win, scoring to make it 4-1 with the assist going to Marchment.
Getting the start for the Stars was once again Jake Oettinger, who had a fantastic game in the series clinching win. Oettinger turned aside all but one of the 24 shots he was faced with by the Wild, good for a .958 save percentage.
Oettinger said of the series win that "Every opportunity I get, this is just a special one. When we got lined up with the Wild it was like, 'Of course it works out that way.' I just wanted to play my best and have fun and not let outside distractions or all the extra stuff that went on distract me. Our guys played their hearts out for me and I'm so happy for this group right now."
Starting for the Wild was Filip Gustavsson, who couldn't make enough saves to get a win for the Wild. Gustavsson stopped 23 of the 26 shots he saw from the Stars before being pulled to start the 3rd period. Marc-Andre Fleury played the rest of the game in the loss.
Wild forward Ryan Hartman said of being eliminated that "This city deserves better than what we gave them. The fans, they've shown up for us all year and we failed them. And it feels bad. There's opportunities throughout this series where we could have not necessarily put the nail in the coffin, but we could have separated ourselves a little bit more, and we failed to capitalize on opportunities throughout the series."
Up next, the Stars will face the winner of the series between the Colorado Avalanche and Seattle Kraken in the second round. The Wild have another summer of coming up short ahead of them as they prepare for the 2023-2024 season.
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