Stars steamroll Fleury and Wild to even series 1-1
Marc-Andre Fleury's 2023 playoff debut did not go well, though he didn't get much help from Minnesota's defense in a 7-3 loss to Dallas Wednesday night. The best-of-seven series is now even at 1-1 with Game 3 in St. Paul Friday night.
The second period was a mess, with Dallas getting goals from Jamie Benn and Evgenii Dadonov 1:27 apart to take a 4-1 lead, only to have the Wild respond with two goals in 11 seconds – Marcus Johansson on a power play and Freddy Gaudreau 11 seconds later – to cut the deficit to 4-3.
Just when the Wild were back in the fight, Dadonov made it 5-3 before Roope Hintz's second goal of the night – 44 seconds later – put the Stars back on top by three, 6-3.
Hintz's power play goal in the third period completed the hat trick.
SHORTHAND! EVEN STRENGTH! POWER PLAY!
— Dallas Stars (@DallasStars) April 20, 2023
ROOPE HINTZ!
🧢🧢🧢@BudLight | #BudLightCelly | #TexasHockey pic.twitter.com/IW7H1IzQ9I
Fleury allowed seven goals on just 31 Dallas shots. It's a good bet that Filip Gustavsson, who had 52 saves in Minnesota's double overtime Game 1 victory, will be back in net Friday night for Game 3.
Special teams struggles began in first period
After going on the power play early through the first period, the Wild turned the puck over at the Dallas blue line and Roope Hintz collected it for a breakaway chance that he beat Marc-Andre Fleury with on the glove side for a shorthanded goal and a 1-0 lead just 4:14 into the game.
Then, after Jake Middleton was whistled for a high stick and penalized with a four-minute minor, the Wild fought off Stars man advantage for 3 minutes and 30 seconds before Jason Robertson's slap shot was tipped by Fleury by Tyler Seguin for a 2-0 Dallas lead.
Minnesota's penalty kill allowed three goals on seven Dallas power plays.
Oskar Sundqvist scored the first goal of the game for Minnesota.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.