Bring Me The Sports

Wild overwhelm Stars to take 2-1 series lead

The 5-1 victory sets the stage for a critical Game 5 Sunday in St. Paul.

Joe Nelson

Wild overwhelm Stars to take 2-1 series lead
Wild overwhelm Stars to take 2-1 series lead /

The Minnesota Wild used the energy inside Xcel Energy Center to lean on the Dallas Stars until they broke in a 5-1 victory in Game 3 of the best-of-seven playoff series. The Wild now lead the series 2-1 with Game 4 in St. Paul Sunday evening. 

Mats Zuccarello scored a pair of goals including the icebreaker at 16:45 of the first period. The Wild went ahead 2-0 at 2:14 of the second period on Marcus Johansson's snipe only to have the Stars douse that fire 11 seconds later when a loose puck was swatted past Filip Gustavsson. 

But Gustavsson was otherwise perfect, making 23 saves after he sat on the bench and watched the defense and Marc-Andre Fleury allow seven goals in Minnesota's Game 2 loss. Gustavsson was the hero in Game 1, making a franchise record 51 saves in a double-overtime victory. 

Marcus Foligno's power-play goal at 11:24 of the middle period made it 3-1, and the Wild poured it on the third period with Zuccarello's second of the night followed by Ryan Hartman's empty-net goal 1:50 left in the game. 

A big difference on home ice was the Wild only giving Dallas two power plays, killing both of them. That was a big boost after the Wild's penalty kill units were torched for five goals on 11 Dallas power plays in the first two games of the series. 

Game 4 is Sunday in St. Paul at 5:30 p.m. It'll be televised on Bally Sports North and TBS. 

Published
Joe Nelson
JOE NELSON

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. 

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