Minnesota Wild have had a torrid time of late. He was back in net for the Stars after stopping 22 shots in the 4-0 win in Game 1, his second post-season shutout.
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The game opened with Minnesota looking to establish its forecheck. “Can’t be letting him get a breakaway”. Niederreiter found a hole under the blocker of Lehtonen, but the puck trickled just wide.
“It’s just going to get harder”. However, Dubnyk and his stellar goaltending can’t win games alone if the rest of the team can’t score. “I felt like I kind of got lucky on that one”.
To say Dubnyk and the Wild were upset with the call would be an understatement. At 3:54, controversy ensued.
Somehow the puck inadvertently hits the skate of Antoine Roussel, kicks up into the air-over the back of the net, hits unsuspecting Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk in the back and goes in the net. The puck slid down the goalie’s back and dropped onto the ice as the net became dislodged. Benn rushed up the left side of the ice and then finished with a backhand for the eventual game-winner.
The play was initially ruled no-goal by on-ice officials in Dallas, but after video review at the league’s facility in Toronto the play was ruled a goal. The NHL citing Rule 78.4 for the overturn. While all of that was happening, Dubnyk’s body knocked the net off of its moorings just as the puck was crossing the goal line.
The combination of the initial call on the ice being no goal, along with all of the replay angles that were made available when it came to the puck crossing the line seemed to make it all the more unlikely that it would actually count as a goal.
That changed early in the second period with a goal scored with skates, not sticks. Marco Scandella scored during the Johnny Oduya holding minor to cut the lead in half.
“They got a fluke goal”, interim head coach John Torchetti said. But what Dallas did during that delayed penalty was a stroke of genius.
It took 112 minutes, but the Minnesota Wild finally scored. And when Minnesota tried to flush out the puck carrier, Ryan Suter had to get back his horse to keep a 2-on-1 from developing the other way. That plan didn’t exactly work out too well for the Wild. Finally, horn sounded after Koivu lost an offensive zone faceoff with 5.1 seconds left.
The first-round series shifts to Minnesota for Game 3 on Monday night, but probably not without more talk about how Dallas scored its first goal without getting a stick on the puck about 4 minutes into the second period of Game 2.
But the biggest story of the night centered on one of the most freaky goals imaginable in a game that had started off eerily similar to the series opener. He’s stopped 47 of the 48 shots he faced, and the only goal he’s given up was on a power play for the Wild.
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Despite the loss, the Wild remain optimistic, especially since the Stars dominated them in Game 1.
