As the Stars and Wild opened their playoff series Thursday night, everyone in the State of Hockey was anxious about the Wild’s chances to make it a series with Zach Parise, Thomas Vanek, and Erik Haula all sidelined with injury.
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There will be plenty of time during this series to reminisce of the days when the North Stars played at Met Center in Bloomington, but for now the question is: Can the Wild do what they have done the last two years in the playoffs?
Faksa scored the first Dallas goal early in the second period from the center of the ice after a pass from Ales Hemsky, playing his first postseason game since going to the Stanley Cup Finals with Edmonton 10 years ago. On Thursday, they managed to contain Minnesota’s attack without breaking a sweat, limiting them to a franchise-low two shots in the first and out-attempting them by a wide margin before score effects came into play later in the contest. After adding depth at several positions and bolstering the leadership group in the offseason, the Stars find themselves not only back in the playoffs in 2016 but as the top-seeded team in the Western Conference, posting a record of 50-23-9 (109 points).
Spezza was skating along the right side and initially faked a slap shot with just over 8 minutes left in the second period. Ruff said Wednesday that Seguin was available to play, but that a decision for Game 1 wouldn’t be made until Thursday. As to which player will start in net, only Stars head coach Lindy Ruff knows for sure.
“I’ve scored a few there”. With the Twin Cities’ best scoring threat temporarily removed from the equation, the task looks almost impractical. Spezza has gotten back to his old form, and the addition of Patrick Sharp will help the rest of this inexperienced playoff team.
Game Two is Saturday night at 7PM.
“Three of the goals we had the puck”.
Those teams simply did not have the talent to get past a better opponent and that again is the case in this series. Even taking a strong performance from Devan Dubnyk (27 saves) into consideration, this was a thoroughly lopsided affair, and one that hinted at what could be a very short series.
Rangers: The team doesn’t think goaltender Henrik Lundqvist’s freak eye injury will keep him out indefinitely.
Cup Dreams: Dallas is in the playoffs for the second time in three years and will look to eventually reach the Cup Final for the first time since 2000 and to win it all for the first time since 1999.
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It all made for an easy evening for Lehtonen, who earned his second career playoff shutout with a thoroughly pedestrian performance. It was a ballsy poke check, but great timing, and a just an overall fantastic goaltending move. Kari (Lehtonen) played phenomenal tonight. “Thanks to me”, Melissa said, smiling. “The amusing thing is, no goalies steal games by themselves”.
