Pushed back on their heels two nights earlier, the Stars showed a little something about their resolve in putting a stranglehold on the series with a 3-2 victory in Game 4 at Xcel Energy Center.
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The odds are heavily stacked against them: Of the 229 teams that have fallen behind 3-1 in an National Hockey League playoff series, 20 have come back to win.
The Wild held two leads – 1-0 and 2-1 – but couldn’t hold them.
“It’s obviously not where we want to be right now, but it’s the position that we’re in”, Zucker said. It’s worked in Games 3 and 4 and the Wild need to keep blocking the view and harassing the Dallas netminder, whomever that might be. Game 5 is on Friday night in Dallas.
“I think when you lose a guy of [Tyler] Seguin’s caliber, it becomes imperative that everybody helps and gets on board and picks up the slack”, Spezza said. Right wing Jason Pominville and Charlie Coyle each scored a goal for the Wild. I thought we played a good hockey game. Hey, you know what? It just seemed after the Stars took the lead after Jason Spezza deflected a Jason Demers pass past Devan Dubnyk that the Wild were going to face an uphill battle to win the game that they couldn’t climb. “That’s the bottom line”, Wild coach John Torchetti said. Minnesota outshot the Stars 14-2 and had a six-on-four advantage for the final 84 seconds when they pulled Dubnyk after Dallas’ Antoine Roussel was whistled for high-sticking. Minnesota jumped out to a big shot lead before Dallas started applying pressure about midway through the first.
“We’ve got to stop playing with frustration and start using our emotion in the right way, because frustration is a waste of emotion”, Kings left wing Milan Lucic said. After a scoreless but fast-paced first period, the floodgates opened on both sides in the five-goal middle frame. With 1:09 left in the second period, Jason Spezza put the Stars ahead to stay. But they squandered the power play and it was Dallas instead who would capitalize.
Game 6 will be in Minnesota on Sunday. It was easily the worst game Lindy Ruff’s squad had played in over a month, as the Stars managed just 17 shots on goal in the game. “We’ve got to focus on one game, go win a game there and who knows what happens after that”.
Dallas, the top seed in the Western Conference, still has a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series.
After acquiring Niemi in a trade with San Jose last summer to pair him with Lehtonen, the Stars carefully rotated the 32-year-olds throughout the season, with each goalie getting exactly 25 wins. When Detroit punched them in the mouth we anxious the bubble might pop. St. Louis stole Game 1 in overtime and then watched the defending champs remember it’s April hockey.
Mix this in with the fact that there is still no definite answer on who the starting goaltender will be on Friday night, it looks as though the lineup changes could continue to flourish. Niemi raised his career postseason record to 36-26….
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Barring a remarkable comeback, the Wild will fail to meet its stated goal of advancing past the second round of the playoffs.
