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<\/p>\nST. PAUL, Minn. \u2014 The Minnesota Wild weren\u2019t able to pull even in the standings with the Dallas Stars on Tuesday night because their division rival from the south forced overtime, then won on a power play to beat the Calgary Flames.<\/p>\n
But not only will Thursday\u2019s game in Dallas be a preview of their first-round series (the third postseason meeting between the franchises), but it also will go a long way toward establishing home-ice advantage as the Wild remain only 2 points back of Dallas after Tuesday\u2019s 5-2 whipping of the Seattle Kraken at home.<\/p>\n
Just like the Stars against Calgary, the Wild rallied from a pair of one-goal deficits against Seattle and are once again feeling good about their game heading into Thursday\u2019s final regular-season meeting with the Stars. Dallas does own the regulation-wins tiebreaker (35 to 30 with four games left each) if both teams end the season with the same number of points.<\/p>\n
The Wild and Stars have played twice before in the playoffs with Dallas winning both series in six games. Why can this year be different?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe learned some lessons last time we played them,\u201d said left wing Marcus Foligno, who scored a beautiful tying goal and had a scrap against the Kraken. \u201cWe know that they\u2019re a really, really good team, and so are we. They have some lethal weapons. We\u2019re just more educated, more experienced going into this series than we were before.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always like our chances. We\u2019re positive. We\u2019re excited to play that team. Thursday night is going to be a nice little appetizer, so to speak. We just gotta play solid against them. We just want to see our game really, get to that four lines where everyone\u2019s contributing where it\u2019s just predictable hockey for us and smart hockey by us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuesday night, Joel Eriksson Ek scored a goal and two assists, Matt Boldy and Marcus Johansson had a goal and assist each, Vladimir Tarasenko scored the winner and Jesper Wallstedt made 25 saves for his 17th win, establishing a single-season Wild rookie goalie record.<\/p>\n
The Wild played a little too loose against the Kraken and gave up a lot of rush chances, but overall, it was a solid win \u2014 the Wild\u2019s fourth in a row \u2014 as they controlled most of the final two periods. The Wild are now 11-3-1 all-time against Seattle.<\/p>\n
Minnesota will travel to Dallas on Wednesday to begin their final road trip of the regular season, a three-game swing that also includes games in Nashville and St. Louis.<\/p>\n
Boldy, Tarasenko remain hot<\/p>\n
One reason the Wild feel so confident heading into the playoffs is because they feel they have three lines that can score.<\/p>\n
Obviously, they have Kirill Kaprizov on the top line. But then there\u2019s Boldy on the second line and Tarasenko on the third.<\/p>\n
Boldy, after a seven-game drought, scored his fourth goal in the past four games in the first period Tuesday \u2014 his 42nd of the season, tying him with Eric Staal and Marian Gaborik for fourth-most in franchise history. The goal was originally waved off on the ice because the referee thought the puck deflected in off Boldy\u2019s chest, but replays showed he got his stick on it afterward.<\/p>\n
That goal tied the score at 1-1. In the second period, after Foligno\u2019s tying goal, Tarasenko scored his 23rd goal and seventh in the past 11 games on a backdoor tap-in after Ryan Hartman deflected Jared Spurgeon\u2019s shot. On the goal, Hartman picked up his 11th point in the past seven games and Spurgeon tied Ryan Suter for the most assists among defensemen in Wild history (314).<\/p>\n
Boldy later assisted on Johansson\u2019s backdoor slam dunk to give himself 83 points, tied for the fifth-most points in a season in Wild history.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to be able to have the guys that are supposed to score \u2014 score and produce,\u201d coach John Hynes said. \u201cBut then I think as it goes through, you want to get some action from your defensemen, but then I think the depth up front has certainly helped that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johansson scores his 200th<\/p>\n
On a tremendous play by Boldy to fend off Brandon Montour and spin for a backdoor pass, Johansson snapped an eight-game goal drought by slam-dunking his 200th goal. Eriksson Ek immediately fished the milestone puck out of the back of the net.<\/p>\n
It was a pretty special moment for Eriksson Ek, who also assisted on the goal. He grew up in Karlstad, Sweden, so he got to watch Johansson a lot as a kid playing for hometown F\u00e4rjestad.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody in here knows what kind of player he is,\u201d Eriksson Ek said. \u201cHe is having a great career. If someone told me when I was a kid running around, when he was playing in Sweden, that (I would assist on his 200th, I wouldn\u2019t believe) this would be the case. Just happy to be a part of getting to know him and getting to play with him has been a pleasure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johansson was extremely relieved to get it over with, especially because he has not yet committed to playing beyond this season \u2014 a year in which he also played his 1,000th game.<\/p>\n
\u201cFeel like this last one hasn\u2019t wanted to go in lately, but that\u2019s the way it goes sometimes,\u201d he said. \u201cBut nice to get it out of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no doubt Johansson is one of the Wild\u2019s most respected teammates.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a great, great Swede,\u201d Wallstedt said. \u201cLove being around him. It\u2019s super easy to be with him, super inviting. He\u2019s been very good to me and, obviously scores timely goals. He\u2019s been great this year for us. And scoring important shots and doing the job that maybe not everyone sees. He is very valuable to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Freddy Gaudreau returned to Minnesota for the first time since being traded to Seattle. (Matt Blewett \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n
Gaudreau causes Seattle goal to be overturned<\/p>\n
The Kraken thought they took a 3-2 lead not long after Foligno\u2019s goal, but Wallstedt immediately motioned that he was interfered with by former Wild forward Freddy Gaudreau, who was returning to the Minnesota for the first time since being traded last summer.<\/p>\n
As it turned out, Jaden Schwartz\u2019s go-ahead goal was quickly wiped off the boards after Hynes challenged for goalie interference for the first time this season. Replays showed Gaudreau slashed Wallstedt\u2019s glove and inhibited his ability to make the save.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis one felt super obvious,\u201d Wallstedt said. \u201cIt felt like this was one of those that you just kind of couldn\u2019t have missed. And the ref was agreeing with me, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sturm, Hunt biding time<\/p>\n
With five extra players, including injured Zach Bogosian, the Wild\u2019s morning bag skates have been intense \u2026 and long. They go on for an hour after practice with assistant coaches. Tuesday morning, it consisted of Daemon Hunt, Nico Sturm, Robby Fabbri and Nick Foligno, who came out of the lineup Tuesday for Bobby Brink. Jeff Petry played his second game in a row for Bogosian (lower body).<\/p>\n
Hunt has been scratched 17 games in a row since March 1. Asked if he\u2019d like to get the defenseman a game or two before the playoffs in case Minnesota needs him in a pinch in the postseason, Hynes said, \u201cThe situation changes daily. We\u2019ve considered all those things. Sturmy hasn\u2019t been in in a little while, too. \u2026 We have three games this week. I think we\u2019ll see how things progress over the week.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard with home ice in the offing. To Hynes\u2019 point, Sturm has been scratched seven games in a row and Fabbri has missed nine in a row.<\/p>\n
If the Wild are healthy up front, it appears two of Nick Foligno, Danila Yurov and Brink will play with Sturm and Fabbri scratched.<\/p>\n
Brink set up three scoring chances Tuesday but was cherry-picking out of the zone on Yurov\u2019s turnover that led to Adam Larsson\u2019s first-period goal. Yurov also accidentally redirected Montour\u2019s goal past Wallstedt in the first, so he finished minus-2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PAUL, Minn. \u2014 The Minnesota Wild weren\u2019t able to pull even in the standings with the Dallas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5130],"tags":[5,4188,38,4,2686,234,5318],"class_list":{"0":"post-546786","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-kraken","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-kraken","10":"tag-minnesota-wild","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-seattle","13":"tag-seattle-kraken","14":"tag-seattlekraken"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116367365304480307","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}