DALLAS \u2014 Minnesota Wild star defenseman Quinn Hughes will play in Game 1 of the team\u2019s first-round matchup against the Dallas Stars, coach John Hynes confirmed before Saturday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
Hughes, who didn\u2019t play in the Wild\u2019s final two regular-season games nor practice this week, took a private jet to Dallas on Friday afternoon to meet the team. He hasn\u2019t skated with the Wild since playing a week ago against the Nashville Predators due to what Hynes said on Thursday was an illness.<\/p>\n
Originally, Hynes said Hughes would accompany the Wild to Dallas on the team charter on Thursday, but the Wild later decided it would be better for Hughes to continue resting and also not fly with his teammates if he was contagious.<\/p>\n
Hughes scored five goals and 53 points in 48 games for the Wild, a new single-season team record for points by a defenseman. His 48 assists were also a single-season team record for defensemen. He reached 50 points in his 43rd game, becoming the fastest player to reach the 50-point mark in franchise history.<\/p>\n
Hughes\u2019 76 points in 74 games ranked fifth among NHL defensemen this season, and his 69 assists ranked second. Hughes led the league with an average ice time per game of 27:44 \u2014 more than a minute over Zach Werenski, who finished second.<\/p>\n
Defenseman Zach Bogosian will also return for the Wild in Game 1. His last game was April 4.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Miro Heiskanen will suit up for the Stars, as expected. Heiskanen suffered a lower-body injury against the Wild on April 9 and missed the Stars\u2019 last three games. But he made it through Friday\u2019s practice without incident and told Dallas coach Glen Gulutzan that he \u201cfelt really good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heiskanen isn\u2019t quite the offensive dynamo that Hughes is, but he\u2019s still one of the best all-around defenseman in the league, a true shutdown defenseman who can also put up a 63-point season, like he did this year. He and underrated lockdown blueliner Esa Lindell form one of the top defensive duos in the league and likely will be charged with shutting down either Kirill Kaprizov on the Minnesota top line or Matt Boldy on the second line.<\/p>\n
The Stars had to muddle through without Heiskanen in the first round last spring against the Colorado Avalanche as he worked his way back from a knee injury, and his status was a daily topic of discussion until he returned for Game 4 of the second-round series against Winnipeg. This time around, Dallas will have its star defenseman right from Game 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe means everything on both sides of the puck for us,\u201d Gulutzan said. \u201cPower play, penalty kill \u2014 he touches all parts of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS \u2014 Minnesota Wild star defenseman Quinn Hughes will play in Game 1 of the team\u2019s first-round matchup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5118],"tags":[147,5,161,38,5280,4,162],"class_list":{"0":"post-555534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-wild","8":"tag-dallas-stars","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-minnesota","11":"tag-minnesota-wild","12":"tag-minnesotawild","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-wild"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116427809380879465","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555534","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=555534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}