{"id":636408,"date":"2026-04-29T12:46:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T12:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/636408\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T12:46:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T12:46:22","slug":"wild-win-game-5-push-stars-to-brink-in-western-1st-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/636408\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild win Game 5, push Stars to brink in Western 1st Round"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mats Zuccarello<\/a> scored in his return from injury, and Matt Boldy<\/a> had a goal and an assist for the Wild, who are the No. 3 seed in the Central Division. Jesper Wallstedt<\/a> made 20 saves.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn’t think myself, I didn’t think I was that good the first two periods,\u201d Wallstedt said. \u201cI felt like I was scrambling a little bit. I was overplaying rebounds. And (we) were a little bit all over the place, but the way our team play was so good that they didn’t even have the chance to challenge me that much. I felt like 5-on-5, and then getting into the third, I felt really good again, and obviously they started to put some more pucks to the net, and felt like I got into the game a little better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miro Heiskanen<\/a> and Jason Robertson<\/a> each had a goal and an assist for the Stars, who are the No. 2 seed in the Central. Jake Oettinger<\/a> made 24 saves.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought (the Wild) did a good job, certainly,\u201d Dallas coach Glen Gulutzan said. \u201cThey blocked some of our looks. I thought we generated some good slot shots, attempts. We missed the net too on a few that could have turned into something a little better.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was one of the big things I noticed, is that we did kind of get to the interior with some attempts. Some got blocked, and some we plain old missed. This time of the year, you need to be dialed in there and get some of those. And if they don\u2019t go in, you can get residual (chances) off it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zuccarello, who missed the previous three games with an upper-body injury, gave Minnesota a 1-0 lead at 3:51 of the first period when he scored at the back door after Dallas defenseman Tyler Myers<\/a> turned the puck over in his own zone. Kaprizov gathered his own rebound to the left of the crease and passed across to Zuccarello, who swept the puck underneath the outstretched stick of Myers and into the net.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s a key piece to this puzzle,\u201d Minnesota defenseman Brock Faber<\/a> said of Zuccarello. \u201cHe brings skill. He brings energy. He obviously brings another element on the power play, so having him back is so awesome as a player, as a leader. He did what he does best tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mats Zuccarello scored in his return from injury, and Matt Boldy had a goal and an assist for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-636408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}