DALLAS (AP) \u2014 Matt Boldy had two goals with an assist, Joel Ericksson Ek scored two power-play goals and rookie goalie Jesper Wallstedt stopped 27 shots in his postseason debut to help the Minnesota Wild beat the Dallas Stars 6-1 on Saturday in Game 1 of their Western Conference playoff series.<\/p>\n
Kirill Kaprizov added a goal and two assists and Mats Zuccarello had three helpers for the Wild, who have lost nine consecutive playoff series since 2015. This was an impressive start in a long-expected matchup of Central Division rivals who finished behind Presidents’ Trophy winner Colorado.<\/p>\n
Even though the Stars have made the West final each of the past three seasons, they are 1-7 in Game 1s at home during that span.<\/p>\n
Game 2 is Monday night in Dallas.<\/p>\n
Dallas allowed the first goal in 15 of its 18 playoff games last year, and gave up three power-play goals in a 5-4 win over the Wild just nine days earlier. The Stars trailed for good only 5 1\/2 minutes into the series when Ericksson Ek scored on a pass from Boldy to make it 1-0. Ericksson Ek added another power-play goal past Jake Oettinger in the third.<\/p>\n
Kaprizov and Boldy, the first Wild teammates with 40 goals in the same season, scored during a three-goal surge in the first 6 1\/2 minutes of the second period for a 4-0 lead. Ryan Hartman scored in between, after having the primary assist on Kaprizov’s goal.<\/p>\n
Jason Robertson and Wyatt Johnston both had 45 goals as the first Dallas teammates with 40 goals in the same season. They combined on the Stars’ power-play goal with 4:50 left in the second, Robertson scoring on a back-hander after gathering a pass from Johnston.<\/p>\n
Minnesota went with the 23-year-old Wallstedt in net over playoff-experienced Filip Gustavsson, who in his playoff debut three years ago had 51 saves in a 3-2 double-overtime win at Dallas.<\/p>\n
Wallstedt’s first NHL game was a 7-2 loss at Dallas in January 2024, but that was only one of five games he played for the Wild until this regular season, when he went 4-1 with a 1.82 goals-against average and .936 save percentage his last five starts. He also had four shutouts in a six-game span early this season.<\/p>\n
The Wild still led only 1-0 with Dallas on the power play midway through the first period when Wallstedt, shielded and looking to the right of traffic, reached back to his left to make a glove save on a shot by Robertson.<\/p>\n
Oettinger, who grew up about 30 miles from Minnesota’s home arena, stopped 23 shots to open his 11th postseason series as the Stars starting goalie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS (AP) \u2014 Matt Boldy had two goals with an assist, Joel Ericksson Ek scored two power-play goals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[92948,3627,3628,96518,92945,92950,96517,23681,202,196,84493,42094,41978,942,201,92946,82,84,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-256324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-filip-gustavsson","9":"tag-jake-oettinger","10":"tag-jason-robertson","11":"tag-jesper-wallstedt","12":"tag-joel-ericksson-ek","13":"tag-kirill-kaprizov","14":"tag-nhl-playoffs-wild-stars","15":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","16":"tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","17":"tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","18":"tag-product-32550-ap-online-hockey-game-stories","19":"tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","20":"tag-product-40793-ap-minnesota-sports-only","21":"tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","22":"tag-product-40822-ap-wisconsin-sports-only","23":"tag-ryan-hartman","24":"tag-san-antonio","25":"tag-san-antonio-headlines","26":"tag-san-antonio-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}