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Dallas Stars players celebrate after the double overtime win against the Minnesota Wild of Game 3 in the first round of the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs early morning Thursday, April 23, 2026, in St. Paul,\u00a0Minn.<\/p>\n
Abbie Parr\/AP<\/p>\n
ST. PAUL,\u00a0Minn \u2014 For the first time this series, a game needed beyond 60 minutes to be decided.<\/p>\n
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This one needed well beyond 60 minutes.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
The Stars took a\u00a02-1 lead in the first-round playoff series\u00a0<\/a>against the Minnesota Wild with a 4-3 double overtime win in Game 3 <\/a>at Grand Casino Arena on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n Dallas scored three power play goals on the night, including the game-winner in the second overtime by Wyatt Johnston.<\/p>\n Dallas has now won two straight. Teams that lead a series 2-1 and start the series at home go on to win 74% of the time.<\/p>\n Make Dallas News a preferred source so your search results prioritize writing by actual people, not AI.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n The Stars will have a chance to push Minnesota to the brink in St. Paul in Game 4 on Saturday.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Here are five thoughts from the Stars\u2019 win:<\/p>\n Wyatt Johnston lifts Stars to victory after a late night<\/p>\n The Stars have scored six power play goals in three games this series, but Johnston\u2019s goal just before 1 a.m. local time Thursday was certainly the biggest.<\/p>\n The Stars had their best chances past regulation in the second overtime period, including a\u00a0Radek Faksa look at an open net and an Esa Lindell one-timer that barely missed.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n But after\u00a0Danila Yurov threw a puck over the glass for a delay of game penalty, the Stars finally were able to take advantage.\u00a0<\/p>\n Johnston deflected Miro Heiskanen\u2019s shot from the point to claim the win 92:08 into the game.<\/p>\n The forward had already broken Dallas\u2019 franchise record for most power play goals in a regular season season and has managed to keep it up with two in the playoffs.<\/p>\n Stars penalty kill steps up in crunch time<\/p>\n After giving up a goal on Minnesota\u2019s first power play, Dallas\u2019 penalty kill kept the Wild off the\u00a0scoresheet for the rest of the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The Wild finished 1-for-7, going zero for their last six attempts in the second and third periods and overtime.<\/p>\n Minnesota had two power play chances in overtime. The first was after a Sam Steel tripping penalty. The Stars managed to kill off the penalty even with one of their penalty killers, Faksa, without a stick for the majority of the two minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Stars captain Jamie\u00a0Benn then committed a hooking penalty with 51 seconds left in the first overtime period. But the Stars also managed to kill that penalty across two periods.<\/p>\n After allowing two Minnesota power play goals in the first game of the playoffs and three in their last regular-season meeting, the Stars have turned their special teams around.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n They also did so with some of their penalty killers playing major minutes, like\u00a0Miro Heiskanen, who played 41:58 and Esa Lindell, who played 30:16.\u00a0<\/p>\n Stars power play puts on\u00a0rollercoaster performance<\/p>\n Through three games, the Stars have learned the Wild will spend their fair share of time in the penalty box. But when they\u2019re able to bait them, they have to make them pay.<\/p>\n The Stars were inconsistent Thursday, but in the end, they did it.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Dallas scored three total power play goals and two late \u2014 one from Matt Duchene in the third period and another from Johnston in overtime \u2014 to complete the comeback win. It was necessary after how their power play performed in the second period.\u00a0<\/p>\n Late in the period, the Wild took three consecutive minors \u2014 two interference calls on Ryan Hartman and a delay of game penalty on Matt\u00a0Boldy. The Stars were on the man advantage longer than a major penalty and spent 41 seconds with a two-man advantage but still couldn\u2019t score.<\/p>\n Not capitalizing on such a prime opportunity was bound to come back to haunt the Stars, and it took just seven seconds for Michael\u00a0McCarron to score his first goal of the playoffs and give the Wild their first lead of the night with under three minutes remaining in the second.<\/p>\n The Stars\u2019 power play finished 3-for-8 on the night and has six goals in three games this series.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Early Dallas lead vanishes<\/p>\n The Stars had a flawless start Wednesday night, jumping out to a 2-0 lead less than four minutes into the game.<\/p>\n Steel drew a tripping penalty that put the Stars on the power play just 1:05 into the game, and\u00a0Jason Robertson<\/a> found Rantanen with a perfectly placed pass. Then, Robertson scored himself on the rush later in the period.<\/p>\n But they say a two-goal lead is the most dangerous in hockey, and it was for the Stars.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n A high-sticking penalty on Robertson allowed Marcus Johansson to score on the power play late in the first period and shift the momentum in Minnesota\u2019s direction. The Wild were able to carry it into the second period, where they fought back to take their first lead in the series since Game 1.<\/p>\n But the Stars have shown a steadiness all season, even when they trail. Despite entering the third period down a goal and taking two early penalties, the Stars stayed composed and evened the game down the stretch.<\/p>\n Jason Robertson, on a heater, gets support from top teammates<\/p>\n Robertson has been playing his best hockey when it\u2019s mattered most.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The team\u2019s leading goal scorer, who finished tied with Johnston with 45 goals in the regular season, has one in each of the first three games of the series.<\/p>\n Robertson had a hand in Dallas\u2019 first two goals Wednesday night, hitting\u00a0Rantanen as he crashed the net on the power play before keeping it himself on a rush chance later in the first period.<\/p>\n Dating to the regular season, Robertson has eight goals in the last eight games.<\/p>\n The Dallas forward has been criticized in the past for not producing in the playoffs at the same rate as he has in the regular season. Robertson has averaged 1.07 points per game in his regular-season career, but just .79 in the playoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n By signing up, you agree to our Terms Of Use<\/a> and acknowledge that your information will be used as described in our Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n But so far this postseason, he has delivered.<\/p>\n Robertson also received some much-needed support from teammates like Johnston,\u00a0Rantanen and Duchene, who all finished with multiple points.\u00a0<\/p>\n Johnston had the game-winner and an assist.\u00a0Rantanen scored his first goal of the playoffs and added an assist. Duchene scored to tie the score in the third and added two assists.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas Stars players celebrate after the double overtime win against the Minnesota Wild of Game 3 in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,5964,88187,90780],"class_list":["post-262361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-listicle","tag-tp-jason-robertson","tag-tp-nhl-playoffs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262361","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=262361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775031754_150_rawImage.jpg\" "\\"#\\"")
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