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Minnesota Wild left wing Matt Boldy (12) celebrates with left wing Kirill Kaprizov (97) after scoring past Dallas Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger (background) during the second period in Game 5 of a first-round NHL hockey playoff series at American Airlines Center on Tuesday, April 28, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n
Smiley N. Pool\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Dallas Stars <\/a>will be facing elimination for the remainder of their first-round playoff series with the Minnesota Wild<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Wild claimed another win on American Airlines Center ice,\u00a0defeating the Stars 4-2 in Game 5 <\/a>Tuesday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The Wild can end the Stars\u2019 season at home in Game 6 Thursday night.<\/p>\n Here are five thoughts from the Stars\u2019 loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wild push Stars to brink of elimination<\/p>\n The Stars aren\u2019t very familiar with long\u00a0offseasons, but one could be just around the corner.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/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 Wild need to win just one of the last two games of the series to punch their ticket to the second round, where they would face the Colorado Avalanche. That\u2019s why the winner of a Game 5 when a series is tied 2-2 goes on to win the series 80% of the time.<\/p>\n The Stars haven\u2019t been eliminated before the Western Conference finals since 2022 when they lost to Calgary in seven games in the first round.<\/p>\n The last time the Stars faced elimination in Game 6 of a series and went on to advance was in 1999 in the Western Conference finals against Colorado \u2014 the year they won the Cup.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Stars still unable to convert 5-on-5<\/p>\n The Stars have been getting their chances 5-on-5, but all series they\u2019ve struggled to convert.\u00a0<\/p>\n That was evident again in Tuesday\u2019s loss.<\/p>\n The Stars finished with a significant 26-15 advantage in scoring chances 5-on-5. But the Wild extended their 5-on-5 scoring advantage in the series to 10-3 with goals by Mats Zuccarello and Michael McCarron.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The Stars haven\u2019t scored a 5-on-5 goal since the first period of Game 3. Jason Robertson scored when it was 4-on-4 and Dallas had pulled their goalie late for an extra skater.<\/p>\n Only five players have scored for the Stars this series and only two have scored 5-on-5 \u2014 Robertson and Wyatt Johnston.<\/p>\n The Stars need any of their depth forwards \u2014 from\u00a0Mavrik Bourque to Justin Hryckowian to Jamie Benn \u2014 to break through.<\/p>\n Wild match Stars on special teams<\/p>\n While 5-on-5 has been the Stars\u2019 weakness in scoring this season, the Stars had a sizable advantage on the power play entering Game 5, scoring eight goals on the man advantage to Minnesota\u2019s three.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n But the Wild neutralized that advantage Tuesday.<\/p>\n The Stars scored their lone goal on the power play. Miro Heiskanen, for the second straight game, scored a power-play goal off a shot from the point. The Stars were unable to convert on their other three chances.<\/p>\n But the Wild scored on a power play of their own late in the second period. Matt\u00a0Boldy scored with just over 30 seconds left in the period shortly after the Stars went down a penalty killer. Forward Arttu Hyry, who has been a key piece on the PK this series, left the game early in the second period <\/a>with a lower-body injury and never returned.<\/p>\n The Wild hadn\u2019t scored a power-play goal since early in Game 3 and struggled without one of their top-unit players,\u00a0Zuccarello, who had missed three games with an injury. But the Wild man advantage had no trouble connecting again with Zuccarello back in the lineup.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Zuccarello also scored a 5-on-5 goal in his first game back \u2014 Minnesota\u2019s first of the game.<\/p>\n Stars get little support from trade deadline pieces<\/p>\n Of Dallas\u2019 two pick-ups at the trade deadline, neither have made much of a positive impact on this series. One has been in the lineup, and the other hasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Stars defenseman Tyler Myers, who has struggled defensively all series, especially with clearing pucks, had another rough night.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The Wild took a 1-0 lead just 3:51 into the game when\u00a0Kirill Kaprizov was denied by Stars goalie Jake Oettinger before Myers chased the puck and left Zuccarello wide open to finish the play.<\/p>\n Myers also took an interference penalty in the second period and was then left chasing a scoring play in the third, finishing with the worst plus-minus on the team at minus-2.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Stars also added forward Michael Bunting at the trade deadline, who finished with 14 goals in 74 games this series and was meant to be a middle-six addition.\u00a0<\/p>\n He has not played in any of the five games this series, but given the scoring issues, the Stars may need to take a look at Bunting ahead of Game 6.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Matt\u00a0Boldy remains a problem<\/p>\n The Stars have struggled all series against Wild left wing Matt\u00a0Boldy, and he again rose to the occasion.\u00a0<\/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 Boldy scored another critical goal. After ending Game 4 in overtime, he scored a power play goal Tuesday that put the Wild up 2-1 in the second intermission, forcing the Stars to play catch up. He also assisted on\u00a0Kaprizov\u2019s empty netter to make it 4-2.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Boldy also scored twice in Game 1. He only trails Robertson, who scored late in Game 5 to tally a goal for the fifth straight game.<\/p>\n In each of the last two games,\u00a0Boldy has had a goal disallowed as well. He had one taken off the board in overtime in Game 4 for an illegal kick then had a power-play goal in the first period Tuesday night taken away when the Stars successfully challenged for goaltender interference. Boldy pushed in Oettinger\u2019s pad before scoring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minnesota Wild left wing Matt Boldy (12) celebrates with left wing Kirill Kaprizov (97) after scoring past Dallas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,5964,89489,90780],"class_list":["post-270755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-listicle","tag-tp-american-airlines-center","tag-tp-nhl-playoffs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270755","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=270755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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