ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) \u2014 Quinn Hughes led Minnesota to its first playoff series victory in 11 years, scoring twice in the Wild’s 5-2 victory over the Dallas Stars in Game 6 on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
Minnesota will face Presidents Trophy winner Colorado in the second round. The Avalanche have not played since sweeping Los Angeles on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The Wild won a playoff series for the first time in 10 tries since 2015. The past eight came in the first round, including against Dallas in 2016 and 2023.<\/p>\n
After Hughes broke a tie midway through the third period, Matt Boldy scored his team-leading fifth and sixth goals of the series into empty nets to seal it. Vladimir Tarasenko also scored and Jesper Wallstedt made 22 saves.<\/p>\n
Hughes, acquired from Vancouver in December in the biggest trade in franchise history, took a shot from the left dot that deflected off the skate of Stars defenseman Ilya Lyubshkin and past goalie Jake Oettinger. Hughes also had an assist.<\/p>\n
All three Wild goals came at full strength. Minnesota outscored Dallas 17-5 at even strength in the series, including 12-4 at five-on-five.<\/p>\n
Wyatt Johnston and Mavrik Bourque scored for Dallas. Johnston had the league-high 10th power-play goal of the postseason for the Stars. Minnesota had three power-play goals in the series.<\/p>\n
Hughes opened the scoring in the first period, and Johnston converted a pass from Mikko Rantanen on the power-play goal to tie it second.<\/p>\n
A fortuitous bounce off the end boards went to Bourque, who made a quick move before shifting to his forehand for an easy goal with 3:42 left in the second.<\/p>\n
Tarasenko answered 54 seconds later for Minnesota. He tipped a redirected shot to himself, and while falling to his knees, and scored on a backhander for his 50th career postseason goal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) \u2014 Quinn Hughes led Minnesota to its first playoff series victory in 11 years,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[101524,3627,96518,9922,101527,101525,3626,11728,23681,202,196,84493,42094,41978,942,201,99866,82,84,83,101523,101526,3632],"class_list":["post-273924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-ilya-lyubshkin","tag-jake-oettinger","tag-jesper-wallstedt","tag-los-angeles","tag-matthew-boldy","tag-mavrik-bourque","tag-mikko-rantanen","tag-minnesota","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-32550-ap-online-hockey-game-stories","tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","tag-product-40793-ap-minnesota-sports-only","tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","tag-product-40822-ap-wisconsin-sports-only","tag-quinn-hughes","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-stard-wild-score-nhl-stanley-cup","tag-vladimir-tarasenko","tag-wyatt-johnston"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273924","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=273924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}