{"id":592805,"date":"2026-04-19T01:45:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T01:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/592805\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T01:45:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T01:45:07","slug":"wild-6-1-stars-apr-18-2026-game-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/592805\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild 6-1 Stars (Apr 18, 2026) Game Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

DALLAS — \u2014 Matt Boldy<\/a> had two goals with an assist, Joel Ericksson Ek scored two power-play goals and rookie goalie <\/a>Jesper Wallstedt<\/a> stopped 27 shots in his postseason debut to help the Minnesota Wild<\/a> beat the Dallas Stars<\/a> 6-1 on Saturday in Game 1 of their Western Conference playoff series.<\/p>\n

Kirill Kaprizov<\/a> added a goal and two assists and Mats Zuccarello<\/a> 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<\/a> 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<\/a> 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<\/a> 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<\/a> scored in between, after having the primary assist on Kaprizov’s goal. <\/p>\n

Jason Robertson<\/a> and Wyatt Johnston<\/a> 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<\/a>, 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<\/a> 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

——<\/p>\n

AP NHL playoffs: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/stanley-cup<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS — \u2014 Matt Boldy had two goals with an assist, Joel Ericksson Ek scored two power-play goals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-592805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}