Early morning heartbreak for Wild, who drop Game 3 in second OT
Wyatt Johnston scored a power-play goal in the second overtime and the Dallas Stars survived an evening of dramatic momentum swings, beating the Minnesota Wild 4-3 in Game 3 early Thursday morning to take a 2-1 lead in their best-of-seven playoff series. The second man advantage of the second overtime was the clincher for the Stars, who led after the first period, trailed after the second period and in the end found a way to rally. Marcus Johansson, Joel Eriksson Ek and Michael McCarron scored in the first two periods for Minnesota, which got a 32-save night from goalie Jesper Wallstedt.
Dallas jumped out to an early 2-0 lead but could not take the full-throated sellout crowd out of the game, despite rallying to tie in the third. They got 29 saves from goalie Jake Oettinger in the win. Minnesota’s power play continued to struggle without injured forward Mats Zuccarello.
The Wild were 0-for-4 with the man advantage in a Game 2 loss, and 1 for 7 on Wednesday, including a combined 0 for 5 in the third period and overtime. After talking about the need for discipline, the Wild took a penalty barely a minute into the game and found themselves trailing 20 seconds later when Stars forward Mikko Rantanen got behind the defense and redirected a puck past Wallstedt. They went down a man near the middle of the first when Nick Foligno was whistled for holding.
Minnesota killed this one, thanks in part to a pair of Wallstedt saves, but lost Matt Boldy when he was hit in the back of the head by Jamie Benn just as the penalty expired. The Stars doubled their lead on a 2-on-1 rush to the net when Jason Robertson zipped a wrist shot past Wallstedt glove side. The Wild gave their late-night crowd a reason to roar in the final two minutes of the opening period.
On their first power play of the night, Bobby Brink found Johansson, alone 15 feet out from the crease, and his shot found the back of the net. For Brink, the Minnetonka native acquired at the trade deadline, it was his first career playoff point. Boldly returned for the second period with an exclamation point, setting up Minnesota’s tying goal by weaving around four Dallas challengers, and pulling Oettinger outside the crease, before passing to Eriksson Ek, who had an open net to hit for his third goal of the playoffs.
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