Stars Go Quietly Into Offseason With Game 6 Loss to Wild: Takeaways

Meanwhile, Dallas is headed home without winning a playoff series for only the third time in the past eight seasons. Here are the takeaways from the Stars’ season-ending defeat. The Stars Had No Answer for Quinn Hughes Nick Wosika-Imagn Images The Wild pulled the trigger on a blockbuster deal in November where they effectively traded four first-round picks — their pick this year plus three players who were chosen in the first round in his draft year — for the 2024 Norris Trophy winner.

The series was billed as Hughes vs Miro Heiskanen in a showdown of elite blueliners. But Hughes capped his clear victory with a dominant performance in Game 6. Hughes had two goals and three points in the series-clincher.

He broke the ice by scoring first then took the slap shot from the point that set up Vladimir Tarasenko’s game-tying goal — less than a minute after Mavrik Bourque put the Stars ahead at 16:08 of the second period. Hughes then tallied the game-winner midway through the third. He also led all postseason skaters in average time on ice (31:40) while finishing with the same number of points (8) as Dallas’ leading playoff scorer, Jason Robertson.

Hughes is arguably the best defenseman in hockey. There’s no shame in losing to a player like that, especially when he takes over the series the way he did. But Stars fans like to think Heiskanen is at least on Hughes’ level, in terms of top-10 blueliners in hockey.