Wild vs. Stars Game 5: Key takeaways as Minnesota dominates at 5-on-5, puts Dallas on the brink

DALLAS — In the past dozen years, no team has made the Stanley Cup playoffs more than the Minnesota Wild, with 10 appearances.

Now, after 11 years of torture — being good enough to almost always get in but not good enough or fortunate enough to get through a single round — the Wild are one win away from advancing to the Western Conference semifinals.

With another dominant performance at five-on-five, the Wild put the powerhouse Dallas Stars on the brink of elimination, winning 4-2 in Game 5 at American Airlines Center on Tuesday to take a 3-2 series lead.

The Stars went another game without a five-on-five goal. They have been outscored 14-4 at even strength in the series and 11-3 at five-on-five, with no five-on-five goals in the past 207 minutes, 53 seconds.

Mats Zuccarello scored early in his return to the Wild after missing three games with a head injury, Matt Boldy tallied a power-play goal in the second, Michael McCarron had a third-period goal that stood up as the game winner, and Kirill Kaprizov capped it with an empty-netter. Kaprizov also assisted on two goals.

Jesper Wallstedt, who entered the game with a .929 save percentage, 3.57 goals saved above expected, a .970 five-on-five save percentage and a .929 five-on-five high-danger save percentage, made 20 saves.

“We played awesome,” Wallstedt said. “I didn’t think I was that good the first two periods. I felt like I was scrambling a little bit. I was overplaying rebounds. … But the way our team played was so good that they didn’t even have the chance to challenge me that much.

“I felt like five-on-five, and then getting into the third, I felt really good again, and obviously they started to put some more pucks to the net and felt like I got into the game a little better.”

Dallas, meanwhile, finds itself on the brink of a first-round loss that, though somewhat excusable based on the NHL’s unforgiving divisional playoff format, would be a crushing disappointment for a team built to win and win right now. The Stars reached the Western Conference final each of the past three springs and have harbored legitimate hopes of finally breaking through to the Stanley Cup Final this season.

With two 45-goal scorers in Jason Robertson and Wyatt Johnston, a superstar in Mikko Rantanen, a perennial Norris candidate in Miro Heiskanen and a high-end goaltender in Jake Oettinger, Dallas’ window is now. But the Stars’ stunning inability to produce at five-on-five against the Wild and an absolute dearth of depth scoring — every Dallas goal this series has been scored by its top-five skaters — has them one loss from their first early spring since 2023.

Heiskanen and Robertson scored for the Stars on Tuesday. Robertson has scored in every game in the series.

The Wild entered the game 1-6 all time in Game 5s when the series was tied at 2. The only previous victory? Game 5 in 2015 in St. Louis — the last time the Wild won a playoff series.

When a best-of-seven playoff round is tied at 2, the winner of Game 5 has gone on to win the series 79.4 percent of the time (239-62). That includes a 150-36 (.807) record for the home team and an 89-26 (.774) record for the road team.

The Wild will have a chance to avoid a Game 7 and close out this series in six games Thursday night in St. Paul, with the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Colorado Avalanche awaiting.

Brock Faber can’t wait to hear the crowd.

“I’d play tomorrow if I could,” the Wild defenseman said.

Another Wild goal wiped out, but Matt Boldy gets it back

The Wild thought they took a 2-1 lead late in the first period before another Boldy goal was taken off the board.

With 13 seconds left in the first, Minnesota was creating on the power play. Boldy got the puck low and went to the net, taking three shots at Oettinger during a goal-mouth scramble. Boldy was tripped by Esa Lindell, and Heiskanen actually knocked the puck in, but Boldy’s stick pushed Oettinger’s right pad, which sparked a goalie interference challenge by the Stars.

Boldy thought the NHL situation room got the call right.

The challenge worked, and Boldy’s goal was overturned, making it the third time in the past two games a Minnesota goal was taken off the board. Boldy also had one waved off quickly in Game 4 when he made a distinct kicking motion on a goal before later scoring the overtime winner.

Boldy would get the power-play goal back in the final minute of the second after Dallas was whistled for too many men. After winning three puck battles, he scored his fourth goal of the series to snap a streak of 12 straight kills for the Stars. It was the Wild’s top power-play unit’s first goal in 18 tries in the past four games.

“I think the whole power play — Quinn (Hughes) made some great plays on top, Zuccy, too, Kirill as well,” Boldy said. “When we’re doing that, and we’re winning battles and getting pucks back, that’s when we’re at our best.”

Bobby Brink’s turnover, penalty turn momentum

The Wild couldn’t have asked for a better start with Zuccarello returning to the lineup and scoring just 3:51 in. They gave up one shot in the first eight minutes and put on a defensive clinic.

That was until Bobby Brink’s offensive blue-line turnover that led to a … Brink penalty covering for it — not a good combo for a guy who stayed in the lineup with the returns of Zuccarello and Yakov Trenin. Being unwilling to pull Brink from the lineup led to rookie Danila Yurov’s and/or veteran Nico Sturm’s getting the night off.

The third line with Vladimir Tarasenko, McCarron and Brink was hemmed in so often in the first period and start of the second that coach John Hynes finally demoted Brink to the fourth line and elevated Trenin, back in the lineup for the first time since getting hurt in Game 2.

One reason the Brink penalty stung is the Wild have struggled so much on the penalty kill. For the ninth time in the series and fourth in a row, the Stars scored on the power play, with Heiskanen whistling his second in two games.

After that penalty kill, the Wild had lost a league-high 25 faceoffs on 42 draws (40.4 percent) in the playoffs. Joel Eriksson Ek, who was charged with the loss on this one, had lost 11 of 17 draws to that point, McCarron 10 of 19 and Nick Foligno 4 of 6.

However, the kill later came through with two big ones — one in the second and one in the third.

Tyler Myers fumbles promotion

For the past three trade deadlines, Stars general manager Jim Nill has gone shopping for an elusive second-pair right-shot defenseman, with varying levels of success. In 2024, Chris Tanev was everything Dallas hoped he’d be. In 2025, Cody Ceci was … fine. This season, Nill brought in towering blueliner Tyler Myers. But the emergence of Nils Lundkvist made Myers a luxury rather than a necessity, and he slipped in nicely to a third-pairing role instead.

But after Lundkvist took a McCarron skate to the face during Game 4 in St. Paul and couldn’t play in Game 5, the Stars once again had a hole on the right side. Coach Glen Gulutzan inserted Ilya Lyubushkin into the lineup, choosing him over Alex Petrovic and Kyle Capobianco. That bumped Myers up to the second pairing. And Myers didn’t get off to a great start.

Myers’ breakout pass up the boards to no one early in the first period was picked off by Ryan Hartman, who sent it to Kaprizov. Kaprizov’s shot was stopped by Oettinger, but Zuccarello was there to clean up the rebound to give the Wild a 1-0 early lead.

Karma, one might call it, as it was Myers who elbowed Zuccarello in the face and knocked him out of the series for the previous three games.

Myers also was caught unprepared on McCarron’s third-period goal that put the Stars down 3-1. Then he took an interference penalty midway through the second period, but Dallas killed that one off.

Lundkvist’s status for Game 6 is unclear. Gulutzan called it “a very deep cut” and said, “There’s a little bit of something else going on.” Lyubushkin, who joined Lian Bichsel on the third pair, had a goal and eight assists in 53 games during the regular season. Lyubushkin was a regular down the stretch but hadn’t played since the season finale in Buffalo on April 15.

“You’re a professional athlete; you have to be ready no matter what, always,” Lyubushkin said before the game. “Is it difficult? It’s not difficult. You just have to jump in the game and play.”

Jonas Brodin hurt

Oft-injured Wild defenseman Jonas Brodin didn’t play after his last shift, 1:44 into the second period, after a block on a Rantanen shot. He was seen after the game walking out on crutches with a boot on his right foot.

That meant the Wild played more than 38 minutes with five defensemen. Brodin had been terrific in the series — on the ice for only one goal against at five-on-five and three total alongside partner Jared Spurgeon.

If the left-shot Brodin can’t play in Game 6, Jake Middleton would likely play with his old partner, Spurgeon, and right-shot Jeff Petry or left-shot Daemon Hunt would be inserted.

The Stars, meanwhile, lost third-line center Arttu Hyry to a lower-body injury midway through the second period. Hyry has been an effective checker and penalty killer since entering the lineup for Adam Erne in Game 2. If he can’t go in Game 6, Michael Bunting — acquired at the trade deadline from the Nashville Predators for a third-round pick — is the likeliest replacement.