DALLAS – Due to the NHL’s strict prohibition of anything team related — including travel — during the three-day Christmas break, the Minnesota Wild got up early on Friday and flew to north Texas in time for their morning skate, and their evening encounter with the Stars.
For a few of the players, it harkened back to their “get off the bus and play” days in high school and juniors when you would arrive at the rink, get your gear on and drop the puck. Of note, none of them said that day-of-game travel was a sure-fire formula for on-ice success.
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Still, after a spirited battle, Brock Faber scored on a wraparound in the first minute of overtime as the Wild eked out an unlikely victory, winning 3-2 at American Airlines Center.
It was Faber’s fifth goal of the season.
Trailing 2-0 in the latter half of the final period, the Wild got goals 57 seconds apart from Jonas Brodin and Marcus Foligno to forge an unlikely tie after Dallas had outshot and dominated their guests for long stretches in the first 50 minutes.
Wild goalie Filip Gustavsson had 27 saves, improving to 16-5-3.
Stars goalie Jake Oettinger flew south from his family’s home in Lakeville, Minn., on Thursday and got to Dallas in time for a 15-save performance. Oettinger fell to 7-0-2 in his career versus his home-state team, which includes a 2-1 win in Minnesota earlier this season.
The trouble for the visitors, who were playing without superstar forward Kirill Kaprizov for just the second time this season, started just past the game’s first media timeout when Wyatt Johnston caught a pair of Wild defenders flat-footed at the blue line and sprung Evgenii Dadonov on a short-range breakaway with a quick pass. Dadonov’s wrist shot beat Gustavsson on the stick side for an early Dallas lead.
The Wild killed the first period’s only penalty, which featured a scary moment when a Dallas shot from the blue line was tipped on the way to the net and the redirected puck hit Stars forward Mason Marchment in the face. He dropped immediately and, after a whistle, was helped to the locker room, leaving a significant pool of blood on the ice in front of the Minnesota crease.
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After the Stars doubled their lead late in the second, the Wild’s third line made a furious push in the final minute of the period.
Yakov Trenin had three feet of open net after Oettinger couldn’t control the rebound of a long-range shot, but the puck slid wide of the net. Just seconds later, a Declan Chisholm blast from the blue line was tipped in front by Marcus Foligno but glanced off the goalpost and away from danger as time expired in the period.
Brodin foiled Oettinger’s shutout bid with his first goal in more than a month, snapping a low shot just inside the right post. On the next shift, Foligno screened the goalie and deflected Jared Spurgeon’s shot to knot the score.
The Wild close out 2024 with a pair of 7 p.m. home games, Sunday night versus Ottawa and New Year’s Eve versus Nashville.
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