Minnesota rally falls short by millimeters; eliminated by Dallas
To pay tribute to native son Prince, the Minnesota Wild changed their goal song for Game 6 to “Let’s go crazy.”
Goals by John Klingberg, Jason Spezza, Patrick Sharp, and Jamie Benn in the first and second periods put the Dallas Stars ahead 4-0 going into the final frame. With the Wild sending a total of 13 shots on goal and nothing to show for it, it appeared as if fans would never hear the new goal song.
Yet things began to turn when Antoine Roussel was called for holding 3:10 into the third period.
Around 38 seconds after the power play started, Jared Spurgeon scored on Kari Lehtonen.
The Wild still had a long way to go to close the 4-1 gap; however, Spurgeon’s goal woke the team up.
Jonas Brodin would be credited with scoring the quickest followup goal in Wild playoff history just 16 seconds later.
Dallas’s lead is cut in half, 4-2.
A little less than minutes later, Stephen Johns took a high sticking penalty to put the Wild back on the power play.
The Minnesota power play needed only 17 seconds to score. Captain Mikko Koivu sent a pass through traffic to Spurgeon who netted his second power play goal of the game.
Dallas now up by a single goal, and having flashbacks to the first round of the 2014 playoffs when the Anaheim Ducks scored three straight goals in Game 6 to win in overtime.
Jason Zucker had the tie game on his stick when Lehtonen made a terrible puck handling decision in front of his net. The goaltender passed the puck across his open crease directly to Zucker, who misfired.
The Stars were outshot by the Wild 16-6 in the third period. Yet Dallas would be on the receiving end of some puck luck.
The puck hit Charlie Coyle’s skate in front of his net. It deflects off him and onto Devan Dubnyk who pushes it into his own net. The goal was credited to Alex Goligoski.
Dallas back up by two goals with less than 10 minutes to go.
Less than five minutes left, Erik Haula beat out an icing call to keep the play alive. Brodin gets the puck and fires it on net. The rebound bounces directly to Jason Pominville.
Stars’ lead back to a single goal, 5-4.
The building was roaring as the Wild continued their push.
Dallas responded by icing the puck repeatedly as they were clearing the zone and attempting to hit the empty net at the other end of the ice.
With 33.9 seconds left on the clock and a scrum in the crease, the referees called up to the situation room to see if the puck had crossed the line.
Here is what they saw:
Pretty close, right?
Ultimately this would be the deciding moment for the Wild’s season, and it would come down to millimeters.
The Stars held on to win the game, and take the series.
It’s Dallas’s first series win since 2008 when they knocked out the defending Stanley Cup champion Ducks in the first round.
Now they await the winner of Game 7 between the St. Louis Blues and Chicago Blackhawks.
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Jen Neale is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter! Follow @MsJenNeale_PD.
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