Hintz hat trick helps Stars defeat Wild in Game 2, even Western 1st Round

DALLAS -- Roope Hintz had three goals and an assist for the Dallas Stars in a 7-3 win against the Minnesota Wild in Game 2 of the Western Conference First Round at American Airlines Center on Wednesday.

The best-of-7 series is tied 1-1. Game 3 is at Minnesota on Friday.
Hintz is the first player to score at even strength, short-handed and on the power play in a Stanley Cup Playoff game since Tyler Johnson with the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 2 of the 2015 Eastern Conference Final.
"[Hintz] is elite and he's capable of taking over games like that, and we needed him," Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said. "Our team with what happened with [Joe Pavelski] the other night (concussion protocol), a little bit rattled, we needed our best players to step up tonight and make a statement. And they did, every one of them, not just Roope."

Miro Heiskanen had four assists, and Evgenii Dadonov scored twice for the Stars, the No. 2 seed in the Central Division. Jake Oettinger made 23 saves.
Oskar Sundqvist, Frederick Gaudreau, and Marcus Johansson each scored, and Gustav Nyquist and Matt Dumba each had two assists for the Wild, the No. 3 seed in the Central.
Marc-Andre Fleury allowed seven goals on 31 shots after Filip Gustavsson made 51 saves in a 3-2 double-overtime win in Game 1 on Monday.
"Embarrassing on my part, giving up seven goals like that in the playoffs," Fleury said. "I want to come in and give a chance to my team to stay in the game and win, and that's not what I did. Gave up too many goals. I think we had to open up, try to come back in the game, but]*
Sundqvist cut it to 2-1 at 16:11 when Nyquist's backhand deflected off his skate near the far post.
Jamie Benn restored the Stars' two-goal lead with a power-play goal at 4:07 of the second period to make it 3-1, and Dadonov extended it to 4-1 at 5:34 on a rebound of Wyatt Johnston's shot.
Johansson cut it to 4-2 at 11:54 on the power play, and Gaudreau made it 4-3 just 11 seconds later at 12:05 after he got behind Dallas defenseman Colin Miller.
"We knew they weren't going to quit," said Benn, the Stars captain. "It's tough to give up two like that, but we stuck with it and bounced right back."

But Dadonov scored his second of the game at 16:08 on a redirection from the edge of the right face-off circle to give Dallas a 5-3 lead, and Hintz got his second on a breakaway at 16:56 to make it 6-3.
"This is just a weird game, I thought, to be honest," Nyquist said. "I think we started the game good. We came out with a lot of jump and got it back to 2-1. The same in the second, we got it back to 4-3. Just lost ourselves a little bit, gave them a couple easy chances that we usually don't do. Just sharpen that up and we'll be good to go."
Hintz completed his hat trick with a power-play goal at 12:16 of the third period, redirecting Robertson's feed for the 7-3 final.
"They had a short-handed breakaway and two power-play goals. What would you like 'Flower' to do, right?" Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. "He made some incredible saves for us. We just spoke of all the odd-man rushes that we gave up. Another one was a breakaway, another one was a power play. That's what, five?
"We gave them their opportunities. They took them too. They played really well, but we didn't do the right things in front of our goaltender tonight."

The Stars finished 3-6 with the man-advantage; the Wild were 1-for-5.
"I mean, we don't want to (take penalties)," Minnesota defenseman Jake Middleton said. "When you look at us 5-on-5, we're playing really well. It's kind of been unfortunate we've put ourselves in these situations through the first two games. But it's something we have to work on. If we play 5-on-5, I think we all know we're the better team in that aspect of the game."
NOTES:Heiskanen also had four assists for the Stars in their 7-3 win against the Calgary Flames in a 2020 West first-round series. … It was the first time the Wild allowed seven goals in a Stanley Cup Playoff game. … Johansson and Gaudreau's goals were the two fastest in the playoffs in franchise history. Jared Spurgeon and Jonas Brodin scored 16 seconds apart, also against Dallas, in Game 6 of the 2015 Western First Round.