Wild defeat Stars in shootout

DALLAS -- Chris Stewart scored in the fifth round of the shootout and the Minnesota Wild defeated the Dallas Stars 3-2 at American Airlines Center on Tuesday.
Stewart beat Stars goalie Kari Lehtonen with a backhand shot after Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk stopped Jason Spezza to open the fifth round.

WATCH: All Wild vs. Stars highlights
"Mikko (Koivu) went in there and went in on the same angle, so I thought I'd come in and try it low blocker and beat him," Stewart said. "I've been pretty good on shootouts and breakaways lately, so I knew I'd get out there if it got too deep."

Dubnyk made 35 saves and Minnesota (31-11-5) extended its road point streak to 12 games. The Wild haven't lost a regulation game on the road since Nov. 29 against the Vancouver Canucks.
Dallas (19-20-10) had the best scoring chance in overtime, but Cody Eakin missed the net on a 3-on-0 break with 1:17 remaining.
"I just turned my head and didn't even want to look, and then I heard the crowd not cheering," Wild coach Bruce Boudreau said. "I said what the [heck] happened there … there was a 3-on-0 and there's only three men on the ice, you've got to think something bad is coming up."
It was the Stars' first shootout of the season. The Wild are 2-2 in shootouts.
"Missed opportunities," Stars coach Lindy Ruff said. "I thought our overtime was our best of the year. But again, we found a way to give a point away."

Jason Pominville scored on a 2-on-1 at 13:35 of the first period to give Minnesota a 1-0 lead. Pominville picked up a loose puck after Patrick Sharp missed the net and carried it into the zone on a 2-on-1 with Zach Parise before sending a wrist shot over Lehtonen's shoulder.
Koivu gave Minnesota a 2-0 lead on the power play at 4:38 of the second period. Koivu beat Lehtonen (31 saves) with a one-timer off a pass from Nino Niederreiter.
Tyler Seguin scored his 17th goal of the season at 9:38 of the second period to make it 2-1. Jason Spezza forced a turnover in the Wild zone and Antoine Roussel set up Seguin on a 2-on-1.
Patrick Eaves tied the game 2-2 during a 5-on-3 power play with 21 seconds left in the second period. Eaves batted a puck out of midair and past Dubnyk after Jamie Benn's pass had been blocked by Wild defenseman Marco Scandella.
"It's going to happen. Their power play is good and we took a couple penalties and they had a 5-on-3 and got some life and scored," Pominville said. "We have that attitude where we know we can win any game whether we're up or down. You look at our track record on the road lately, and it's been pretty good."

Goal of the game

Koivu's goal in the fourth round tied the shootout and gave Stewart a chance to win it for Minnesota.

Save of the game

Dubnyk stopped Spezza in the fifth round of the shootout to help preserve the victory.

Highlight of the game

Eaves' goal with 21 seconds left in the second period tied the game and required extreme eye-hand coordination to knock the puck out of midair.

Unsung performance of the game

Dubnyk made 14 saves in the third period to help send the game to overtime.

They said it

"When you're struggling, you've got to put your best foot forward. And try to earn your wins, try to outwork the other team, try to win the small games inside the game. The 1-on-1 battles, the 50/50 battles, backchecking battles, and I thought as the game went I thought we just got better and better." -- Stars coach Lindy Ruff
"Sometimes that's what you've got to do on the road. It really doesn't matter how you get the win as long as you're in the game. For sure, we need to learn from the things that we did. Things happen. Sometimes you get penalties. Tonight, (the) PK was working for the most part. I thought (in the) third period, we played smart. We didn't give them much. We'll take it. It's never easy to win on the road, so that was a good road game." -- Wild captain Mikko Koivu

Need to know

It was Koivu's first game back after missing a 4-2 loss to the Nashville Predators due to an illness. … Seguin played after missing practice Monday because of an illness.

What's next

Wild: Host the St. Louis Blues on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; NBCSN,
NHL.TV
)
Stars: Host the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday (8:30 p.m. ET; FS-SW, MSG-B,
NHL.TV
)