5 things to know: Stars get taste of 'playoff hockey' in win over Wild

The Dallas Stars won their third straight game and climbed into third place in the Central Division with a 3-1 win over the Minnesota Wild Friday night at American Airlines Center.
Tyler Seguin scored two goals, including the game-winner, Andrew Cogliano scored his first goal as a Star, and Ben Bishop stopped 21 shots as Dallas (26-21-4) wrapped up a six-game homestand.
Here are five things from Friday's game.

1. Stars prevail in playoff-type game

With the Stars and Wild separated by one point and third place in the Central Division at stake, Friday's game was expected to have a playoff feel to it, and it did. It was a hard, tight game with chances and goals hard to come by.
"Those are the games that are going to happen. This is playoff hockey at this point," said Cogliano. "Those are the games you want to win. At this point of the season, when you win 2-1, 3-1, or win good defensively, you get your goals when you get chances, and you'll have success."
And that's what the Stars did Friday. They played well defensively, giving up little, and cashed in on a couple of chances, one more than Minnesota did and then sealed the win with an empty-net goal.
The Stars played a strong first, but it was a 0-0 game after 20 minutes. The Stars got the game's first goal early in the second when Cogliano tipped in a Roman Polak shot from the point. Minnesota tied it a little more than five minutes later on a power play goal by Wild defenseman Brad Hunt.
It stayed tied until there was 7:42 left in regulation. Mattias Janmark won a puck battle in the neutral zone, got the puck to Seguin and the Stars center blasted the puck through Wild goaltender Devan Dubnyk from the right circle to make it a 2-1 game. Seguin would later seal the win with an empty-net goal with 24 seconds left to make it a 3-1 final.
"These are the kind of games that get you ready for playoffs," Seguin said. "That's what everybody says about the stretch run. When you come down the last 30 games, you're playing playoff games already. It was a good one to win."
And it moved the Stars into third place in the Central, one point ahead of the Wild.
"[Third place] was a big focal point going into the third period," said Stars coach Jim Montgomery. "Let's win the net-front battle and let's be in third place at the end of this period. Credit to those guys, our will was great in the third period."

2. A tough nut to crack

The Stars' goal-scoring struggles get a lot of attention, and their ability to keep pucks out of their net often gets overlooked. The Stars rank second in the NHL in goals against at 2.53 per game. They have allowed 88 goals at 5-on-5, tied for fourth fewest in the league, and are fifth in 5-on-5 goals against per 60 minutes at 2.09.
"The buy-in right now is key," said Seguin. "It starts in practice. It's been preached all year, but we're starting to see the rewards and benefits of it. We're comfortable winning games 1-0. As a goal scorer, I'd like to win 5-1, but I'll take the 1-0, too."
"[It is] sticking to what we are. That's what we are," said Montgomery. "If you have good defense you're always going to be in every game, and if the goal scoring comes we're going to start winning games from a couple of goals to several goals. It will come. We were just missing on a couple of odd-man rushes in every period."
The goaltending has been key as well. Bishop ranks second in goals against average (2.25) and Anton Khudobin ranks sixth (2.46). Bishop is third in save percentage (.925) and Khudobin is fifth (.923). That's a pretty good one-two punch in goal.

3. Stars close homestand strong

Friday night's game wrapped up a six-game homestand for the Stars, who got off to a rocky start in the six-game stretch but rallied to salvage it.
The Stars opened the homestand with losses to St. Louis, Tampa Bay, and Los Angeles before defeating Winnipeg just before going into their break and then knocking off Buffalo and Minnesota coming out of the break. Add all that up, and it is 3-3-0. Not great, but it could have been a lot worse when you consider they started it with three losses.
Overall, the Stars improved to 17-8-2 at home this season.
Now, they are about to see a lot of the road, where they've had some ups and downs this season, posting a 9-13-2 record so far. They'll play six of their next seven and ten of the next 14 away from home. It's a key stretch for the Stars.

4. Cogliano nets first goal as Star

Cogliano played his fifth game for Dallas since being acquired from Anaheim in exchange for Devin Shore and got his first two points, including his first goal. The goal was nothing fancy, just getting to the net and tipping in a Polak shot from the point to give the Stars a 1-0 lead in the second period. But it was nice to see Cogliano, who has played well since coming to Dallas, get some rewards.
"Just good to contribute. I think at this point it doesn't matter who scores; it's all about the wins," Cogliano said. "I kind of negated it with the four-minute minor, but like I said, it's all about winning at this point."
Just two minutes after scoring, Cogliano took a double minor for high sticking and was in the penalty box when Brad Hunt tied the game for the Wild.
Cogliano also picked up his first assist as a Star, getting the only helper on Seguin's empty-net goal.

5. Seguin takes team lead in goals

The Stars are 6-6-1 against the Central Division, including 5-2-0 in their last seven against divisional foes. ... Seguin's goals were his 19th and 20th of the season, giving him the team lead. ... The Stars outshot the Wild 32-22 and had a 59-45 advantage in shot attempts. ... Seguin and Miro Heiskanen co-led Dallas with five shots on goal each. Seguin was tops with nine shot attempts. ... The Stars were 0-for-1 on the power play and 1-for-2 on the penalty kill. ... Dallas won 30 of 58 faceoffs (52 percent). Seguin won 13 of 25 faceoffs (52 percent). ... John Klingberg led the Stars with 24:27 of ice time. Esa Lindell was next with 23:53.
Here is the lineup the Stars used to start the game along with scratches and injuries.
Jamie Benn - Radek Faksa - Blake Comeau
Mattias Janmark - Tyler Seguin - Alexander Radulov
Andrew Cogliano - Jason Spezza - Valeri Nichushkin
Denis Gurianov - Roope Hintz - Brett Ritchie
Esa Lindell - John Klingberg
Miro Heiskanen - Roman Polak
Jamie Oleksiak - Taylor Fedun
Ben Bishop
Anton Khudobin
Scratched:Connor Carrick, Julius Honka
Injured:Jason Dickinson (lower body), Tyler Pitlick (upper body), Martin Hanzal (back), Stephen Johns (post-traumatic headaches), Marc Methot (knee surgery)

This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.
Mark Stepneski has covered the Stars for DallasStars.com since 2012. Follow him on Twitter @StarsInsideEdge.