Round 1 Playoff Preview: Stars vs. Wild

The matchup didn’t come with much surprise or suspense. The NHL standings and playoff format pointed toward a Dallas Stars-Minnesota Wild first-round playoff series for months. 

But when it finally became official April 7, the two Central Division foes had one more regular-season game to play two days later in Dallas. With two points separating them, the game April 9 was not only a preview of the upcoming series but a chance to determine home-ice advantage in the playoffs. 

Wild winger Marcus Foligno called that game “a nice little appetizer.”

“We always like our chances. We’re positive,” Foligno said. “We’re excited to play that team."

“Anything can happen in the playoffs. You’re just trying to really put a good road game out there for them and just let them know there’s things to worry about come the series.” 

It was like the playoffs had already started. A little appetizer, indeed.

The teams split the season series, after a 5-4 win for Dallas in the April 9 “appetizer,” which was truly a playoff preview in a fast, physical, emotional game between a pair of rivals. Besides the nine total goals, the game included 16 minor penalties, 12 of them for roughing. 

“That’s playoff hockey,” Nick Foligno said. “The reality is that’s how it’s going to go. The ebbs and flows of games, and we just have to handle it a little bit better.”

The Wild reached the playoffs this season for the 15th time overall and 12th time in the last 14 seasons going back to 2013, the most trips among all teams. On paper, it should be a tightly contested matchup between the division rivals. The Wild hasn’t won a playoff series since 2015, while the Stars, making their fifth-consecutive playoff appearance, have reached the last three Western Conference Finals. 

“They’ve got a lot of skill, competitive guys,” said Quinn Hughes. “They think they can win this year, and everything I just said about their team, the same with our team.” 

It’ll be the third time the Wild and Stars have met in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, with Dallas winning the two previous series in six games in 2016 and 2023. Both times, Dallas had home-ice advantage. 

In the four regular-season meetings this season, each team won its first home game earlier in the season by 5-2 scores, with the Wild winning at home on Dec. 11 just before acquiring Hughes in a trade with Vancouver. The Wild also defeated the Stars 2-1 in overtime on March 21 in St. Paul for the first playoff-preview type of game. 

“You can tell both teams tried to play solid defensively, kind of imitate the playoffs,” Vladimir Tarasenko said, after the March 21 game. “Both teams play a similar style. Physical, hard forechecking teams.”

Wild coach John Hynes agreed that it felt like playoff hockey in that game March 21, one that was competitive, highly contested in all facets with both teams playing hard. 

“There wasn’t a lot of free ice, and what I mean by that is when they didn’t have the puck, they checked hard, and we had to earn it,” Hynes said. I think it was the same for them.”

The Wild boast a deep team headed into the playoffs, starting with a pair of 40-goal and 80-plus-point scorers in Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy, something the franchise hasn’t had in the same season before. Kaprizov finished the regular season as the team’s leading scorer in goals (45) and points (89) in 78 games.

Kaprizov has 15 career goals in 25 career NHL playoff games, needing two more to pass Zach Parise (16) as the franchise leader in playoff goals. Kaprizov already became the franchise’s regular-season leading scorer this season, passing Marian Gaborik. 

Boldy has come into his own this season, winning an Olympic gold medal in between, as he’s blown past his career-high in goals (42) and points (85) in 76 games this season. His previous career-high in goals was 31 in 2022-23, and he recorded 73 points last season with a career-high 46 assists in 2024-25. He’s also scored a career-best 11 power-play goals this season. 

The Stars have their own superstars in winger Jason Robertson and center Wyatt Johnston. 

Robertson, the Stars scoring leader with more than 45 goals and 51 assists in 81 games this season, has 14 goals and 22 points in 19 career games against Minnesota. He scored the go-ahead goal in the third period to help complete the Stars comeback over the Wild on April 9. 

Johnston is also having a career year, setting his best marks in goals (45), assists (41) and points (86) through 81 games this season. In his last 15 games against Minnesota, he’s scored seven goals, including three game-winners. 

Stars winger Mikko Rantanen averages about a point per game against the Wild in his more than 40 career games against them. He’s third on the Stars in scoring with 22 goals and 77 points in 63 games this season. 

In between the pipes, the Wild have relied on the tandem of Filip Gustavsson, who recently won his 100th career game with the Wild and has started 11 playoff games, and Jesper Wallstedt, who’s had a successful bounce-back season and is the NHL's Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy nominee, an award presented to the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey. 

In 50 games this season, Gustavsson went 28-15-6 with a 2.69 goals-against average and a .904 save percentage. He made his Stanley Cup Playoffs debut in 2023, with his 51 saves in the double-overtime, Game 1 victory marking a new playoff record for the most saves by a Wild goalie in playoff history. Behind Devan Dubnyk, Gustavsson ranks as one of the next most experienced goaltenders in Wild playoff history in terms of saves, shots faced and minutes played. 

Wallstedt went 18-9-6 in 35 games for his rookie season, finishing with a 2.61 goals-against average and .915 save percentage. 

They’ve been a solid tandem in net throughout the season. Should Wallstedt see action in net in this upcoming series, it’d mark his playoff debut. 

At the other end, Lakeville native Jake Oettinger always brings his A game against the Wild. He’s 9-1-3 in 16 career games against Minnesota. With 53 games this season, he’s 34-12-6 with a 2.59 goals-against average and .900 save percentage.

The Wild team is confident that this time around will net a different result in the playoffs against the Stars. Facing a team relatively recently in the playoffs means players can take some lessons from those previous losses. In 2023, the Wild’s penalty kill struggled (66%) and was a big factor in Minnesota’s early exit.

“Our penalty kill was the issue in that series,” Marcus Foligno said. “I think 5-on-5 we were the better hockey team. We got outplayed in special teams.” 

These two teams ranked second (Stars) and third (Wild) in power-play percentage for the season at 28.6% and 25.2%. On the penalty kill, both teams have had success there, too, each ranking in about the middle of the pack at around 80%. 

The Wild’s marks on special teams this season bode well for changing that tide. They also scored three of their four goals on the power play in the April 9 meeting in Dallas. 

For the Stars, Johnston scored his 23rd power-play goal of the season on March 22 to grab the new franchise record for power-play goals in a season, passing Dino Ciccarelli’s 22 mark from the 1986-87 season with the Minnesota North Stars. 

“Your special teams have to be great in the playoffs, regardless,” Nick Foligno said. “I don’t think we’re afraid of that at all. I think it’s just more making sure we’re not giving them chances. It’s making them earn it and vice versa. 

“It’s going to be a hard-fought series.” 

The No. 2 and No. 3 seeded teams who’ve notched their place as two of the best contenders in the league all season. Division rivals. Old-school rivals, in a sense. The Wild and Stars, as Hynes put it recently, have been “neck and neck basically all year.” Superstars on each side, but only one team will make it to the next round after the best-of-seven, first-round series.

“It’s going to be a bit of a chess match,” Nick Foligno said. “But it’s two good teams. It’s going to be a great series.”