The Minnesota Wild's 2-1 win against the Dallas Stars on Saturday afternoon was especially sweet for the Wild. For one, heading into the game, Minnesota was 2-6-0 on the road. The Wild also had not enjoyed much success at American Airlines Center. Minnesota was 1-14-5 at the Dallas arena since March 2003, but thanks to a goal by Mikael Granlund 40 seconds into the third period and solid goaltending by Darcy Kuemper, the Wild flipped the script on their Central Division foe. Granlund scored his second goal of the season when Stars goaltender Kari Lehtonen failed to collect the rebound off a soft wrist shot by Wild center Charlie Coyle from the right point. Granlund split two Dallas defensemen and then fired the rebound past Lehtonen. After a scoreless first period, Dallas took a 1-0 lead at 5:34 of the second period on Antoine Roussel's fifth goal. Vernon Fiddler assisted on the goal, making a solid pass from behind the Minnesota goal to Roussel, whose one-timer went into the top of the Wild net. The Wild capitalized on a Dallas turnover in the Minnesota zone to tie the game late in the second, with Erik Haula scoring his second goal of the season off the rush. Kuemper stopped 27 of 28 shots for the Wild. Ales Hemsky, a healthy scratch for the first time this season in the Stars' 2-0 win at the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday, picked up the secondary assist on Roussel's goal. It was the sort of response Stars coach Lindy Ruff expected from the veteran forward. In a game in which high-quality scoring chances were at a premium, the Wild tied it when Haula scored at 15:41 of the second. Stars defenseman Brenden Dillon made a backhand pass that Carter picked off to ignite a rush. Carter quickly pushed up the right side of the ice, and then executed a perfect pass to Haula, who finished with a wrist shot from the left circle. Ruff shuffled the Stars lines throughout the game, even breaking up his top line of Benn, Jason Spezza and Tyler Seguin. Some of those changes worked but others did not. Lehtonen stopped 20 of 22 shots for Dallas before leaving the ice with 1:30 remaining. Stars defenseman Trevor Daley feels that he and his teammates are pressing in front of their fans, leading to their rough start at American Airlines Center. In addition to the Stars' continued home woes, Dallas is 0-4-2 against Central Division foes and 3-6-3 against overall against Western Conference teams.
Stars Quotes
Jamie Benn: "We have to be mentally prepared to play these games at home. We have no excuses. We have to be better."Lindy Ruff: "I thought (he was) better. We had some guys that didn't skate as well coming back from the trip, so I shortened it up a little bit. I was hoping to get a little bit of life. But I thought he was better. There wasn't much going on, so I thought I'd shuffle a little bit. The (Cody) Eakin line was giving us opportunities, and the Fiddler line had a couple of looks again. I thought getting Tyler in the middle and getting him skating a little bit more, and actually they had two real good shifts as soon as they were together. [Today] was a little bit of a different animal (than the Stars' other home losses). They did an incredibly good job of being in our shot lane. We had some good looks, we missed on a couple. We knew it was going to be a low-chance affair. Our kill was good, their first kill was good. Our second power play we had some looks but we weren't able to put it by."
Trevor Daley: "It definitely looks that way. It's not our mentality. We came into the game [today] like it's a road game. We just got off of a good trip. I thought we carried most of the play, and we didn't find a way to capitalize on opportunities. We had a power play, and you don't get in the zone, that's a huge downer."
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