NHL - Playoffs - Dallas Stars @ Minnesota Wild 3-2 - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - Game 4

They don't have to be pretty this time of year, they just have to go in. The Dallas Stars scored three second-period goals, including two off deflections, in a 3-2 win against the Minnesota Wild in Game 4 of the Western Conference First Round at Xcel Energy Center on Wednesday. Dallas leads the best-of-7 series 3-1 with Game 5 at American Airlines Center on Friday. The Stars twice answered Wild goals with a goal. None of their three will likely be among the top plays on the highlight shows.
Ales Hemsky, Patrick Eaves and Jason Spezza scored goals for the Stars, and Antti Niemi made 28 saves playing for the first time in the series. Jason Pominville and Charlie Coyle scored for the Wild, and Devan Dubnyk made 19 saves. Two Dallas goals came on the power play after the Stars began the series 1-for-13. The difference was elementary.
Minnesota scored first for the first time in the series. The Wild were 33-8-5 this season when scoring first, the eighth-best record in the NHL. The Wild took that 1-0 lead at 5:01 of the second period. Erik Haula's shot from the high slot was stopped by Niemi, but the rebound went right to Nino Niederreiter, who banked in the puck off Pominville's skate. It was Pominville's third goal of the series.
Dallas took advantage of a delay of game penalty on Minnesota when Hemsky's shot from the point got through traffic and past Dubnyk at 9:11 for a 1-1 tie.
Coyle gave the Wild a 2-1 lead on a breakaway, fighting off a backcheck by Stars defenseman Alex Goligoski and settling down a bouncing puck before pulling it to his backhand and slipping it past Niemi at 10:14.
Dallas made it 2-2 with a power-play goal at 13:24 when Eaves tipped a point shot by defenseman Kris Russell, and took a 3-2 lead off a rush chance at 18:51 when Jason Demers' centering pass deflected past Dubnyk off Spezza's skate in the slot. Minnesota outshot Dallas 14-2 in the third period but was limited to shots from the perimeter. The Wild got Dubnyk to the bench for the extra attacker with 2:15 remaining. Dallas killed the final 1:24 of the game shorthanded following a high-sticking penalty on Antoine Roussel.

Stars Quotes

Lindy Ruff: "It's hard to score the pretty ones. Both teams defend really well, so it's about trying to get that edge inside and trying to find a way to get the puck to go in the back of the net."
"We've stayed with the program with both [goaltenders], we're comfortable using both of them, and both these guys [Niemi and Kari Lehtonen] have done a real good job. [Niemi's] energy in practice and work ethic and how he looked was, just comfortable putting him in. He gave us a great game."
Jamie Benn: "We finally started shooting pucks. There's a lot of power plays, it seems like, in these playoffs. You watch other teams and they're just shooting the puck and good things happen. We figured that's what they were doing, and it turned out to be pretty good."
Antti Niemi: "We kept doing the same thing we've done pretty good so far; blocking shots, blocking the lanes so they can't get it through there straight."

Wild Quotes

Jason Pominville: "They feed a lot off their power play and tonight was a good example of it. When you lose the special-teams battle, you're usually not going to win the game. That's what happened."
John Torchetti: "We have 2:14, pulled the goalie there, and then got a power play, and had an opportunity. There was 1:24 left, and you've got 6-on-4. You have to execute there and get better chances."

Same old Flyers always dirty

Other Results

Washington @ Philadelphia 1-2 - Caps Lead Series 3-1
It was five years between Stanley Cup Playoff starts for Michal Neuvirth, but the Philadelphia Flyers goaltender looked pretty comfortable. Neuvirth made 31 saves, including 12 in the third period, when the Flyers defeated the Washington Capitals 2-1 in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference First Round at Wells Fargo Center on Wednesday. The Capitals lead the best-of-7 series 3-1. Game 5 is at Verizon Center on Friday. Neuvirth's outstanding play in the third period was the difference. His best saves came when he skated out to stop Andre Burakovsky from the bottom of the right circle with 9:50 left, and with 7:50 remaining, he kicked his left pad to deny Tom Wilson in front of the net.Rookie defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere, who turned 23 on Wednesday, scored his first Stanley Cup Playoff goal. Andrew MacDonald also scored and Simmonds had two assists. Flyers forward Scott Laughton was removed from the ice on a stretcher with 3:49 remaining in the first period after falling into the boards behind the Capitals' goal. General manager Ron Hextall said Laughton would stay overnight at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital for precautionary reasons but that all tests were negative. T.J. Oshie scored for the Capitals and Braden Holtby made 23 saves.Neuvirth started Game 4 after backing up Steve Mason in the first three games of the series. A lower-body injury sustained March 16 limited him to one game in the past month, the regular-season finale against the New York Islanders on April 10. It was his first playoff start since May 4, 2011 with the Capitals against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 4 of the conference semifinals. The Flyers made Neuvirth's job easier by allowing the Capitals two power plays. The Capitals had nine man-advantages in Game 3 and 17 in the first three games. They scored on eight of them.
Coach Barry Trotz said the Capitals made it easy for Neuvirth for the first two periods by getting away from the things that had made them successful in the first three games. The Flyers scored the first goal for the second straight game when Gostisbehere scored from the point with help from a Simmonds screen. It was the Flyers' first power-play goal in 14 chances in the series. Giroux and Simmonds each assisted on the goal for their first points of the series. Giroux led the Flyers in points and Simmonds in goals during the regular season.
MacDonald pushed the Flyers' lead to 2-0 at 3:51 of the second period when his one-timer from the left point beat Holtby. It was MacDonald's second career Stanley Cup Playoff goal. Trotz said that third-period push needs to be there for 60 minutes if the Capitals want to close the series. 
Florida @ NY Islanders 2-1 - Series Tied 2-2

Defenseman Alex Petrovic scored the go-ahead goal 9:25 into the third period, and the Florida Panthers defeated the New York Islanders 2-1 at Barclays Center on Wednesday to even their Eastern Conference First Round series at two wins apiece. Petrovic, who has two goals in 112 regular-season games during parts of four NHL seasons, took a pass from Derek MacKenzie, moved toward the top of the right circle and took a wrist shot that went through traffic and past Islanders goalie Thomas Greiss to break a 1-1 tie. Florida coach Gerard Gallant was impressed with the way Petrovic took his time and moved to give himself a better shooting angle. Florida’s Teddy Purcell and New York’s John Tavares each scored a power-play goal in the second period. Panthers forward Jaromir Jagr had the lone assist on Purcell’s goal; it was his 200th Stanley Cup Playoff point. He is fifth on the all-time list. Roberto Luongo made 26 saves for Florida, which controlled play for most of the game. Greiss finished with 27 saves for New York, which was unable to build on a 4-3 overtime victory in Game 3. The Islanders have not won consecutive playoff games since 2002, when they defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs in Games 3 and 4 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals. The series returns to Sunrise, Fla., for Game 5 on Friday. Florida outshot New York 10-5 and had 24 shot attempts to 10 for the Islanders in a scoreless first period. The Panthers had nothing to show for their first-period dominance, but Gallant said there was no frustration. Florida’s Jonathan Huberdeau put the puck into the net at 10:45 of the second period when he slid into Greiss after the goaltender stopped his breakaway and the puck went over the goal line. The play was called no goal on the ice because Huberdeau was ruled to have pushed Greiss into the net with the puck, and the call was upheld after video review. Gallant then challenged the call, but the no-goal ruling upheld again. The Islanders thought they had scored 90 seconds later when Josh Bailey poked his own rebound past Luongo. But he did it an instant after the whistle had blown, and the goal was disallowed. Florida finally scored a goal that counted with 4:42 left in the period when Purcell converted a passout from Jagr, putting a wrist shot from the lower left circle into a half-empty net with New York’s Matt Martin off for tripping. The Islanders tied the game with 15.3 seconds remaining in the period. One second after a 5-on-3 power play turned into a 5-on-4 advantage, Tavares scored his fourth of the series by beating Luongo with a wrist shot from the lower right circle that caught the top far corner.