The Dallas Stars won 50 games this season. They scored 279 goals. They had a power play that converted at 28.7%, second-best in the NHL. They were a Western Conference favorite from the start of the year. They have lost three of the first five games of their first-round series to the Minnesota Wild, they trail 3-2, and they are now traveling to St. Paul on Friday night facing elimination at Xcel Energy Center.
Kirill Kaprizov has nine points in five games and is playing like the player Minnesota signed to an eight-year, $136 million extension last summer. Jesper Wallstedt, the 23-year-old goaltender Minnesota drafted 20th overall in 2021, has a .925 save percentage in his first NHL playoff series. Matthew Boldy has scored four goals. The Wild, the lower seed and the underdog, are 60 minutes from one of the bigger upsets of the first round.
This was supposed to be the series where Dallas reasserted itself. They lost in the Western Conference Final last spring to Edmonton, watched the Oilers go to the Cup Final, and spent the offseason adding Mikko Rantanen at the trade deadline to give them the highest-end forward depth in hockey. They opened the postseason at home against a Wild team that had finished eight points behind them. They lost Game 1 6-1.
Game 1 was the warning. Dallas recovered to win Games 2 and 3 - the latter on an overtime winner from Jamie Benn at Xcel Energy Center, in what looked like the moment the Stars were taking control of the series. Then they lost Games 4 and 5 by one goal each, both in tight games where the Wild outplayed them in the third period. The Stars are at home being outscored 17-13 across five games and their special teams have not been the difference-maker they were supposed to be.
Kirill Kaprizov Has Been the Best Player on the Ice
Kaprizov has nine points - two goals and seven assists - in five games. He has been on the ice for 11 of Minnesota's 17 even-strength goals. He has played 22 minutes a night against the Roope Hintz-Rantanen line and has won that matchup decisively. He has been the most dynamic player in the entire first round of the playoffs, against any team, and he has done it while answering every question about whether his game would translate against a Western Conference contender.
The Stars have not figured out how to take him away. They have tried hard matching with Esa Lindell and Miro Heiskanen. They have tried collapsing into the slot to take away his shot. They have tried sending two skaters at him on every neutral-zone touch. Nothing has worked. Kaprizov is too quick, too smart, and too creative to be neutralized by any kind of conventional defensive structure, and his linemates - particularly Boldy - have made every Dallas decision the wrong one.
“Nine points in five games against a 50-win team. Kaprizov is making the case that he was the best player available in free agency last summer and Minnesota was right to extend him.”
— The Kaprizov Number
| Player | GP | G | A | PTS | SOG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kirill Kaprizov (MIN) | 5 | 2 | 7 | 9 | 18 |
| Matthew Boldy (MIN) | 5 | 4 | 3 | 7 | 15 |
| Jason Robertson (DAL) | 5 | 5 | 3 | 8 | 17 |
| Matt Duchene (DAL) | 5 | 2 | 6 | 8 | 12 |
What Has Worked for Dallas
The Stars have not been bad. Jason Robertson has five goals and eight points and has been the most dangerous shooter in the series. Matt Duchene has eight points and has been the playmaker the Stars needed when they signed him in 2023. Wyatt Johnston has three goals. Heiskanen has been excellent defensively. Jake Oettinger has stopped 143 of 159 shots, an .899 save percentage that is acceptable but not elite.
The problem has been the matchup. Dallas's depth has not solved Minnesota's depth. Rantanen, the prized deadline acquisition, has only one goal in five games. Tyler Seguin has been quiet. Jason Dickinson and Sam Steel on the third and fourth lines have been outscored. The Stars built this team around having more skill at every position than the opposition - and against the Wild, that has not held. Minnesota's third line of Marco Rossi, Marcus Johansson, and Yakov Trenin has produced four goals in five games and has been a nightly mismatch.
Jesper Wallstedt Is the Difference
The other half of this series is the goaltending. Minnesota's GM Bill Guerin spent the past 18 months publicly defending his decision to give the starting job to Marc-Andre Fleury for one more year before transitioning. He spent the summer of 2025 making the case that Wallstedt would be a 25-game backup. He has had to publicly walk that back over the past three months as Wallstedt earned the starting role.
Wallstedt is 23. He has played 47 NHL games in his career - 21 last season, 26 this year. He is in his first playoff series. He has stopped 148 of 160 Dallas shots. He has a .925 save percentage that is the second-best of any starter in the first round. He has been outstanding in the third period - .947 across the five games - and has been particularly good in tight games. The two Minnesota wins where he had to make 30+ saves both came in one-goal games where Dallas was pushing for the equalizer. He stopped them.
The contrast on the other end has been the difference in this series. Oettinger has not been bad - he has stopped 89.9% of the shots he has faced - but he has not stolen a game and he has not given Dallas a margin to play with. The Wild have been the better goaltending team and that has flipped the matchup that Dallas was supposed to win.
How Dallas Forces Game 7
Get Robertson clean ice on the rush. He has the highest goal total in the series and Minnesota has not been able to take away his shot from the left circle. Two more goals from him, and the Stars have a chance.
Then find a way to slow Kaprizov. He has been on the ice for 11 of Minnesota's 17 even-strength goals. Try Lindell in a heavier matchup role. Move Heiskanen off the second pair to chase him. Do something different - the current plan has not worked.
#97 · LW · 78 GPWhat Friday Night Is
This is the second time in eight days the Stars have faced an elimination scenario - they came back from down 3-1 to Vegas in the Pacific Division semifinals last May before losing the conference final - and the second time the building they will play in is loud, hostile, and waiting for an upset. Xcel Energy Center sold out every home game this season for the first time in nine years. The State of Hockey crowd has been the loudest in the West, and Friday night will be the second-biggest night in that arena since 2003.
For Dallas, the math is clean - win Friday in Minnesota, then win Sunday at home in Game 7. They are capable of doing both. They have the firepower. They have Robertson, Duchene, Heiskanen. They have a power play that finished second in the league. What they have not done in this series is win consecutive games, and they have not won a road game since Game 3 of last year's Pacific semifinal against Vegas.
For Minnesota, this is a chance to deliver the franchise's biggest win in over a decade. The Wild have not won a playoff series since 2015. They have not been to a conference final since 2003. They have spent 20 years being a middle-of-the-pack team in the West, building cautiously, signing Zach Parise and Ryan Suter to deals that crippled the cap, drafting Kaprizov in the fifth round and watching him become the franchise's first true superstar. If they close this out Friday, the entire arc of this organization changes overnight.
Wallstedt's Crease
He is .925 in his first playoff series and has not blinked in any of the high-leverage moments. He gives Minnesota a chance to win every game.
Dallas's Star Power Outside Robertson
Rantanen has one goal. Seguin has been quiet. The Stars built this around depth, and the depth has lost the matchup against Minnesota's bottom-six.
Robertson on the Road
He has scored in three of his last four playoff road games dating back to last spring. The Wild's home crowd will be loud, but Robertson has not been bothered by hostile buildings.
Can Kaprizov Stay This Hot?
He has had a nine-point series against an Atlantic team in his career - 2023 against Toronto. But he has never had a closing game like Friday night. If he produces multiple points, Minnesota probably wins. If Dallas finds a way to silence him, the series goes seven.
The Wild are 60 minutes from the upset. Dallas is 60 minutes from elimination. Minnesota's $136 million superstar is playing the best playoff hockey of his career. Dallas's deadline acquisition has yet to deliver. Wallstedt has been better than Oettinger. Boldy has been better than Rantanen. Through five games, the matchups Minnesota was supposed to lose have, almost without exception, been the matchups Minnesota has won.
If the Wild close it out Friday night in St. Paul, this becomes the biggest postseason result in that city since the franchise was founded. If they don't, Game 7 in Dallas becomes the biggest hockey night Texas has hosted since the 2020 Cup Final. Either way, the Stars - the supposed Cup contender - have to win Friday or be done.