Fueled by lessons from a past playoff loss, the Wild prepare for a rematch, aiming to conquer the Stars with renewed experience and education.
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Even with four games left in the season, the Minnesota Wild is set to face the Dallas Stars in round one of the 2026 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs.
It will be the third time the Wild have faced the Stars in the playoffs. They are 0-2 in those two meetings.
The last time the Wild faced Dallas was in 2023. Minnesota was without its top center and struggled massively on the penalty kill.
Joel Eriksson Ek was injured heading into the 2023 playoffs. He tried to play in game 3 after missing the first two games with his lower-body injury. Unfortunately, his game lasted just 19 seconds after one shift.
He missed the rest of the round and the Wild blew a 2-1 series lead and lost in six games.
"I mean it is going to be pretty serious," Eriksson Ek said on how excited he is to play in this series after missing the last one. "Two really good teams going at it. You go the whole regular season to get to this point. So we are really excited to get going."
Minnesota won the first game in double overtime in Dallas. But even after an unreal performance by Filip Gustavsson in net, the Wild turned to Marc-Andre Fleury for game two. He let up seven.
The Wild won game three to take a 2-1 lead in the series but lost the next three games and were eliminated in six.
One of the biggest reasons why the Wild did not advance was obviously the Eriksson Ek injury, but also the penalty kill. The Wild let up 9 goals on the penalty kill and most of them came within seconds of the power play starting.
That is deflating.
“I mean yeah that’s a big thing," Marcus Foligno said on if discipline was the difference in that round. "Yeah, we took penalties. Our penalty kill was the issue in that series. I think 5-on-5 we were the better hockey team. We got outplayed in special teams. Vegas you can look at last year, too. There were some moments where we had times where we needed to be a little better and we lost I think it was Game 4 at home I think hurt us a little bit with some penalties and they capitalized, right? It’s going to be a hard series no matter what but if we can be just a bit better in the penalty kill area, we’re going to have a really good chance against Dallas.”
Foligno did not have the best series, to say the least. In game five he was kicked out for a kneeing penalty on Radek Faska and in game four he took two penalties. He had 35 penalty minutes in round one and drew a lot of conversation in the offseason about what to do with him.
Ultimately, Bill Guerin and the Wild stuck to him and gave him a four-year, $16,000,000 contract extension ($4,000,000 average annual value) that goes through the 2027-28 season.
“We learned some lessons last time we played them," Foligno said. "We know that they’re a really, really good team, and so are we. They have some lethal weapons. We’re just more educated, more experienced going into this series than we were before. Yeah, we always like our chances. We’re positive. We’re excited to play that team. Thursday night is going to be a nice little appetizer, so to speak. We just gotta play solid against them. We just want to see our game really, get to that four lines where everyone’s contributing, where it’s just predictable hockey for us and smart hockey by us.”
Even though the Wild are set to face the Stars on Thursday for a regular season game, Minnesota isnt really looking into it like a series preview.
“I don’t think so. I think both teams are good teams. Both teams are neck and neck basically all year," Wild head coach John Hynes said. "But once Game 1 starts, the regular season’s out of it and there’s time past there, right? There’s three other games for both teams leading into it, so I don’t think it makes a difference that way.”
The Wild will play three more games following the Stars game before the playoffs. Regardless, the Wild are two points behind the Stars in the standings and have the current edge over them in the season series.
Which means the Wild could potentially get home ice for round one.
“It’s going to be a highly-competitive game. I think that both teams there’s a lot to play for obviously," Hynes said. "Being in that environment and having a highly competitive game is good for us. I think we’ll be able to see some different things, and like I said, whether it’s a lineup that we have or you want to look at certain players, the matchup, whatever it might be, I think there’s going to be a lot to take out of it.”
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