Quinn Hughes scored twice and added an assist, leading the Minnesota Wild to a series-clinching 5-2 victory over the Dallas Stars in Game 6 on Thursday night in Saint Paul, Minn.
The Wild won the best-of-seven Western Conference quarterfinal series 4-2 and will play the Colorado Avalanche in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Minnesota won a playoff series for the first time since the 2015 Western Conference quarterfinals against the St. Louis Blues. The series victory was also Minnesota’s first against Dallas.
“It’s been a long year, but a great year,” Hughes said postgame on TNT. “I’m just proud to be a part of this team. It’s been a long time since we’ve won a round. I’m just happy for the guys in the room, our fan base, (general manager) Bill Guerin, our coaching staff — really everyone.”
Matt Boldy added a pair of empty-net goals and Vladimir Tarasenko also tallied for the Wild, while Jesper Wallstedt made 21 saves.
“We’ve just got a great group of guys, honestly,” Hughes said. “I think our entire lineup wore them down during the entire series. You look at how effective our fourth line is, our third line — all the lines, really. I think everyone stepped up.”
Wyatt Johnston and Mavrik Bourque scored for the Stars, who dropped the final three games of the series. Jake Oettinger stopped 16 shots.
“We didn’t defend well enough,” Dallas coach Glen Gulutzan said. “The chances we gave up were a lot higher quality than what we were getting.
“We tried to reset a little bit today with our identity, getting back to being a lot more stingy in our effort. … Give them credit. They did a lot of great things. But if you look at today, there were some things that we gave them.”
Hughes scored the go-ahead goal, and eventual winner, at 10:38 of the third period as his shot deflected off the skate of Stars defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin and past Oettinger.
Hughes became the second defenseman in Wild history to score a go-ahead goal in a series-clinching game.
With Minnesota up 1-0, Johnston got Dallas on the board on a power play at 7:01 of the second period, one-timing a Mikko Rantanen feed past Wallstedt for his fourth of the series.
Bourque gave the Stars their first lead of the night, corralling the rebound off Michael Bunting’s shot and putting it home for his first career playoff goal at 16:08 of the second.
Minnesota responded 54 seconds later when Tarasenko backhanded a shot past Oettinger for his 50th career playoff goal.
The Wild led 1-0 after 20 minutes. Hughes scored 6:23 into the game, snapping a shot from the top of the faceoff circle past Oettinger glove-side for his first of the series.
Wild defenseman Jonas Brodin missed Game 6 with a lower-body injury and was replaced in the lineup by Jeff Petry.
–Field Level Media
