The Minnesota Wild and Dallas Stars hope to exit the holiday break the way they went into it when they meet on Friday night in Dallas — as winners.
Both teams entered play Monday on short losing streaks, but came away with victories before getting a few days off the ice.
Dallas knocked off the Utah Hockey Club 3-2 to avoid losing three in a row in regulation for the first time in 2 1/2 seasons under coach Peter DeBoer.
“Nobody wants to go into Christmas on a losing note,” Stars goalie Casey DeSmith said. “Everybody wants to go home and be with their families and just feel good about hockey for a couple days, but get away from it as well.”
The Wild ended a season-long four-game skid by edging the visiting Chicago Blackhawks 4-3 on Monday.
“It’s a good reset for us,” Minnesota defenseman Brock Faber said. “End on a good note, enjoy the holidays and come back refreshed.”
Minnesota welcomed back two players from injury against the Blackhawks, including goalie Filip Gustavsson, who made 28 saves after being unavailable for four games because of a lower-body injury.
“It felt fine out there,” Gustavsson said. “(An injury) is always going to be on your mind a little bit when you’re back playing and, hopefully, I can just keep playing and it’s going to fade away a little bit.”
Minnesota forward Yakov Trenin returned from a five-game absence because of an upper-body injury.
The Wild still are awaiting the return of top-line center Joel Eriksson Ek, who has missed the past 10 games with a lower-body injury, and defenseman Jake Middleton, who has missed the past six games with a hand injury.
Minnesota still has forward Kirill Kaprizov, who is tied for second in the NHL with 23 goals and tied for fourth with 50 points.
Minnesota coach John Hynes said he would like to see the Wild establish more of a net-front presence when they return from the holiday.
“You need money, you go to the bank. Need food, you go to the store. You want to score, you got to go to the net,” Hynes said.
The Wild went into the short break second in the Central Division, five points behind the Winnipeg Jets.
The Stars have even more work to do, sitting fourth in the division, 11 points behind the Jets and barely clinging to the final wild-card spot from the Western Conference.
“All you have to do is look at the standings and see what those points mean,” DeBoer said of the win against Utah. “It’s a little early in the season to be scoreboard watching too much, but any time you can win on the road in a tough building like this, they’ll take it.”
Repeating as Central Division champions will undoubtedly be more difficult, especially without high-scoring forward Tyler Seguin, who underwent hip surgery earlier this month.
“We’ve had some adversity the first half and that’s not a bad thing. I think every team needs to go through a little bit of that to learn about yourselves,” DeBoer said. “They find a way to dig deep in adverse situations and get the job done.”
–Field Level Media
