2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs: Stars vs. Wild series preview
Dallas Stars: 2nd in Central Division, 110 points*
Minnesota Wild: 3rd in Central Division, 102 points*
*One game remaining.
Schedule (ET)
| Game | Time (ET) | |
| TBD | 1. Minnesota at Dallas | TBD |
| TBD | 2. Minnesota at Dallas | TBD |
| TBD | 3. Dallas at Minnesota | TBD |
| TBD | 4. Dallas at Minnesota | TBD |
| TBD | 5. Minnesota at Dallas | TBD |
| TBD | 6. Dallas at Minnesota | TBD |
| TBD | 7. Minnesota at Dallas | TBD |
The Skinny
The Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild have been sizing each other up for months, locked into second and third place in the Central Division, respectively, by the wire-to-wire dominance of the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Colorado Avalanche.
Dallas briefly threatened to unseat the Avs back in March on the back of a 16-2-1 heater that included a team-record 10-game win streak, but losses in seven of their next nine meant the Stars had to settle for the second-best record in the Western Conference, with 110 points and counting.
A rash of injuries to key players, including Roope Hintz, Sam Steel, and, most recently, Miro Heiskanen, has played a part in the Stars’ late-season swoon. Still, a crucial 5-4 come-from-behind victory over the Wild last Thursday secured home-ice advantage and gave a dinged-up group time to convalesce.
After three consecutive Western Conference Final defeats, the only way Dallas will consider its season a success is to get over the hump. That mission will begin with a stiff test in the Wild.
For Minnesota’s part, expectations are similarly lofty ahead of the postseason. Just as the Stars’ acquisition of Finnish superstar Mikko Rantanen last season lifted them into “Cup or Bust” territory, the Wild’s own blockbuster trade, for 2024 Norris Trophy winner Quinn Hughes, has shifted expectations in the Twin Cities in a permanent way.
The former Canuck captain’s addition to a roster already featuring Russian dynamo Kirill Kaprizov and top-tier power forward Matt Boldy have given a team that once preferred to grind out victories the ability to break through with skill and star power; the Wild’s 3.57 goals per game and a 27.9 percent conversion rate on the power play since the trade are both top-five marks in the league.
Before GM Bill Guerin’s big swing, the fans in the Twin Cities would have considered winning their first series in more than a decade a success. Now, anything less, especially against one of the few teams that succeed in drawing legitimate ire from those kindly Minnesotans, would be a deflating failure.
Head to Head
Dallas: 2-1-1
Minnesota: 2-2-0
Aside from the Stars’ 5-2 thumping of Minnesota in the second week of the season, every meeting between these clubs has carried some additional intensity as a likely (or, in last week’s game, confirmed) playoff preview.
A perfect 13-13 tie with two victories going to either side suggests two teams that have saved their best for one another.
Dallas’s offensive explosiveness has been on full display during each of its victories, with power-play monster Wyatt Johnston (league-most 26 PPG) scoring and producing multi-point efforts in both five-goal eruptions.
The Wild will surely put more stock into the pair of games that took place after the Hughes trade and may find the results encouraging; Hughes assisted on both goals in a tightly contested overtime victory over the Rantanen-less Stars in March before scoring a beauty himself last Thursday in another two-point performance.
Top Five Scorers
Dallas
Jason Robertson. 96 points
Wyatt Johnston, 86 points
Mikko Rantanen, 77 points
Miro Heiskanen, 63 points
Minnesota
Kirill Kaprizov, 89 points
Matt Boldy, 85 points
Mats Zuccarello, 54 points
Quinn Hughes, 53 points
Joel Eriksson Ek, 51 points
Offense
Rantanen, who scored his 300th goal earlier this season and has another 43 in the playoffs, is really a pass-first guy. This year, the primary beneficiary of all the defensive attention the powerful playmaker soaks up has been center Johnston, who has taken another step forward and established himself as one of the sport’s most opportunistic finishers (45 goals).
Jason Robertson, who has skated opposite Rantanen on Johnston’s line of late, has picked a good time to produce the second-best season of his career by goals (45) and points; he’s getting paid this summer, whether in Dallas or elsewhere. Getting his favored pivot, two-way speedster Roope Hintz (44 points, +16 in 53 games played), back in the lineup would give coach Glen Gulutzan two dangerous scoring duos with longstanding chemistry to lean on. Versatile worker bees Mavrik Bourque (19 goals and 40 points), who scored his first career hat trick on Monday, and Sam Steel have typically rounded out the top six. That frees up old-timers Matt Duchene and Jamie Benn (35 points in 58 games) to provide some secondary scoring pop in sheltered O-zone starts.
The Stars usually get an additional wave of offense from the blueline in the person of Miro Heiskanen, the quarterback of their second-ranked power play (28.6%) and one of the finest postseason performers in the sport. If Heiskanen’s lower-body injury forces him to miss time, Canadian Olympian Thomas Harley (six goals and 35 points in 69 games) will need to shoulder an even heavier burden (23:04 ATOI) at both ends of the ice.
The Wild also rely heavily on their own big guns: Kaprizov, Boldy, and Hughes. But a well-worn first-line connection has kept coach John Hynes from having to stack Boldy and Kaprizov on a super line the way he did in last year’s playoffs against Vegas.
Between the ever-dangerous Kaprizov and ageless wonder Mats Zuccarello (19 points in 19 games since March 1), cantankerous center Ryan Hartman has saved his best hockey for the stretch run, scoring nine goals in his last 20 games. The Kaprizov line could become even more dangerous if their lethal talisman can rediscover his underrated playmaking; ‘The Thrill’ has recorded just four assists in 19 games since the Olympic break, but he has scored 13 goals.
Though Kaprizov rightfully remains Minnesota’s signature forward, one could argue his unit is no longer the Wild’s top line by default. Boldy has been that good, an irresistible power forward whose trifecta with smothering forechecker Joel Eriksson Ek and veteran playmaker Marcus Johansson has posted an absurd 30-13 game score in 47 games at 5-on-5. The resurgence of ‘MoJo,’ in particular (48 points, most since 2016-17), has been a pleasant surprise for the Wild; the team might have buried him as the 13th forward if not for a wave of early-season injuries.
Defense
If concerns over the Stars’ pedestrian play driving are legitimate, that hasn’t been apparent in the team’s defensive numbers: Dallas has given up the second fewest goals of any team this season, with their expected 5-on-5 goals against per 60 (2.48) only a step behind in sixth place.
If there’s one reason the Stars grade out in the bottom half of scoring-chance (17th) and expected-goal shares at 5-on-5 (20th), it’s their lack of a hard-charging forecheck. Dallas can get pinned back on its heels, but it transforms into a brick wall once it’s there.
Can the Stars keep up the good work on ‘D’ without the leader of their operation? If Heiskanen, perhaps the NHL’s most well-rounded blueliner, isn’t good to go, will his steady partner Esa Lindell (23:15 ATOI, team-high +30) be stuck covering for plodding righty Ilya Lyubushkin? Lyubushkin played himself into the press box earlier this season with shocking results opposite Harley (35.42% expected-goal share), who has been far better alongside steady puckmover Nils Lundkvist (27-17 game score).
The story of the Wild’s defense starts, of course, with Hughes, whose place as one of the sport’s premier play drivers (team-high 55.8% expected-goal share, min. 41 games) is due in large part to how little he has to defend: the puck is always on his stick. Faber’s newfound offensive endeavor (nine goals and 36 points in 48 games played since Hughes trade) has left the ice behind the duo too open at times, but his unit with Hughes’s jarring rate of 3.53 5-on-5 goals against per 60 can’t be divorced from an anomalous .878 on-ice SV%; the expected goals figure (2.51) is much kinder.
On the second pair, Minnesota finally has Jared Spurgeon and Jonas Brodin healthy at the same time. They aren’t as fleet of foot as they once were, but a lightened workload since Hughes took the baton as the new top dog on defense has looked good on the longtime teammates: they’ve given up just 1.51 5-on-5 goals against per 60 in 29 games since the move.
Though its blueline is loaded, Minnesota’s chief defensive advantage over Dallas is its abundance of heavy, two-way forwards. At the top of the lineup, Eriksson Ek and Boldy are relentless puck hounds. Third-liner Yakov Trenin just became the second player ever to notch 400 hits on the season, and a hulking fourth line made up of Michael McCarron and the brothers Foligno brings the punishment, too. Pack a lunch.
Goaltending
Part of the reason Jake Oettinger hasn’t taken too much flak over his uninspiring .900 SV% this season is that raw numbers rarely paint a complete picture for goalies; his .913 mark at 5-on-5 ranks ahead of both Vezina contender (frontrunner?) Andrei Vasilevskiy (.912) and thrice-reigning winner Connor Hellebuyck (.908).
That’s not to say Oettinger doesn’t expect better of himself. Last year’s postseason fiasco and the loss of his backup spot for Team USA to Jeremy Swayman will give him ample motivation to turn it on as temperatures rise. With 65 playoff appearances under his belt (.912 SV%, .619 quality start%) at just 27 years old, he should be used to the heat.
While an appearance by capable backup Casey DeSmith can only mean something has gone very wrong for Dallas, the Wild have a much more complex decision to make between the pipes. Filip Gustavsson is Hynes’ guy. That’s part of the reason he started all four regular-season games against Dallas. After another solid season (2.64 GAA, .906 SV%), he’ll likely start the series in goal.
That doesn’t mean he’ll stay there. The ‘Gus Bus’ has sure looked like it’s out of gas over the past few weeks (.853 SV% in last nine games played), especially during a game-losing performance in the Wild’s final regular-season meeting with Dallas. Outstanding rookie Jesper Wallstedt, meanwhile, is playing inspired hockey down the stretch (1.8 GAA, .927 SV% since March 1). Gustavsson’s performance on the series-opening road trip will heavily inform Hynes’s decision whether or not to make a change when the teams head back to Saint Paul.
Injuries
Given their injury record, the Stars’ overall consistency has been remarkable. Benn, Duchene, Hintz, Rantanen, nasty young defender Lian Bischel, and fourth-line pivot Radek Faksa have each missed upwards of 20 games, while Harley has sat out 12.
Since Faksa and Michael Bunting (lower-body), a high-profile trade acquisition who has struggled mightily (two points, -8 in 12 games played) to establish his gritty game in Texas, got back into the lineup during a meaningless visit to Toronto last night, Dallas’s injury concerns are now limited to just a handful of players.
Considering who those players are, that’s a small comfort. If it weren’t bad enough that Steel, a Swiss Army Knife who can play all three forward positions, is still working his way back from a groin injury, the uncertainty around Hintz and Heiskanen’s health (both lower-body) could decide the Stars’ season.
The Wild, meanwhile, were forced to use a whopping 37 players this season, thanks in equal part to their roster shuffling and an injury crisis just after the turn of the year. While the Stars’ health woes are rearing up once again at an inopportune time, though, things have largely settled down for Minnesota; veteran bottom-pair defender Zach Bogosian (lower-body) is the only member of the Wild out for any reason other than rest.
Intangibles
Dallas has appeared in four of the 2020s’ six Western Conference Finals, with Benn (120 career playoff games played), Lindell (103), Hintz (95), and Heiskanen (93) along for the ride each time. Several other Stars, including Oettinger and Robertson, have been a part of the team’s ongoing, three-year losing streak in that round. There just isn’t much new to achieve for a team that has been amongst the NHL’s elite as long as the Stars have, except to win the Big One.
Does that mean a battle-tested, motivated version of the Stars will come out and shred their playoff novice opponents? Or will Dallas get caught looking longingly at the Cup and past the Wild?
Though the Stars have been sniffing around a second championship for years, the Wild have only just ‘officially’ opened their contention window. You’d think that means they’ll get some grace from their fanbase and the wider public if their quest for a first Stanley Cup falls short.
You’d be wrong.
Wild fans are tired of playing “Minnesota Nice.” “Win now” means “win right now” if your first ever superstar player’s record-shattering, $17-million AAV contract (think Kirill’s agent works on commission?) is about to kick in during the same summer your second-ever superstar player gets to start pondering whether he’d like a similar raise; Hughes, signed through 2028, is eligible to extend on July 1.
No time like the present, then. But how will an organization that hasn’t won so much as a round since the Obama administration cope with the pressure of having to win four of them?
X-Factor
You wouldn’t be surprised to learn that each of these teams ranks in the top two of total power-play production, given some of the names involved; Dallas is in first place, with 70 tallies on the man advantage, while the Wild’s 66 power-play goals place them in a tie for second with the Oilers’ legendary special teams unit.
That the same superstars who buoy those elite power plays also log major even-strength minutes makes it confounding, then, that neither club ranks higher than 13th in 5-on-5 goals per 60 (DAL), with Minnesota checking in at 17th place.
Could either side’s merely OK performance at 5-on-5 mean winning the series is as simple as staying out of the box? If so, the squeaky clean Wild (3.21 penalties per 60, sixth fewest) would have the advantage over the Stars and their average discipline (3.67, 12th-most). Just make sure to remind Marcus Foligno, whose ejection for kneeing Faksa in Minnesota’s 2023 playoff meeting with Dallas was a career lowlight, and Hartman, who’s about one suspension away from doing time at Rikers.
Series Prediction
Last year, I tapped the Stars for an early exit against the Avalanche based largely on Miro Heiskanen’s lower-body injury at the time, only for Rantanen to dismantle his old buddies from Colorado with a Game 7 performance for the ages. Have I learned anything? Never.
Even if Heiskanen is close to 100% by this weekend, many of the finer details of this seemingly dead-even matchup point to the Wild; they’re meaner on the forecheck, they’re healthier from top to bottom, and they’ve had an easier time working deadline additions into their lineup. Look for Minnesota to finally break through without leaving the door open for any more Game 7 magic.
Wild in six games.
SPONSORED BY bet365