Stars find a way to get by the Wild and turn long, strange night into morning glory

ST. PAUL. Minn. — The insolent puck just sat there, about a foot outside of the Dallas Stars crease, taunting the three men converging on it midway through the third period of a one-goal game. Dallas goaltender Jake Oettinger had been pulled too far to his left by the two-on-one he just stopped. He lunged for the puck, but it was out of reach. The Minnesota Wild’s Matt Boldy, who had just tucked it into Oettinger’s pads on the rebound of that two-on-one, desperately reached back for it, trying to will it into the yawning net, but merely waved the blade of his stick over it, tantalizingly close to a shorthanded goal that would have all but iced the game.Advertisement