ST PAUL, Minn. — Mats Zuccarello scored twice and Ryan Hartman had a three-point game as the Minnesota Wild beat the Dallas Stars 5-1 Friday night to take a 2-1 lead in the first-round playoff series.
Zuccarello scored Minnesota's first goal on a backhander at 16:45 of the first period and beat Stars goalie Jake Oettinger on a breakaway at 14:07 of the third to bring the sellout crowd to its feet.
Marcus Johansson, Marcus Foligno and Hartman also scored for the Wild. Filip Gustavsson, who did not play in Game 2, made 23 saves.
Luke Glendening scores his first goal of the series at 2:25 of the second period for Dallas. Oettinger, a Minnesota native, stopped 20 shots.
Game 4 of the best-of-seven series is Sunday at the Xcel Energy Center.
The Wild opened the scoring late in the first period. John Klingberg, playing in his first game of the series, fired a shot from the point that wound up in front of the net. After the puck bounced around, Zuccarello corralled it and scored past Oettinger.
Minnesota took a 2-0 lead early in the second when Johansson made a move to get past Colin Miller and beat Oettinger on the stick side.
Eleven seconds later, Glendening controlled a bouncing put and fired past Gustavsson, cutting Dallas' deficit to 2-1.
Foligno made it 3-1 on a goal that was initially waved off for a high stick. A review by the officials deemed his stick was at the crossbar level, meaning Minnesota regained its two-goal lead with 8:36 left in the second period.
The Wild got forward Joel Eriksson Ek back for the game. Sidelined since April 6, Eriksson Ek missed the first two games of the series with a lower-body injury. His return Friday was shortlived.
Eriksson Ek, who had 23 goals and 38 assists during the regular season, left the ice during his first shift of the first period and did not return. That left Minnesota short a forward for nearly the entire game.
Hartman and Klingberg each earned assists on both of Zuccarello's goals.
Hartman scored an empty-net goal with 1:50 to play.
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