Stanzel’s Sports Takeout — BREAKING NEWS: 10.15.25

Minnesota WildGophersVikings

Oct 15

Written By Ryan Stanzel

Happy MEA break weekend to those who celebrate.

Congrats to the St. Paul Central and Como Park Senior’s boys soccer teams for advancing to state.

Kevin O’Connell is still non-committal on Sunday’s starter against the Eagles.

Road-Weary Wild Falls 5-2 in Dallas

Every year, there are a handful of games on an NHL team’s schedule where you look in advance and think they oughta just take a 1-0 forfeit and not make the trip. For the Wild, it just so seems at least one of these games is at Dallas.

The Stars remained unbeaten in regulation in 15 straight games against the Wild with a 5-2 win last night, another result of the NHL seemingly thinking just because two teams are in the same time zone, it’s an easy back-to-back.

MSP to Love Field is not, in fact, a short plane ride, like MSP to Midway or MSP to St. Louis. I remember countless times being bleary eyed in front of a coach’s press conference in Dallas (coach’s press conference there happens in front of the beer cooler). I say it all the time, Eastern Conference teams couldn’t hack it in the West.

The Wild, coming off an exhausting 4-3 shootout win Monday against the Kings (the game shouldn’t have gotten that far), got to Dallas around 3 a.m. It was at least an 8:52 start (thanks ESPN), but Dallas was up 2-0 after one, after the Wild actually started strong. Adrenaline is a heck of a drug.

But it got to 3-0 before Matt Boldy (17 shot attempts) and Kirill Kaprizov scored, before a back-breaking Stars goal late in the second.

The Wild has, at this point, four top six forwards which is going to continue to be an issue. They moved up Marcus Johansson to replace Marcus Foligno on the second line, but MoJo is not that player at this point in his career. He played a starring role on the Stars’ first goal. John Hynes mixed up his top two lines at one point; he’s got to get Joel Eriksson Ek going.

As for Monday, the Wild was in control of a 3-0 game before needing a shootout against the Kings. Solid comeback effort in OT and the shootout by Jesper Wallstedt, who earned his first-ever home win.

So the 2-2-0 Wild flies out East to face Washington on Friday and Philadelphia on Saturday. The Rangers and Devils are also on that four-game road trip.

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