John Hynes Sets Wild Game Tonight Tone for Game 6 at Home
The wild game tonight at Grand Casino Arena gives Minnesota a chance to end an 11-year wait for a playoff series win. The Wild can eliminate the Dallas Stars in Game 6 on Thursday and move on for the first time since 2015.
Hynes sets Minnesota's focus
John Hynes said the Wild cannot spend energy on the setting around them. "The circumstances around the game don't do us any good if that's where our focus is," he said before Game 6. "The focus has to be on making sure that we're executing our gameplan, we're focused on playing the game and doing the things that we need to do to win the game."
That message fits a series that has already swung Minnesota's way three times. The Wild opened with a dominant Game 1, won Game 4 in overtime, and then took Game 5 on the road to build a 3-2 lead.
Grand Casino Arena pressure
More than 19,200 fans in St. Paul will watch Minnesota try to finish the job at home. The Wild have not won a playoff round since the 2015 first round, when they beat the St. Louis Blues in six games, and they came closest again in 2021 before losing Game 7 to the Vegas Golden Knights, 6-2, at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Brock Faber said the group has to stay level in a building that should be loud from the opening minutes. "We've got to control our emotions," he said after Minnesota's 4-2 win in Dallas on Tuesday. "Sometimes when it gets loud like that you're kind of running all over. Try to stay poised, feed off it. It's going to be a fun night."
Stars face elimination again
Dallas enters facing elimination for the ninth time in 10 playoff rounds since 2023. The Stars went 5-3 the previous eight times they were in that spot, but they also lost Game 6 in the 2023 Western Conference Final against the Golden Knights and again in the 2024 conference final against the Edmonton Oilers.
Glen Gulutzan said his team is drawing on that recent experience. "That's the one luxury we have here in Dallas, just a lot of these guys are battle tested and have been in these tough situations before, starting right from our captain (Jamie Benn) and moving on down," he said before Game 6. "So, you lean on that heavily."
The numbers tilt Minnesota's way. Teams that lead a best-of-7 series 3-2 have won Game 6 at home 78.3 percent of the time, a 145-40 record in postseason history. If the Wild close it out, they will face the Colorado Avalanche in the next round.
