Wild Can Close Out Stars in Game 6 at Home — Stars Vs Wild
The Minnesota Wild can close out stars vs wild in Game 6 on Thursday at Grand Casino Arena. A 3-2 lead gives Minnesota a home chance to end an 11-year playoff series drought and reach the second round.
Grand Casino Arena Gives Minnesota Control
Minnesota beat Dallas 4-2 on the road Tuesday to take the lead, and the setup now shifts to St. Paul with more than 19,200 fans expected in the building. The Wild have not won a playoff round since beating the St. Louis Blues in six games in 2015, and this is their first chance to finish one at home since then.
The numbers lean 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 in postseason history, a figure that puts the Wild in position to end the series before it reaches another road game.
Hynes Pushes Focus Only
John Hynes tried to strip the moment down to the task in front of his team. “The circumstances around the game don't do us any good if that's where our focus is,” he said ahead of Game 6.
He followed that with a longer warning against drifting outside the game plan. “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. Whenever you focus on things that are out of your control or don't really have any impact on your performance than it's kind of wasted energy.”
That message fits a series that has gone back and forth. Minnesota won Game 1 dominantly, took Game 4 in overtime and then grabbed Game 5 on the road, so the Wild have kept forcing Dallas into uncomfortable territory without letting the matchup settle into one pattern.
Stars Keep Testing Elimination
Dallas arrives with a different kind of pressure. The Stars were facing elimination for the ninth time in 10 playoff rounds since 2023, and they have gone 5-3 in those elimination games over that stretch.
Their history in sudden-death spots is mixed. Dallas is 3-0 in Game 7s since 2023, but it has lost its last two Game 6s, against the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2023 Western Conference Final and the Edmonton Oilers in the 2024 conference final.
Glen Gulutzan pointed to that experience while stressing the right emotional level. “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 ahead of Game 6.
“So, you lean on that heavily. You saw that this morning as we did our first kind of little video session, just staying in that right mindset. You can tell the group is confident but not cocky and is idling at a high level but not too high.”
The winner gets Colorado, which swept the Los Angeles Kings, and that path is already set for whoever survives Thursday. For Minnesota, the next step is simple: hold the lead, settle the crowd and finish a series it has chased since 2015.
