MInnesota Wild vs Dallas Stars: Wild Whomp on Dallas recap

What a fantastic showing by the Wild tonight in a 5-1 victory over the Dallas Stars. The first period started with a huge bang, and never let up. Justin Fontaine scored his first NHL goal, and broke a Minnesota Wild record in the process. Fontaine's goal 12 seconds in beat the old record of 13 seconds by none other than Minnesota's (current) most hated Dany Heatley.

Matt Cooke followed up his assist on Fontaine's goal with a goal of his own 10 minutes later. All night, the 3^rd line of Cooke, Fontaine and Kyle Brodziak absolutely shut down the Stars top line. How many of you knew that Tyler Seguin played in tonight's game?

Mathew Dumba scored his first NHL goal, and had an excellent game. Yeo talked after the game about how Dumba continues to take steps to improve his game, but tonight he took a huge step. I know it's been said before, but honestly I think tonight was the nail in the coffin for Dumba's career in Red Deer.

Nino Niederreiter scored his first goal as a Minnesota Wild member. Orginally the goal was given to Zach Parise, but after further review it was clear that Nino had actually scored the goal. Another strong game for Nino, and now the coaching staff is just looking for him to continue being consistent. Especially after sending Jason Zucker to Iowa, they are making it clear to the young kids that if they don't play the roles expected of them they will not be given a spot on the roster.

Mikael Granlund looked fantastic yet again. It's so easy to forget that scores of fans were calling him a bust not even 6 months ago. After a tough season, he did what every hokey player should do. He spent his summer getting stronger and improving his skills, and came into camp determined to prove everyone who doubted him wrong. And that's exactly what he has done.

The Stars scored one goal during the second period, but that would be all she wrote for the former Minnesota team from Texas.

Mike Yeo said that Darcy Kuemper will start for Iowa tomorrow, and then rejoin the team when they kick off their 4 game road trip. The Wild take on Buffalo Monday, Toronto Tuesday, Tampa Bay Thursday and Florida Saturday before retuning home to take on the Preds on Tuesday.

There isn't a whole lot to be unhappy with the way the Wild played tonight. I haven't had a chance to look at the fancy stats from tonight's game yet, but everything I have been reading says that yet again the Wild dominated. The team finished with 36 SOG (the Stars had 19), and at no point did the team appear to be on their heels.

The Wild scored two goals on the powerplay, and allowed one goal on the penalty kill. They managed to fight off a 5-3 penalty for the 3^rd time already this season, which is progress in the special teams area.

Matt Cooke summed it up best when he said "Tonight we played our first full 60 minute effort."

Five Questions

1. Through 4 games, the Wild are solidly in the top-5 in just about every possession stat. Is this going to continue, or is it a small-sample fluke? And if it continues, do the Wild get the goals to show for it, therefore creating #DanEllisProblems? Oh man did it continue. Dan Ellis is going to have nightmares about the Wild for a few days at least.

2. Mathew Dumba had a good game against Winnipeg Thursday. Will he continue to impress enough to keep him with the Wild? Dumba had a great game, and scored his first goal. He played 8 minutes in the 3^rd period alone, which was more than double the TOI he had in the 1^st and 2^nd combined.

3. Can Dany Heatley shut doubters like me up tonight? Negative ghostrider.

4. While the Power Play has been great, and the Penalty Kill has been rough. Will the Wild stay out of the box and correct their special teams issues? Not completely, but the Wild scored 2 PPGs and managed to kill a 5-3.

5. Will the Wild's young guns (Granlund, Niederreiter, Brodin, Dumba) outshine Dallas' (Seguin, Nichushkin, Chaisson, Dillon)? This group of young kids looks spectacular. Enough said.

Final stats of the night