After turning to Marc-Andre Fleury in Game 2, Wild suffer blowout loss to Stars

DALLAS — The State of Hockey took a collective gasp when Marc-Andre Fleury led the Wild onto the ice Wednesday night at American Airlines Center.

Never mind that Filip Gustavsson set a new franchise playoff record with 51 saves in Game 1 to lead the Wild to a 3-2 win in double overtime over the Dallas Stars. It was Fleury who got the nod for Game 2 with the Wild in position to take complete control of the playoff series.

The decision to start Fleury was questioned by many at the start of the game and by even more at the end of it as the Wild suffered a 7-3 blowout loss to the Stars. It’s the most goals the Wild have ever given up in a playoff game. The playoff series is now tied at 1-1 heading back to St. Paul with Game 3 set to be played on Friday night at Xcel Energy Center.

Now, it’s not fair to blame the loss solely on Fleury, especially considering the Wild were very loose in front of him. Heck, most goaltenders would’ve struggled to stop most of the goals the Stars scored on this particular night.

That said, whenever the Wild needed Fleury to bail them out, he couldn’t seem to make the big save.

That was on display early in the first period as the Wild got sloppy on a power play and allowed Stars center Roope Hintz to break free on the breakaway. After racing into open ice, Hintz beat Fleury clean for the shorthanded goal to make it 1-0 in favor of the Stars.

The lead grew late in the first period as Stars winger Tyler Seguin carved out space in front of Fleury on the power play and made it 2-0 via a redirection.

As the first period wound to a close, Oskar Sundqvist helped the Wild cut the deficit to 2-1, cashing in after Gus Nyquist made a nice play to get the puck through.

Things started to get ugly in the second period as Stars winger Jamie Benn scored on the power play to stretch the lead to 3-1. Then, less than 90 seconds later, Stars winger Evgenii Dadonov cleaned up a rebound to make it 4-1.

Credit the Wild for battling back with the game getting out of hand. Marcus Johansson scored on a power play to cut the deficit to 4-2, then exactly 11 seconds later, Freddy Gaudreau scored to make it 4-3.

The comeback attempt ended there as the Wild allowed Dadonov scored on a redirection to make it 5-3 after slipping behind the defense. For good measure, Hintz made it 6-3 on a breakaway less than a minute later.

With the damage already done, Hintz completed his hat trick in the third period to finalize the score at 7-3, sending the sellout crowd into oblivion in the process.

Though it might have been a case of the Wild trying to keep Gustavsson fresh after he played 92 minutes, 20 seconds in Game 1, it’s fair to wonder if the game would’ve been different if the Wild went back to him in Game 2.

The strategy of playing both goaltenders is something coach Dean Evason hinted at down the stretch of the regular season. It remains to be seen how the Wild handle their goaltenders for the rest of the playoffs.

Briefly

After scoring the game-winner in Game 1, Ryan Hartman missed Game 2 with a lower-body injury. In his place, Sam Steel skated between Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello on the top line.