ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) Mikael Granlund scored the tiebreaking goal in the second period and the Minnesota Wild beat the Dallas Stars 4-2 on Wednesday night.
Jared Spurgeon, Eric Staal and Jason Zucker also scored for Minnesota, which won for just the second time in six games. Charlie Coyle had two assists and Alex Stalock made 24 saves.
Tyler Seguin and Mattias Janmark scored for Dallas.
Granlund, who had a career-high 26 goals last year, has eight this season and only one in his previous 11 games.
With the Wild on the power play and the game tied 2-2, Granlund charged in from the left wall to put home a rebound after a redirect from Zucker was stopped by Ben Bishop at 13:08 of the second period.
Zucker added an empty-net goal shortly after Janmark missed on a breakaway in the final few seconds of the game.
It marked just the fourth time in 12 games Minnesota scored more than two goals.
Seguin’s fourth goal in three games – a redirect of an Esa Lindell shot – gave the Stars a 1-0 lead midway through the first period, but Spurgeon tied the game by tapping in a cross-crease feed from Coyle with 40.4 seconds left in the frame.
Dallas lost for the fifth time in 21 games when scoring first. Staal scored 5:12 into the second before Janmark scored on the power play.
Wednesday was a step forward for a pair of previously injured Wild players.
Goaltender Devan Dubnyk served as the team’s backup after missing six games with a lower body injury and left wing Zach Parise said after the team’s morning skate he is going to AHL Iowa for a rehab assignment, although the team has not officially announced the move. The plan is for Parise, who had back surgery Oct. 24, to play Thursday in Iowa, return to Minnesota and decide the next step.
NOTES: Jamie Benn assisted on Janmark’s goal to pass Sergei Zubov for second place in Dallas history with 550 career points. Mike Modano had 1,050. … Wild RW Nino Niederreiter missed his second game with a foot/ankle injury. … Minnesota’s Bruce Boudreau coached his 800th career game. He is 477-232-91 in 11 NHL seasons, including stints with Washington and Anaheim. … To make room for Dubnyk, Minnesota reassigned G Steve Michalek to Iowa.
UP NEXT
Stars: open a six-game homestand Friday vs. St. Louis.
Wild: welcomes Nashville Friday before playing Saturday in Music City.
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