Everyone can breathe a sigh of relief: Dallas Stars goaltender Scott Wedgewood was not injured after a collision with Minnesota Wild forward Pat Maroon in tonight’s game.
“Just net front traffic. That’s the one thing you’re going to get a lot in this league, especially big bodies like his,” Wedgewood said. “I think he was trying to get around our box-out, and that’s one thing our team wants to be good at is boxing guys out. It’s kind of hard to stop a big guy like that. I think all of our momentum took all three of us kind of down.
“Just kind of landed underneath my hip with him on it. Nothing major, just an unfortunate feeling. Thankfully I am flexible, just a little bit too much weight than you want on that hip. It responded fine when I got up. It was more of an in-the-moment feeling.”
The game nearly got out of hand after that, with head coach Pete DeBoer getting fairly animated on the bench. He got an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty as a result. “It was, yeah, because of me,” he said about the penalty. The refs did some game management to ensure nobody took any liberties after that and kept it from boiling over.
“I was pissed off because that’s how goalies get injured,” DeBoer said. “The explanation I got was that that wasn’t his intent to go in there and fall on the goalie, and I thought it was obvious he was. I was pretty heated.”
FIRST PERIOD
Scott Wedgewood got scored on first in a weird way. Minnesota kicked the puck, but it was touched by a stick before going across the line, so after review the goal was upheld. The goal against was a direct result of a massive scramble in front of the net, and there really wasn’t much Wedgewood could have done in that situation.
Matt Duchene had a nice moment where he fired a puck off the goal line behind Wedgewood, saving what looked like a sure goal. He also then had a shift where he forced a turnover in the offensive zone and led a rush attack against the Minnesota netminder. Not a bad little piece of work for the veteran free agent signing.
Logan Stankoven is a one-man wrecking ball. He is just so tenacious on the puck and isn’t afraid to make a hit. He was on a line with Mason Marchment and Duchene, and they had some good looks in the first period.
Score: 1-0, Minnesota
SECOND PERIOD
Joe Pavelski remains timeless. He was in the perfect position for an effortless tip in front of the net on the power play to tie the game 1-1 early in the second. Jason Robertson’s work with the shot from the blueline made the goal, and the power play looks to be picking up right where it left off at the end of last season.
The go-ahead goal was scored off a redirect of Tyler Seguin’s shot on net that bounced off of Robertson’s stick where he was planted in the front of the goaltender’s crease. But what really made that goal was the impressive work by Stankoven to keep the puck alive in the offensive zone prior to the goal.
Evgenii Dadonov and Mason Marchment connected for the third goal of the game to make it 3-1, sprung on the 2-on-1 by Nils Lundkvist.
Score: 3-1, Dallas
THIRD PERIOD
Esa Lindell made a great heads-up play to find Marchment behind the play for the 4-1 lead. He scored on the subsequent breakaway.
Mavrik Bourque was utilized on the penalty kill and overall was quite noticeable (in a good way) tonight. He had the speed to keep up and didn’t look out of place with his linemates.
Wedgewood surprisingly played the entire game, when usually we’ve seen goaltenders split these early preseason games across the league. It’s even more surprising when you consider that
Seguin made it 5-1 when Lundkvist’s shot deflected off the Wild goalie and then bounced in off of him and in the net. Dadonov made it 6-1 when Stankoven found him on the back step of the net on the power play late in the game.
Score: 6-1, Dallas