Stars look to regroup against surging Wild

The Dallas Stars were the hottest team in the league with a 12-game point streak before losing their past two contests.

Now, the visiting Stars will look to get back on track Sunday in Saint Paul, Minn., against the Minnesota Wild, who are riding an eight-game point streak (5-0-3).

The Wild are coming off their highest-scoring game of the season, a 7-2 victory against visiting Ottawa on Friday. Defenseman Jared Spurgeon had a goal and two assists in the victory.

"I'm hoping it continues," Wild coach Bruce Boudreau said. "It's the first game that hasn't been a one-goal game it seems like in a long time. I hope it was a little bit of a confidence booster. I think playing on home ice and having success on home ice is really important."

Alex Stalock made 33 saves to improve to 6-3-2 on the season. Fellow goaltender Devan Dubnyk remains on leave due to his wife's illness.

The Wild (11-11-4) scored three goals in a span of 4:13 in the second period and all four forward lines tallied. Zach Parise scored the go-ahead goal, his team-leading 11th of the season and his seventh in the past eight games.

"We put ourselves in a tough position to start the year," said Wild forward Ryan Hartman, who scored an insurance goal in the third period.

"We talked about this date, or even Christmas, to get ourselves back in the hunt, and we've done a great job lately of gaining points and jumping up in the standings. We aren't looking at the standings too much. We are just doing what we need to do. Just getting points. If we do that, we're going to be just fine."

The Stars are coming off a 3-1 loss at home to defending Stanley Cup champion St. Louis on Friday.

The Stars tied the score at 1 on Roope Hintz's goal with 3:11 remaining in the third period, but the Blues' Ryan O'Reilly tallied 18 seconds later and St. Louis added an empty-net goal.

"We found a way, we tied the game up, and then to give it up that quickly is disappointing," Dallas coach Jim Montgomery said.

"Kind of lucky that we were going to get a point out of it. We get into overtime and you never know, maybe we get the two points."

Dallas (15-10-2) dropped from second to fourth in the Central Division after the loss.

"They're the defending champs," said Stars goaltender Ben Bishop, who made 37 saves. "I don't think there was any reason to hang your head. They're the best team for a reason. I thought it was a decent game."

Stars forward Justin Dowling, who has been centering the top line with Tyler Seguin and captain Jamie Benn, returned to the lineup Friday after missing two games because of illness.

This will be the second meeting of the season between the Central Division rivals. Alexander Radulov had a hat trick in the Stars' 6-3 victory Oct. 29 in Dallas, as his team scored six unanswered goals after falling behind 3-0.

--Field Level Media

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