Murray gets 1st NHL shutout, Stars defeat Wild

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Matt Murray made 23 saves for his first NHL shutout, and the Dallas Stars defeated the Minnesota Wild 4-0 at Xcel Energy Center on Monday.

Murray was making his first start of the season and fourth in the NHL.

“Everything is great,” Murray said. “Obviously, playing in the NHL is one thing, it's every kid's dream, but to be able to get a shutout is on a level of its own. I'm ecstatic.”

Tyler Seguin and Roope Hintz each had a goal and an assist, and Radek Faksa and Jason Robertson also scored for the Stars (23-11-5), who had lost three in a row (0-2-1).

“I think we needed a good goaltending performance on the road,” Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said. “We lost a couple, and this is always a tough building to play in. Really, the first period was the game. They came out really hard. I thought they could have had two or three if [Murray] wasn't ready to play. He was our best player by far in the first period.”

Marc-Andre Fleury made 16 saves for the Wild (17-18-4), who have lost five of six.

Minnesota went 0-for-6 on the power play and allowed two short-handed goals.

“It just wasn’t a good night on the power play, and I think at the end of the day, we didn’t score a goal, and you’re not going to win games [like] that,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “But I think that was the biggest difference in the game.”

Hintz gave Dallas a 1-0 lead with a short-handed goal at 9:16 of the first period. Seguin forced Wild defenseman Brock Faber into a turnover near the right post and passed out front to Hintz, who was all alone.

“It’s funny, I’ve scored three goals, two short-handed goals in Minnesota,” Hintz said. “So, it’s pretty nice. Obviously, we had a lot of chances, our line, but we’ve been struggling lately to bury one, and hopefully we will bounce from this, get a little more leg and get going.”

Seguin extended the lead to 2-0 at 1:28 of the third period with a shot from the top of the right circle that trickled under the blocker arm of Fleury.

Fleury kept it a two-goal game at 6:36 when he robbed Hintz of a backdoor tap-in with his outstretched right pad. However, during the same power play, Faksa made it 3-0 at 8:22 with another short-handed goal when he finished a pass from Sam Steel on a rush.

Robertson scored on the power play at 9:57 for the 4-0 final.

Minnesota was outshot 8-2 in the third.

“Not good enough,” Wild forward Pat Maroon said. “Just got to be better. If you look at the game as a whole, they score a short-handed goal right out of the gates and we’re down 1-0. We give that one up in the third, I don’t know, maybe just bad reads, but got to find a way.”

NOTES: Fleury remained one win from passing Patrick Roy (551) for second in NHL history. ... Seguin has eight points (five goals, three assists) in his past five games. ... Two of Faksa's three goals this season have been short-handed. ... Wild forward Marcus Foligno had six hits in 12:44 of ice time after missing the previous three games with a lower-body injury.