Marchment scores twice, Stars hold on to defeat Wild, win 3rd straight

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Mason Marchment had two goals, and the Dallas Stars held on for a 2-1 win against the Minnesota Wild at Xcel Energy Center on Saturday.

“We could have had more [goals],” Marchment said. “Their goalie made some big saves, as well as [Jake Oettinger] did, a lot of key saves at big moments. That’s what he’s there for. I thought we played a pretty sound defensive game for the most part, too. They had a couple good looks and [Oettinger] is our backbone back there.”

Marchment extended his goal streak to three games (four goals, five assists), and Ilya Lyubushkin had two assists for Dallas (11-5-0), which has won three straight and four of its past five. Oettinger made 22 saves.

“That was a heavy, hard, playoff-type game out there,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “There was a lot of physicality, a lot of battles, not a lot of room, both goalies were great. This is always a tough building to come in and win. We knew that and they’ve been playing really well. It was a good two points for us.”

Kirill Kaprizov scored, and Filip Gustavsson made 38 saves for Minnesota (11-3-3), which has lost two of its past three.

“I liked their battle, compete,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “I thought they had some looks. They scored the tip goal. We had some good looks. … I thought our best period was the third period. 1-0 game, didn’t get away from it. Pushed it. Better team in the third. They scored one in the first, right? We were the better team in the third. We scored one. Both teams scored a faceoff goal, and then we had looks on the other side. They had looks, and they got one more than us.”

Marchment deflected Lyubushkin’s shot from the point to give Dallas a 1-0 lead at 18:43 of the first period.

Gustavsson kept it a one-goal game, denying Oskar Back on a short-handed partial breakaway after he picked off Brock Faber’s drop pass at 8:27 of the second period.

Gustavsson also stopped Matt Duchene on a breakaway at 10:14.

“[Duchene] had [a breakaway] in the preseason too and I thought he was going back to that five-hole that he tried in the preseason,” Gustavsson said. “It was nice getting a piece of it.”

Marchment extended the lead to 2-0 at 11:24 of the third period, finding the loose puck after Sam Steel's shot was blocked.

“Linemates are finding me, and a little puck luck here and there,” Marchment said. “It’s a crazy game. Sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t. Right now, they’re going so I’ll just ride the wave.”

Kaprizov made it 2-1 at 14:10 of the third, tipping in Jared Spurgeon's shot from just inside the blue line.

With Gustavsson pulled for the extra attacker, Oettinger made a glove save on Kaprizov with 25.4 seconds left for the 2-1 final.

“They came hard on us, and we stood tall,” Gustavsson said. “We didn’t get as much going forward as we wanted to, but it was fine, we stood tall. They got one at the end there on a redirect, but we were in the game.”

NOTES: Dallas is 8-0-3 in its past 11 regular season games against Minnesota. … Marchment has factored into nine of the Stars’ 16 goals since Nov. 11. … Wild forward Michael Milne had three hits in 6:34 of ice time in his NHL debut.