The Minnesota Wild and Dallas Stars are both hoping to come out of the holiday break the same way they entered it — with a win.
Both teams were on short losing streaks heading into Monday, but both managed to get victories before the break.
Dallas won 3-2 against the Utah Hockey Club, avoiding their first three-game losing streak in regulation in 2 1/2 seasons under coach Peter DeBoer.
“Nobody wants to go into Christmas on a losing note,” said Stars goalie Casey DeSmith. “Everybody wants to go home and be with their families and just feel good about hockey for a couple days, but get away from it as well.”
The Wild ended a season-long four-game losing streak by defeating the Chicago Blackhawks 4-3 on Monday.
“It’s a good reset for us,” said Minnesota defenseman Brock Faber. “End on a good note, enjoy the holidays and come back refreshed.”
Minnesota welcomed back two players from injury against the Blackhawks, including goalie Filip Gustavsson, who made 28 saves after missing four games due to a lower-body injury.
“It felt fine out there,” Gustavsson said. “(An injury) is always going to be on your mind a little bit when you’re back playing and, hopefully, I can just keep playing and it’s going to fade away a little bit.”
Minnesota forward Yakov Trenin also returned from a five-game absence due to an upper-body injury.
The Wild are still waiting for the return of top-line center Joel Eriksson Ek, who has missed the last 10 games due to a lower-body injury, and defenseman Jake Middleton, who has missed the last six games because of a hand injury.
Minnesota still has forward Kirill Kaprizov, who is tied for second in the NHL with 23 goals and tied for fourth with 50 points.
Wild coach John Hynes said he wants to see his team create more of a net-front presence when they return from the break.
“You need money, you go to the bank. Need food, you go to the store. You want to score, you got to go to the net,” Hynes said.
Going into the break, the Wild were second in the Central Division, five points behind the Winnipeg Jets.
The Stars have more work to do, sitting fourth in the division, 11 points behind the Jets and barely hanging on to the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference.
“All you have to do is look at the standings and see what those points mean,” said DeBoer after the win against Utah. “It’s a little early in the season to be scoreboard watching too much, but any time you can win on the road in a tough building like this, they’ll take it.”
Repeating as Central Division champions will be harder this season, especially without high-scoring forward Tyler Seguin, who had hip surgery earlier this month.
“We’ve had some adversity the first half and that’s not a bad thing. I think every team needs to go through a little bit of that to learn about yourselves,” DeBoer said. “They find a way to dig deep in adverse situations and get the job done.”
