Season over: Wild comeback bid falls short in high-drama finish

The Wild's best chance fell to Charlie Coyle at 13:36, as he carried the puck into the Dallas zone and unleashed a quick wrister, Niemi - making his first start of the playoffs - was equal to the s and kicked it away down the ice.

Koivu tied it at 4-4 with 3:09 remaining with his second of the series on a wrist shot from the slot.

"And he goes, 'Oh, no, no, no, no, we're going to score".

When the puck dropped in St. Paul Sunday afternoon, everyone was ready for a battle.

John Klingberg, Jason Spezza, and Patrick Sharp gave the Stars a 3-0 lead in the first period, completely zapping the energy out of the Xcel Energy Center.

Minnesota wasn't done. Just before the half-way point of the final period, Jared Spurgeon scored his second goal of the period, cutting the Dallas lead down to one. We're in a good position.

"Of course, it's always nice to score".

Even though I still think it shouldn't have. Wild captain Mikko Koivu won 27 of 38 faceoffs for a franchise playoffs record and added two assists. "I don't know all the stat stuff and all that, I just know that his leadership, that's what it's all about".

Goligoski, a Minnesota native who had a costly turnover leading to the Wild's first goal, scored his first goal of the series 28 seconds after Spezza's equalizer when his wrist shot from the left point deflected in off the back of Wild defenseman Marco Scandella.

The Stars bested the Minnesota Wild 5-4 in a nail-bitter Game 6 to win the series and advance onto round two of the Stanley Cup playoffs, where Sharp would face off against his old teammates. That much closer to being pushed to a winner-take-all game seven. Nino tried to go underneath the blocker, but the puck didn't get high enough and was blocked by the right pad of Lehtonen. "Hard stops", Niemi said.

Third Period-4, Dal, Ja.Benn 3 (Klingberg), 1:00. The teams then nearly immediately traded goals in a span of 50 seconds. They were not able to do that in Game 6, and just as it was in all the other games of the series, the Stars had a huge puck-possession advantage over the Wild for most of the game.

With Prince being remembered for his music before the game, fans were in a frenzy, hoping for a Wild win to force a Game 7 on Tuesday night. If the Wild can not find someone in free agency or a trade to take this team to the next level then they should heavily consider going into rebuild mode.

The offseason will be an active one for the Wild. In Game 6, the Wild won the face-off battle 14-10 in the first period with another solid showing at the faceoff dots, despite awful showings elsewhere.

Jason Pominville brought the team back within one, when Jonas Brodin's shot was deflected, hit him, and laid down next to the crease for the tuck in. "I thought we were going to tie that up and take it to overtime". "Probably one of the most useless timeouts I've taken, because they couldn't hear a word I said anyway", Ruff said.

Less than 2 minutes later, Jordon Schroeder, playing his first game in the series, scored on a pass from Ryan Suter.

Dallas would hold on to win the game 5-4 and the series 4-2.

Notes: Dallas had 85 total shots in regulation, 40 more than Minnesota.

Game 5 was a 5-4 loss.