The first period was what doomed this effort for the Dallas Stars. Mikko Koivu scored little over a minute in, and was followed no more than two minutes later by Eric Staal, whose goal was followed up exactly one minute later by Matt Dumba. After a bit of a cooling off period, the Wild decided to add insult to injury when Chris Stewart made it 4-0 for the Wild within the first half of the first period.
After this nightmarish blur of an assault, Lehtonen was pulled in favor of Niemi, and the first period came to a close after Antoine Roussel got the Stars’ first answering goal with mere seconds left in the period.