The Dallas Stars beat the Marcus Foligno allegations in Game 3 with a 4-3 OT win

The Dallas Stars and the Minnesota Wild continued their playoff series in the city of St. Paul tonight. Dallas came out of the gate hungry like a wild moose looking for dinner in the wilderness. Having a 2-1 lead at the end of the first period was crucial for Dallas's success tonight. However, Minnesota was not going to let the Stars kick back and enjoy the 2-0 lead they built early in the game. The Stars still ended up with the win over the Wild tonight in double overtime 4-3.

Dallas needs to improve its defense over the next two days. Even though Dallas has the series lead after tonight's win, that defense is not going to win the Stanley Cup this season. There are more disciplined teams in this league that would take advantage of what transpired tonight. Dallas needs to dig down and improve over the next couple of games if they want to put the Wild on the brink of elimination. Here are the four takeaways from tonight's win over the Wild.

Dallas Stars vs. Minnesota Wild Recap: 4. Pretty flawless first period

I thought that the first period was the best period the Dallas Stars had in this series tonight. Even though Marcus Johansson got the Wild on the board late in the period, Dallas had a solid game plan coming into tonight's game. It all started with the Stars dominating the first power play, as Mikko Rantanen scored the first goal. Jason Robertson then showed off his amazing wrist shot to double the lead before Johansson's goal. Now it's time for the Stars to replicate that in every game moving forward.

Dallas Stars vs. Minnesota Wild Recap: 3. Thomas Harley and Tyler Myers need a penalty kill divorce

Moving forward, Tyler Myers and Thomas Harley need to be on separate penalty kill lines. For some reason, when they have been on the ice together recently, they have been giving up a lot of goals. I think Gulutzan needs to consider shuffling the defensemen on the penalty kill units a bit. I think it will give Dallas better penalty-killing units as the series progresses. There's nothing the Stars could have done about the bang-bang deflection on the first Wild power play tonight.

Dallas Stars vs. Minnesota Wild Recap: 2. What in the heck happened

That second period was a complete disaster that can never happen again. The fact that the Wild were able to take the lead at the end of the second period was a complete disaster. The Stars were on the power play for basically six minutes in that middle frame and even had a minute of 5-on-3 and couldn't even score a goal. That's where the game completely fell apart for Dallas. Unfortunate that it happened, but the hockey gods punished them for not scoring on the power play.

Dallas Stars vs. Minnesota Wild Recap: 1. Time to look yourselves in the mirror

Now that the Wild have the 2-1 series lead, the Stars need to head back to the hotel and look at themselves in the mirror as a team and decide if they want to keep their series lead. I know the Wild are going to come out of the gate on Saturday afternoon with a vengence to tie the series up at 2. Dallas needs to find that inner strength over the next two days to really send a message to put the Wild on the brink of elimination. Dallas returns for Game 4 on Saturday afternoon. At least it's early so you can get some sleep this weekend.

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