Quinn Hughes scored twice and added an assist, leading the Minnesota Wild to a series-clinching 5-2 victory over the Dallas Stars on Thursday night in Saint Paul, Minn.
The Wild won the best-of-seven Western Conference quarterfinal series 4-2 and will play the Colorado Avalanche in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Minnesota won a playoff series for the first time since the 2015 Western Conference quarterfinals against the St. Louis Blues. The series win was also Minnesota’s first against Dallas.
Matt Boldy added a pair of empty-net goals and Vladimir Tarasenko also scored for the Wild, while Jesper Wallstedt made 22 saves.
Wyatt Johnston and Mavrik Bourque responded for the Stars, who dropped the final three games of the series.
Jake Oettinger stopped 16 shots.
Hughes scored the go-ahead goal, and eventual winner, at 10:38 of the third period as his shot deflected off the skate of Stars defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin and past Oettinger.
Hughes became the second defenseman in Wild history to score a go-ahead goal in a series-clinching game.
Trailing 1-0, Johnston got Dallas on the board on a power play at 7:01, one-timing a Mikko Rantanen feed past Wallstedt for his fourth of the series.
Bourque gave the Stars their first lead of the night, corralling the rebound off Michael Bunting’s shot and putting it home for his first career playoff goal.
Minnesota responded 54 seconds later when Tarasenko backhanded a shot past Oettinger for his 50th career playoff goal.
The Wild led 1-0 after 20 minutes. Hughes opened the scoring 6:23 into the game, snapping a shot from the top of the faceoff circle past Oettinger glove-side for his first of the series.
Wild defenseman Jonas Brodin missed Game 6 with a lower-body injury and was replaced in the lineup by Jeff Petry.
