Wild wins a rare road victory over Dallas in matinee matchup

DALLAS – The Wild's a bunch of party poopers. During a Saturday matinee at American Airlines Center, the Wild said to the 17,543 fans in attendance starving for a late lunch, "No tacos for you!"

All the Dallas Stars had to do was score one measly third-period goal for fans to get free tacos, but Darcy Kuemper made the net his fortress and Mikael Granlund's early third-period goal provided the ­difference as the Wild grinded out a rare road win in Dallas, 2-1.

The ex-North Stars had beaten the Wild in 19 of Minnesota's previous 20 Dallas visits, but Granlund's goal 40 seconds into the third broke a 1-1 tie. Then, Kuemper made 11 of his 27 saves in the final 20 minutes only two nights after giving up two goals on two shots against the Buffalo Sabres.

"It definitely left me hungry," Kuemper said. "I was eager to get back out there. I was even eager to get on the ice for practice [Friday]."

Coach Mike Yeo was pleased with Kuemper's response.

"That was the purpose of putting him in the net," Yeo said. "We believe that he has a lot of potential, and there's still opportunity for growth. And a big part of that is if you want to be the man, then you have to get in there and perform well after a night when things really haven't gone too well."

The Wild, winners of two in a row heading into Sunday's home game against the Winnipeg Jets, improved to 3-6 on the road and did so despite a mishmash blue line with defensemen Marco Scandella and Jonas Brodin sick.

Ryan Suter was plus-2 in 31 minutes, 19 seconds of work. Nate Prosser and Keith Ballard provided big minutes, and the Wild blocked 28 Stars shots — seven from Jared Spurgeon, who is not 100 percent yet logged nearly 28 minutes one game after scoring a goal and having a career-high eight shots.

"They did an incredibly good job of being in our shot lane," Stars coach Lindy Ruff said.

In the first half of the game, the Wild couldn't accomplish anything offensively. The Wild had no shots in the first nine minutes of the first and second periods. Wild players chased the Stars and the puck around the rink. They got pinned often in their own end. By the time the Wild would finally retrieve the puck, exhausted players had to clear and make a line change time and time again.

But Kuemper kept the deficit to 1-0, and the Wild finally got the spark it needed. Ryan Carter jumped on a soft pass by Brenden Dillon, picked it off and found the energy after nearly a minute in his own zone defending to hit the accelerator and catch the Stars on a 2-on-1.

Carter skated into the Stars end, moved the puck to his forehand and saucered a pass to Erik Haula, who whistled his second goal of the season and first since Oct. 25 for the tying goal with 4:19 left in the second.

"After the goal, we were able to put a couple of good shifts together and that kept us going in the third," Haula said. "We stayed patient, and we had great life on the bench. That's really carried us to victory."

When the Wild actually got shots, Kari Lehtonen seemed to be fighting pucks. Nothing was clean, and that was the case on Granlund's second goal of the season.

Charlie Coyle directed a harmless-looking wrister from the blue line, and the shot may as well have been a pass because Lehtonen served it up to Granlund for his first goal since Nov. 1.

"We weren't good enough on the road, so for us to come in here, we changed our mind-set where it doesn't have to be pretty, just simple, and we have to outwork them if we want to even have a chance," a dripping-wet Suter said after. "Great road win."