Fleet Stars skate circles around Wild in easy win

DALLAS - Flight attendants probably spent the late Wednesday hours handing out Dramamine to Wild players on the team's charter back to Minnesota, but it had nothing to do with turbulence.

Credit for the motion sickness goes to the Dallas Stars, who did so many circles around Wild defenders Wednesday night, it must have been dizzying.

Right after the Stars scored the fastest goal against the Wild in team history, they came in waves to convincingly hand the Wild its first regulation loss, 4-2.

Every Stars shot seemed to be a scoring chance, which is not surprising. The American Airlines Center is a building in which the Wild routinely lose, and badly.

"They're one of the hardest teams to check down low. They're always moving," center Eric Belanger said. "I don't know if the corners are a little wider or what, but there's something here that makes it tougher."

The Wild (6-1-1) dropped its ninth consecutive game (0-7-2) in Dallas since a 3-2 overtime vicory on March 21, 2003. That ties the franchise record for longest winless streak in an opposing arena.

"A lot of the guys on our team that have been here for a while, we should know that we've got to be ready against them," defenseman Nick Schultz said. "They always come like that against us at home, and we haven't had great success here. We need to change that and put it behind us, but it definitely didn't happen tonight."

Wild backup goalie Josh Harding made his season debut because Niklas Backstrom, who had been so strong in this month, was chased after one period with the Wild trailing 3-1. Backstrom, who suffered his first regulation loss since March 4, gave up three goals on 13 shots, but he was playing behind a porous defense and facing a furious Stars attack.

"We gave them two gifts right from the start," coach Jacques Lemaire said. "We started to play a little tighter, frustrated. When you play frustrated, the puck bounces."

Brenden Morrow, Steve Ott, Brad Richards and Matt Niskanen of Virginia, Minn., scored for Dallas, and rookie goalie Tobias Stephan, making his second career start, won his first NHL game.

"The guys played great and made it quite easy for me," said Stephan, who faced only 21 shots.

Marc-Andre Bergeron and Andrew Brunette scored power-play goals for the Wild. But the Wild was never in this one, especially at even-strength.

"We chased the whole game," defenseman Kim Johnsson said. "They're very good with the small plays, especially from the corners to the high slot. They do that a lot, and we have to do a better job recognizing that."

Morrow scored 13 seconds in to eclipse Andrew Cassels' March 13, 2003, goal with Columbus by three seconds as the fastest ever against the Wild.

It was a bad bounce. Backstrom's clear along the glass hit forechecking Loui Eriksson, popped over Mikko Koivu's head and into the slot, where Mike Ribeiro fed Morrow.

"It's hockey. You've got those bounces sometimes," Backstrom said.

Bergeron tied the score with a water bottle-popping one-timer from a tight angle, but regardless, the game never even seemed a contest.

The Wild was that overmatched in its own zone.

"Nobody said we were going to win 82 games," Belanger said. "We just have to learn from it and move on. We've got a good team coming into our building [tonight], and we have to make sure we don't make the same mistakes."