Stars coach gets 100% real on facing elimination in Game 6 vs. Wild

The Dallas Stars are down to their last defeat in the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs, but it’s a place they’ve gotten familiar with over the last few seasons.

Before marching to back-to-back West Finals in each of the last two years — making it three consecutive trips overall — the Stars faced elimination in Round 1 both times. They defeated the Vegas Golden Knights in seven games in 2024 before dispatching the Colorado Avalanche, also in seven, in 2025.

They’ll need to recapture that magic if they hope to win Game 6 on the road and force a Game 7 against a hungry Minnesota Wild team in what has, unsurprisingly, been an extremely tight matchup.

“We have to stay with it because you’re not going to get one bounce every game, that’s just the way it works,” head coach Glen Gulutzan told reporters, per NHL.com’s Dan Rosen.

“You might go 10 games without a bounce, might go five games without a bounce, but you’ve got to keep doing it, keep painting the picture over and over and winning battles and getting to the net and pretty soon you start to create bounces. Success sometimes lags (behind) the work you’re putting in.”

The top guys on the Stars have been pulling their weight; Matt Duchene and Jason Robertson have managed eight points each in the series, while Mikko Rantanen has six and Wyatt Johnston have five.

But the offensive depth has dried up, with no other forward chipping in more than a single point. Meanwhile, the Wild have six forwards with at least two points in the matchup.

“Everything is tighter. Everything is quicker. Everything has to be more precise. Everything is rushed,” Gulutzan continued. “You’ve got to be better in those areas and that’s why I talk about that fluidity, you have to have a sense of calm mixed in with that urgency to get that shot off and get it in the right spot.”

The Stars have been here before, but losing in the first round after advancing to the West Final in three straight years is not how anyone in Texas envisioned the 2025-26 season ending. Dallas will try to dig deep and steal Game 6 in the State of Hockey when puck drops just past 7:30 p.m. ET on Thursday night.

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