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Stars lose Bishop, still surge past Wild

ST. PAUL — Ben Bishop set a franchise-record shutout streak before exiting with an injury, and the Dallas Stars scored three goals in the second period in a 4-1 victory over the Minnesota Wild on Thursday, March 14.

Radek Faksa and rookies Roope Hintz and Joel L’Esperance scored in a 2-minute, 22-second span for the Stars, who have won six of their last seven games overall to pull even in points with St. Louis (79) for third place in the Central Division. Alexander Radulov sealed the victory with an empty-net goal.

Anton Khudobin turned aside 14 shots in relief of Bishop, who extended his shutout streak to a career-best 230:53 before leaving with a lower-body injury. The 32-year-old Bishop, who finished with seven saves, eclipsed the previous franchise mark of 219:26 set by Ed Belfour in November 2000.

Bishop was bidding to become the fifth NHL goaltender to record a shutout in at least four consecutive games since 1929-30.

Jason Zucker celebrated his 400th NHL contest by scoring his seventh goal in nine outings for the Wild, who have dropped five of their last six games overall (1-3-2) and nine of their last 10 at home (1-6-3).

Blake Comeau unleashed a blast from just inside the blue line that was tipped in the hashmarks by Faksa and past Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk (27 saves) to open the scoring at 4:11 of the second period.

Hintz cleaned up a rebound to double the Stars’ advantage just 74 seconds later with his fifth goal in eight games.

L’Esperance redirected captain Jamie Benn’s shot over Dubnyk’s glove to give Dallas a 3-0 lead just 68 seconds later.

Bishop exited the contest, and Zucker greeted Khudobin by banging home his own rebound to trim the deficit at 9:14 of the second period. The power-play goal was Minnesota’s first in 19 opportunities this month.

The Wild didn’t put much pressure on Bishop in the early going, with the club’s first shot on goal being registered by Ryan Donato from a sharp angle at 6:50 of the first period.

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