SportsDay was able to talk with Star Tribune writer Michael Russo ahead of the Stars-Wild series about an array of different subjects regarding the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Here are some highlights:

Question: Can you quantify how big a loss not having Zach Parise is for Minnesota?

Russo: Just to show you what he means to the Wild: With Parise, since 2012-13 they are 139-89-32. That's a .596 win percentage; 2.59 goals per game and a plus-37 goal differential. But without Parise, they're 15-18-2. That's a .457 win percentage [and] it goes to a minus-five goal differential. They're 5-6-1 this year without him. This is a team that has to work very, very hard to score goals. They don't have the superstar talent like Dallas has with Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin, and add Jason Spezza. They're a team that really has to battle hard. He's kind of the ultimate grinder. He personifies their work ethic. Just not having him in the lineup is pretty devastating to this team. He's also their second-most experienced playoff player [with] 89 playoff games. He brought the Devils to the Stanley Cup Finals and also has the most points out of any Wild player in franchise history in the playoffs with with 25 points in 28 games. This is their first-line left wing. It's just a huge, huge loss for them.

Question: What was the team's morale like when they found out they had lost Parise for the first few games of the series?

Russo: I think that it's been very clear the last three or four days that something big was going on with Parise. He hadn't been on the ice at all for practice. That's when I really started digging and sort of found out that he had this back injury. You could just see it. A few days ago when the team was day-to-day, when you talk to players like [Devan] Dubnyk and Jarrett Stoll, everybody seemed to be resigned to the fact that Parise was going to be lost. He's their heart and soul, and their leader. He's not their captain, but he's the guy who kind of makes them run. I do think it is one of those things where now, in the last couple days when it became very clear that he was not going to be playing, a lot of the leaders in the locker room and John Torchetti, their coach, has tried to put everybody in a mind frame like, 'Look. You've got to move on.' They're going to need players who have really struggled to step up here. Guys like Charlie Coyle and Jason Zucker really struggled down the stretch. The only way this team has a chance of beating Dallas is if all of a sudden some of these really talented young kids step up offensively.

Question: You mentioned Zucker and Coyle. Anyone else come to your mind who could step up and fill in for Parise?

Russo: It's going to have to be those two. Charlie Coyle was their second-leading goal scorer this year with only 21 and he didn't have a goal in the last 18 games. Zucker is another guy that was on a 34-goal pace last year before he broke his collar bone. This year he had a major disappointment of a season and only had two goals and two assists in his last 31 games. The team desperately needs those guys who are now going to play on the top line with Mikko Koivu to just show up in this series. They put together a second line today of [Nino] Niederreiter, [Mikael] Granlund and [Jason] Pominville. Pominville doesn't have a goal in the last 11 games. Granlund has scored a couple big goals for the Wild in the playoffs and Niederreiter has seven career playoff goals including a Game 7 overtime winner against Colorado two years ago. The Wild need their top two lines to score. They're not going to be able to out-skill the Dallas Stars. They can't turn this into a track meet, but they've got to get goal scoring from these skill guys. Because Lord knows on the third and fourth lines there's not a lot of offensive ability there.

Question: Mikko Koivu. How important do you think he's going to be in this series being on the top line and one of the more physical players that the Wild have?

Russo: I think he's going to be huge. The other big loss that the Wild has is that Erik Haula is not going to play in at least Game 1 because of a lower body injury. Normally that Niederreiter-Haula-Pominville line is the shutdown line. And they probably would have seen plenty of Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin in this series. Now there's a really good chance that John Torchetti throws that Koivu line out against the Benn line. Koivu is going to have to be a good two-way forward. But they need Koivu to step up this postseason. In 28 games since 2012-13, he has two playoff goals. That's just absolutely not acceptable for somebody that plays his amount of ice time. So they need Koivu to really step up here.

Question: Given Minnesota's recent playoff history of upsetting higher seeds, do they still have that confidence despite the injuries?

Russo: Yeah, I think that's definitely the plan. They're the only team in the league that has upset a division champion two years in a row in the first round. They have a ton of experience on their team. You go through all these young guys that they have, all these 20-somethings have all played more than 20 playoff games. They've been through these battle-tested first round series against teams like Colorado and St. Louis and got to the second round. That's what they're hoping is that they rely upon that. They're hoping they can rediscover their defensive structure that has been really missing here down the stretch. They're a team that when they want to play solid away from the puck -- tight checking and structured -- they're as good as any team in the league. Obviously, again, they're not going to be able to out-skate and out-skill the Dallas Stars. The only way they'll be able to win is if they shut them down defensively. So that means they're going to have to be really good defensively. They're going have to have great goaltending from Devan Dubnyk.

Question: Other than injuries, what's the biggest concern for the Wild heading into this series?

Russo: I would just say that they're going to have to get great goaltending. Devan Dubnyk is going to have to steal them some games. Down the stretch, Dubnyk was really good in March, then the team hit skids here in April. He seems to give up a goofy goal a game at times. Obviously you can't afford that against a team that is prolific as Dallas. Dubnyk was one of the best goaltenders in the NHL in the second half last year. He's going to have to revert to that.

Question: How vital do you think it'll be for Minnesota to not take penalties against Dallas? The Wild had the third worst penalty kill this year and Dallas had a top five power play.

Russo: I think it's going to be a huge storyline of this series. The Wild are the most disciplined team in the NHL. They were shorthanded the fewest times in the NHL [tied with Carolina], yet their penalty kill was 27th in the league. They've got to be better. Last year they were the No. 1 penalty killing team in the league. For some reason this season has been absolutely god awful, really, from start to finish. We all know the skill that is on Dallas' power play, especially that top unit. It's not even that they've got to kill penalties, they need to stay out of the penalty box.

Question: Do you expect the Wild to up their physical play to try and slow down the Stars?

Russo: I think they're going to try to dictate physically. They had the second least amount of hits in the NHL this season. This is a pretty undersized team. John Torchetti is going to play Chris Porter in the series. They aqcuired David Jones at the trade deadline. They have Jarret Stoll and they're going to play Ryan Carter who was hurt the last month of the season with a shoulder injury. Those are their four most physical players and they're going to have to be physical in the series. You look at their blue line right now and they're not very rugged. They're a very mobile blue line but don't have a lot of physicality there. And again, even their forwards aren't guys that are going to actually crush you through the boards. To try to dictate a physical game, that's definitely not their brand of hockey.

Question: Ryan Suter. How do you think he impacts this series? Will they have to lean on him more offensively?

Russo: He's going to play half the game. He's probably going to be on the ice every single time that Benn and Seguin are. He's going to have to be very good. He has struggled in Dallas at times and they need him to be the guy that helps them get out of their zone and gets up the ice. He needs to be an offensive force as well. He had a career high in points this year. Another area we haven't talked about is the Wild's power play. It's been very inconsistent this year. They're 15th in the league. He quarterbacks the power play, plays almost all two minutes. He's got to zip the puck quicker on the power play. He's got to get pucks through. I think he's the sixth most shots blocked on the power play this year but his percentage was a league high at 45 percent. He doesn't do a great job at times getting pucks through because he sends little wrist shots on net. He's just going to have to do a better job of really helping the Wild's power play be successful in the series.

Question: Who is the Wild's biggest x-factor in this series?

Russo: I definitely would have said Haula yesterday, and maybe he still is if he only misses one game. Erik Haula was probably their best player the last two, two and a half months of the season. He's a guy who really centered their checking line that not only shut down opponents like Patrick Kane and [Artemi] Panarin this year, but really was their best offensive line in the last month and a half of the season. He led the team in points under John Torchetti in the last 27 games. They need him back in the lineup. If he's not going to play, one guy that could be an x-factor is Jared Spurgeon. He's a really mobile, offensive-type defenseman. He's got the ability to play both ways and really lug the puck up ice. He's 5-foot-9, maybe, but man he plays big minutes and plays a big role on this team. I think he's going to have to be very good.

Twitter: @Josh_Friemel