What a shame.
The Wild did almost everything right in Game 4 of their first-round playoff series against Las Vegas on Saturday. Almost. That’s good enough for some NHL teams; it isn’t for this Wild team, for which the other shoe always seems close to dropping — and often does.
That other shoe is special teams, which have haunted Minnesota for two full seasons now — and longer when one assesses their previous two postseason appearances. It was inevitable they would bite the Wild at some point during this year’s postseason, and it came Saturday when Vegas scored a pair of power-play goals to beat the Wild in overtime, 4-3, at Xcel Energy Center.
After two strong wins in Vegas and St. Paul, the Wild not only had a chance to take a 3-1 series back to Las Vegas, but looked as if they would. Despite falling behind on Shea Theodore’s power play goal in the first 7 minutes, the Wild kept grinding and took a 2-1 lead into the third period on greasy goals by Marco Rossi and Marcus Foligno.
The Wild were playing a tight, responsible game and goaltender Filip Gustavsson was in control (he finished with 42 saves). They even killed two off other man advantages. Then less than 2 minutes into the third period, Zeev Buium, a rookie playing his fourth NHL game, got his stick under the helmet of Matt Stone and cut the top-liner’s right eye.
Buium was sent to the box for 4 minutes on a double minor. Uh oh.
It’s one thing to ask this team to kill 2 minutes when a man down; it’s another entirely to ask them to do it for 4 minutes. They came close, but with 8 seconds left, fourth-line center Nicolas Roy pounced on a rebound in the slot and fired it back into the net to make it 2-2.
That changed just about everything.
Knights skaters hadn’t really been in sync to that point, just missing on a lot of passes and pucks, perhaps because, you know, a 3-1 series deficit is hard to come back from. But after tying in, Vegas looked refreshed and took a 3-2 lead when a shot from Stone caromed off teammate Tomas Hertl, who was in a heap with Ryan Hartman at the crease.
Jared Spurgeon tied it again, 3-3, with a wraparound goal with 9:03 left in regulation, but the Wild were gassed. They came out firing in overtime but couldn’t solve Adin Hill and finally ran out of steam. It didn’t help that coach John Hynes was essentially playing five defenseman for most of the third period and overtime.
After last season, Hynes fired former assistant Bob Woods and brought in former Islanders head coach Jack Capuano, and promoted Pat Dwyer from Iowa, to look under the hood. The nuts and bolts might have changed, but the results haven’t. The Wild had the NHL’s third-worst penalty kill in 2023-24 and finished the regular season this year in the exact same spot after allowing 56 power-play goals.
Their two postseason trips prior to this one were undone by special teams, and now — four power-play goals against later — this one is tilting the same way.
Back in 2023, the Wils were up on Dallas in a first-round series, 2-1, before the Stars went 2 for 3 with a man advantage and beat Minnesota 3-2 in Game 4. At that point, the Stars were 6 for 16 with a man advantage, and Dallas scored two more on the way to a 4-2 series victory.
In 2022, the Wild were up on St. Louis, 2-1, before losing in six. They allowed six power-play goals in that one. At some point, this becomes unacceptable. Staying out of the box isn’t a viable penalty kill plan.
Afterward, Hynes said he was happy with the kill, saying it’s “in a really good spot.”
“We got good saves, we had good attention to detail, we killed well,” he said. “You come into a game like this, you look at the way we played, tonight you could arguably say there were a couple bounces that didn’t go our way.”
“Here we are,” he added. “Love it.”
It’s true, this series isn’t over, now a best-of-three starting Tuesday in Vegas. But it feels as if that other shoe will be there, too, waiting to drop.
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