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  • Game 4 Gamethread: Wild vs. Stars (5:30 p.m.)


    Image courtesy of © Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports
    Thomas Williams

    The Minnesota Wild have an incredible opportunity tonight. We have seen how little a 2-1 series lead means just last year against the St. Louis Blues -- a team can still come back and win three consecutive games and win the series as cleanly as possible from that point. But a 3-1 serie lead? Well that has you feeling some sort of good kind of way and on Sunday night against the Dallas Stars, the Wild can earn that feeling.

    The team will be without Joel Eriksson Ek as his return lasted just 19 seconds in the eventual Game 3 win on Friday. But, the team has come this far without him and the lines are producing enough for right now.

    This is their chance to earn a decisive win and serious series advantage in front of the home crowd. They have to take it.

    Projected Wild lineup

    Kirill Kaprizov -- Ryan Hartman -- Mats Zuccarello
    Marcus Johansson -- Frederick Gaudreau -- Matt Boldy
    Gustav Nyquist -- Sam Steel -- Marcus Foligno
    Brandon Duhaime -- Connor Dewar -- Ryan Reaves

    Jake Middleton -- Jared Spurgeon
    Jonas Brodin -- Matt Dumba
    John Klingberg -- Brock Faber

    Filip Gustavsson
    Marc-Andre Fleury

    Projected Stars lineup

    Jason Robertson -- Roope Hintz -- Tyler Seguin
    Jamie Benn -- Wyatt Johnston -- Evgenii Dadonov
    Mason Marchment -- Max Domi -- Ty Dellandrea
    Joel Kiviranta -- Radek Faksa -- Luke Glendening

    Ryan Suter -- Miro Heiskanen
    Esa Lindell -- Jani Hakanpaa
    Thomas Harley -- Colin Miller

    Jake Oettinger
    Scott Wedgewood

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    3 minutes ago, Beast said:

    If we had even a modicum of skill we won that game.  Find someone who can win a damn offensive zone face off just one time.

    Massively. blown opportunity there.  We can’t have our best player disappear on the score sheet like this and expect to beat Dallas in a 7 gamer.  Not going to happen.

    Agree with the best players scoring part. Granted, the Stars are having the same problem, but all the same I'd like to see KK97 and Boldly fight through it. 

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    Dallas is a good team. You're not gonna waltz through round one.

    MN needs to execute. Dallas played a good road game. The Wild lost their focus and got frustrated. That's what Dallas wants to happen. If MN can execute and get some positive mojo going they're much better but I agree, you gotta be able to beat the refs too. Getting a lead and building on it might be necessary to eliminate the ref-factor.

    It was a game they could've won though.

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    16 minutes ago, UK_Soldier said:

    Games not even over...but probably is. Series certainly isn't. Get a grip. 

    Series isn't over, no. It's very unnerving that it's swung back in Dallas' favor when we've had control of it following game 1. Now we're going to have to win another game on the road.

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    1 minute ago, NorthcoteCupGuy said:

    I still don’t see how Foligno gets called for tripping.  Unbelievable. 

    Or "interference". They either have an agenda or are getting back at him for jawing at them for calls. 

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    1 minute ago, dlhouse said:

    Series isn't over, no. It's very unnerving that it's swung back in Dallas' favor when we've had control of it following game 1. Now we're going to have to win another game on the road.

    Agreed. That sounds like a rational post. 

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    This happens every playoffs. I don’t even know why anyone would argue the bias against the Wild. If you went back to the Vegas series again and looked, that one was bad too. 
     

    Like I said above though. If you wanna try to take the refs out, then you need to capitalize early and play with a lead. The Wild had early chances, didn’t get a goal. Eventually it kinda goes sideways and those early opportunities and hot goalie lock you out while the clock runs down. 
     

    The Dallas goalie was a big factor along with Wild missed chances to put the puck in the net and the bad calls. 

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    8 hours ago, dlhouse said:

    Series isn't over, no. It's very unnerving that it's swung back in Dallas' favor when we've had control of it following game 1. Now we're going to have to win another game on the road.

    That's playoff hockey baby. All it is is a back-and-forth, at least for the Wild. We've never even been 3-1 in a series. 

    Dallas will probably win game 5 because they'll still have an edge and then we'll win game 6 because we'll be more desperate than them for the W, and then its game on for game 7. 

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    6 hours ago, jgodwin17 said:

    Well looks like the Refs beat us on that one. Two goals against on ghost “interference” and ghost “tripping” ie two absolutely normal, routine hits.

    Yeah it sucks that those calls ended up making a difference, but the PK has to do a better job too. 

    Also Gus absolutely has to be able to stop shots from the point. That second Dallas goal should've been a routine save. It wasn't an exceptionally difficult one to make. 

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    8 hours ago, Beast said:

    What a crap performance tonight.  I don’t want to hear anything about the refs.  We had 5-6 grade As that we choked on.  Our best player is a complete non factor for the second time in the last two playoff appearances.

    That’s the series.  Again.  Another gutless first round choke job by this team after getting a series lead.

    Dude relax. These are two evenly matched teams. Its going to be a back and forth. Welcome to a good playoff series. 

    Bad puck luck and execution at times, and a few too many passes when it seemed like we'd gotten it out of our system, but there's still a lot of hockey left to go and we're playing the right way.

    Eventually those pucks will go in, just like they did in game 3. 

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    8 hours ago, dlhouse said:

    It's going to be very difficult to win game 5 in Dallas, but that likely decides the series.

    Disagree completely. With how even these two teams are, whoever loses game 5 is going to be desperate in game 6 and that'll give them an edge. 

    This has the makings of a 7 game series. Although I'm hoping the Wild can just win the next 2 to end it, because I don't want to play DeBoer in a game 7 again. 

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