By Thomas Williams -
The Minnesota Wild played such a tight game against the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 1. A series that almost every national media member thought would be the most one-sided win we have seen in some time was possibly the closest Game 1 in the first round this year.
Watching that first game, a belief that the Wild might pose a large threat to the Golden Knights' Stanley Cup dreams started becoming a reality.
It all came to fruition for Game 2. The Wild tied the series 1-1 with a decisive 5-2 win before returning to St. Paul.
What can we take from Tuesday night's performance? A few things.
Starting on the right foot
While we all thought it was possible after watching Game 1, there was still the concern that Vegas would stop toying around with its food and put a stranglehold on this series for the second game. Nothing was certain, and the Pacific Division winners could take control at any moment. Fortunately, this might just be who the Golden Knights are, and they didn't take it to the next level.
Minnesota took control almost immediately. There was a surge of offense for the home team, but the Wild pulled it back to even. All it took was some Kaprizov magic sauce to open up the scoring. He launched a pass to Matt Boldy that might have been the best ever. That is exactly what Boldy said and admitted to the media after the win.
It was the best pass he's ever seen.
From then on, it was full throttle. Less than two minutes after Boldy opened up the scoring, Marcus Foligno scored his third ever playoff goal to double the lead; and before the first period could even come to a close, Mats Zuccarello scored a beautiful goal after Marcus Johansson stripped the puck in the Golden Knights' own zone and fed it to the Norwegian.
And even just a few minutes into the second period, Kaprizov got his own goal after forcing one earlier to make it a four-goal lead that Vegas could barely even come back from.
This hot start suffocated anything coming from the home team. It was a dominant and forceful 25 minutes that gave the Wild enough room to breathe and ultimately was the deciding half of the game.
Kirill Kaprizov's magic
We all need to take time and give ourselves space to think about Kirill Kaprizov's performance in Game 2. We have seen countless performances from the Wild's best player where he has taken over a game and completely willed the Wild to a win. Maybe it is just the smaller sample size or the competition this team has faced, but it is a completely different story in the playoffs.
On Tuesday night, Kaprizov went off. We need to include the mind-bending pass that opened the scoring.
A beauty that is indescribable.
It wasn't just the incredible assist and the two goals he scored after that -- he clinched the win with an empty-net tally -- but his overall impact on the game. When Kaprizov was on the ice, the Golden Knights still had an advantage in shot attempts at 5-on-5. (We will explain why it's not a big deal in the next point.) However, according to Natural Stat Trick, the Wild had a 13-8 advantage in registered scoring chances.
It becomes even more impressive when you dig deeper and find out Kaprizov started just a third of his shifts in the offensive zone. He wasn't handed even close to the best environment to lead a team's offense, but still earned an advantage in registered scoring chances.
Now, there is a downside to the Wild having such a decisive lead so early on in the game:
Score effects.
Holding off the score effects
In plain language, when a team is down a couple of goals, they are likelier to throw as many pucks as possible at the net in hopes of evening the score. Conversely, when a team is trying to hold a lead, they will be more conservative with their offense and not try to run and gun so often, focusing on more possessions to kill the clock.
Since the Wild had a four-goal lead less than halfway through this game, the Golden Knights just came stomping and charging for the last 30 minutes. As we can see thanks to Natural Stat Trick, with 5-on-5 play, Vegas kept getting more shot attempts off as soon as the Wild scored their fourth goal.
Almost every team has to be wary of this when up big so early. Of course, it's always a good thing to score more goals, but the hope is that there is a large enough lead to prevent this surge of offense coming from the other side from doing some lasting damage.
Although Minnesota allowed two goals as this happened, it wasn't enough to let them lose hold of this game. More importantly, it was roughly 15 minutes of absolute hell unleashed from the home team -- going from just a plus-1 advantage in shot attempts after the Wild's fourth, all the way to a plus-28 advantage before the second period ended and the Golden Knights scored their first goal within that tilted stretch.
If the Wild are going to stand a fighting chance in this playoff series, they will probably face more of these types of minutes. The Golden Knights try to impose their will whenever Minnesota gets a sniff of a lead or can catch a lucky break. It will be up to Filip Gustavsson and the Wild's entire defensive scheme to withstand it.
But hey, they did a great job Tuesday night at doing exactly what they needed.
Now, it's back home in Minnesota as the Wild host Vegas for Games 3 and 4 Thursday and Saturday night.
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