By Thomas Williams -
The Minnesota Wild fumbled their chance to have a sizeable lead in their first-round series against the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday afternoon. And now, everyone is heading back to Nevada with the series tied 2-2, and Minnesota has a bit of a sour taste in its mouth.
In a much more back-and-forth matchup, Game 4 proved to go the Golden Knights' way with a 4-3 overtime loss for the Wild. Ivan Barbashev dealt the final, vicious blow in the most disheartening way.
The Wild were battling for 17 minutes of the overtime period, trying to take advantage of the momentum they earned by scoring the tying goal in the latter half of the third period. Unfortunately, it all came down to perhaps the greasiest and nastiest goal we have seen so far in these playoffs. A goal that doesn't feel good at all.
Despite the series being on a down note right now, there are a couple of takeaways to consider before Game 5.
Vegas Had An Answer For Kaprizov and Boldy
For the first time in the series, Vegas kept Minnesota's team-leading duo of Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy quiet. After scoring four goals and six points in the first three games, Boldy finished Game 4 with zero points, despite playing a game-high 33:08 TOI, and didn't even really pop off underneath the lack of production. Three shots on goal, seven shot attempts, and none of those attempts were considered from a high-danger area.
That was it for Boldy's first quiet game of the series.
Kaprizov earned an assist on Jared Spurgeon's wraparound goal to force overtime. However, with just two shots on goal and no significant scoring chances, it was an eerily quiet game from the Wild's best player.
Still, that is just what Vegas was able to do. They completely snuffed out most of the offensive chances when they were on the ice together, which was a far cry from what happened in the first three games of this series. Something about Game 4 -- whether it was familiarity or luck running out -- caused the ice to tilt to the Golden Knights' advantage when the Wild's top line was on the ice.
Marco Rossi Worked With What He Had
While the Wild couldn't depend on Kaprizov and Boldy to carry them through most of the game, Marco Rossi scored his second goal of the playoffs to open the scoring for Minnesota. And he scored in the most unlikely of environments.
We're obviously big fans of Rossi here on this website, but it feels absolutely insane to have him down on the fourth line. To make the point even stronger, he's still scoring goals and impacting the game positively with fourth-line linemates and barely any minutes.
Rossi finished the game with 11:01 TOI. That is a third of what Boldy had, who led the Wild in minutes Saturday afternoon. One-third. Rossi is doing absolutely everything he can in the scraps of opportunity he is getting for this team right now. Now, imagine what his true impact could be if he were higher in the lineup.
When Rossi's line was on the ice, the Wild had a 5-2 advantage in shots on goal, was even in shot attempts, had roughly 59.57 percent of the expected goals share, and a 2-0 advantage in high-danger chances.
They ran Vegas into the ground.
To make it even harder, they had five defensive zone faceoffs, compared to just three offensive and neutral zone faceoffs for their deployment tonight.
Minnesota didn't even give Rossi and his pals a remote chance to create something offensively Saturday afternoon, and they still managed to score a goal. And now the young center has goals in back-to-back games. Something's got to give.
Shea Theodore With a Monster of a Game
We should probably talk about the other team for one of these. Defenseman Shea Theodore had a great performance, and it's maybe the most obvious statement ever, but he is a problem the Wild still haven't solved.
The defenseman had six shots on goal, 10 shot attempts, three high-danger chances, and, of course, scored a goal.
On Saturday, Theodore largely had the tough assignment of shutting down the Wild's top line, which he successfully did. Then, he had a good portion of his minutes against the Marcus Foligno, Ryan Hartman, and Mats Zuccarello trio. Certainly not a slouch among the bunch, but the Vegas blueliner handled it comfortably.
When Theodore was on the ice for the Golden Knights, they had a massive 31-14 advantage in shot attempts and outshot the Wild 13-6 at 5-on-5, not to mention over 80 percent of the expected goals share according to Natural Stat Trick. Just that type of performance that you become envious of the top blueliner on the other side being able to pull off.
The Wild are returning to Las Vegas for Game 5 on Tuesday. While the momentum is not on their side, Minnesota has a big chance to regain control of this series.
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