By Tony Abbott -
You can't say the Minnesota Wild doesn't make a good hype video. Before launching this playoff run, their social media team put out an incredible video promoting their "Grit-First" team. It's good enough to still want to make you run through a wall, even the morning after a 4-0 shutout in the most pivotal game of the year.
"I want our team to be able to play their best team in the most hostile environment," a Bill Guerin voiceover kicks off the video. "I want our team to be so mentally tough that they can play their best game in that environment."
The last two games must have unfolded like a horror movie in the GM's booth. Game 4 of the series saw the Wild fail to deliver a knockout punch to the Dallas Stars, who hung around in a scoreless game before striking first with a power play goal. The Stars did that in a hostile environment, with several of the fans their franchise scorned in the audience, and with all fans loudly acknowledging the bad, messy breakup between them and Ryan Suter.
In Game 5, in a hostile American Airlines Center that's boiling over from Matt Dumba's Game 1 hit that cost the Stars Joe Pavelski, one team showed that killer instinct.
It wasn't the one anyone in the State of Hockey wanted to see, though. Especially the architect of this team.
Two minutes and 14 seconds into the game, Marcus Foligno earned a major penalty and game misconduct from a knee-on-knee hit to Radek Faksa. A bad break? Maybe, but Foligno, an alternate captain, had to know he was on watch two days after blasting the referees as "arrogant."
Dallas leaped onto that opportunity immediately. Their power play entered the game converting half of its chances on two-minute penalties. But now given five minutes to pot as many goals as they'd like? The Stars could (and did) score on that with their eyes closed. They converted in eight seconds on Tyler Seguin's goal.
If there's a silver lining, it's that they only scored one goal in the full five minutes, helped by Sam Steel drawing a penalty. But not only did the Wild fail to build any momentum off of that, they seemingly didn't show up. The series isn't over, but do we really think they can take Game 7 in Dallas?
And with how the Stars are playing now that they smell Iron Range Red blood, it's far from a given that Minnesota can take Game 6 on Friday to force that Game 7.
It's a staggering lack of resilience from a team that entered the postseason with the promise that they'd be different. Guerin cleaned house on a locker room that needed a reset for their leadership group. He constructed this team around will, and not skill. Just this year, he pulled in veterans like Marcus Johansson, Gustav Nyquist, Oskar Sundqvist, John Klingberg, and Ryan Reaves because Dean Evason needed players he could trust in the grind of a playoff series instead of rookies.
The team came together down the stretch with an incredible 16-1-4 run that almost propelled them to the top of the Central Division. Half of that came with their superstar Kirill Kaprizov on the bench. That was a team that looked like it was different, mentally tougher, and built for postseason hockey.
And it was. It's just that: No one specified how many games of postseason hockey they were built for.
Even worse for Guerin, one of those veterans he cleaned house with is Suter, who is actively taking the upper hand in this Battle of the Exes.
Suter has a lone assist in this series against his former team. But as fans who saw him for almost a decade in the State of Hockey know, it's not always about the points when it comes to Suter. The Wild largely dominated this series at 5-on-5... except when lining up across from Suter.
When Suter's off the ice, Minnesota holds an incredible 7-2 advantage over Dallas. Believe it or not, that is almost enough to offset the insane 10-3 margin the Stars enjoy on special teams.
So what is hanging in the balance for this series? The 19 minutes of 5-on-5 time that Suter plays every game. And in that crucial, bitter, personal matchup, Suter is the clear winner so far. He's out-scoring Minnesota 4-1 at 5-on-5 in this series. It's no accident or fluke, either.
Suter leads defensemen in this series, controlling 56.8% of the expected goals share. He's dominating play and it's he, not Jared Spurgeon or Jonas Brodin, the dominant defensive defense Guerin handed the keys to the blueline over to, that's clearing the net most effectively. His 1.75 expected goals allowed per hour lead not just this series, but also ranks third among all defensemen this postseason.
It's tough to stop Kaprizov. But thanks in part to a head start from Kaprizov's injury in March, Suter landed some vicious cross-checks on the Russian star to keep him from skating without clearly laboring.
Suter may be a native Wisconsinite. But ask a lineup of Texans in Willie Nelson or Miranda Lambert -- or, hell, bring George Jones back from the grave -- and they couldn't write a better story of Dallas-brewed revenge.
There are two games left in this series, and Guerin's nightmare can end with the Wild winning both of them. But after seeing the way Minnesota meekly went out in Game 5, as if they'd accepted their fate with 57 minutes on the clock in the most hostile environment, it's looking increasingly more like they will be entering next season hoping they can prevent their playoff series winless streak from extending to a full decade.
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