By Tony Abbott -
The Minnesota Wild's recent playoff failures have all been about punches. No, we're not talking about after-the-whistle antics. Instead, it's the turning of tides that come with best-of-seven slugfests in the NHL. It's a boxing match when two teams try to get the upper hand, then deliver that beautiful, brutal knockout punch.
The Vegas Golden Knights, a bully of the NHL, got a good shove in on Minnesota in Game 1. Then Minnesota shocked them back with two blows, square to the jaw. Game 4 was their opportunity to finally land a knockout, sending Vegas home with a 3-1 deficit. The perfect opening arrived in overtime, when Minnesota was given a power play after Nicolas Roy hugged Joel Eriksson Ek a bit too tightly as he crashed the net.
But the Wild whiffed, and Ivan Barbashev evened the series, getting his stick on the puck in a flurry of bodies.
This isn't the first time the Wild couldn't put away a flailing team. The Wild had a 2-1 series lead against the St. Louis Blues in 2022 and the Dallas Stars a year later, but couldn't make contact. The theme of not showing a killer instinct arose one more time on Saturday, and that's not an encouraging trend.
More discouraging, however, is what happened next. Top teams like the Knights and Stars are hard to put away. That's why they're top teams. Did the Wild have opportunities? Sure, but it feels like those teams would always punch back. But what happens when you're a team that can't take a punch?
We get the Game 5 and 6 performances in 2022 and 2023.
In Game 5 against the Blues, Kirill Kaprizov got Minnesota out to a 2-1 lead after the first period. After that, the team collapsed, getting outscored 8-1 in the final 100 minutes of the series. The Stars blanked Minnesota in Game 5, then got out to a three-goal lead before the Wild scored a goal. They ended that series with Dallas outscoring them 8-1 through those final two games.
You wouldn't say the Wild gave up in either series, but when those teams got new life, they came on strong, and Minnesota didn't have another punch in them.
In one way, it's now a best-of-three, but in much more important ways, it's not. John Hynes has gone all-out in playing his top players, who spent Games 1-3 overwhelming Vegas. Now four games are in the books, and Brock Faber (112 minutes) has 16 more minutes than Noah Hanifin, the Knights' top defenseman. Matt Boldy (99) has 11 more minutes than Jack Eichel.
Forcing your opponent into exhaustion is a viable strategy in boxing and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. If you can conserve your energy while your opponent tires out, they become prone to mistakes. They try to muster that last bit of strength needed to put you away... and they simply don't have it.
We can pinpoint those moments from Game 4, and it goes beyond not converting the power play in overtime. During the second and third periods, the Wild killed two Vegas power plays and the first half of a double minor. It was an impressive performance. Still, after three minutes of shutting down Vegas' top power play, Roy finally broke through, tying the game at two apiece. Leading up to the goal, the penalty killers simply couldn't quite get enough to get those critical clears they had earlier.
That's the worry now. It's not about resiliency, size, wanting it more, or anything of the sort. It's energy. While John Hynes expressed confidence in winning a long series in his post-Game 4 presser, Vegas probably has the upper hand for Game 5 and beyond. The Knights already have a 138-100 lead in shots throughout the series, and tacking more games onto it means that they'll (likely) continue to widen the gap. The more bites at the apple they get, the more likely their shooting percentage will jump from its current level (8.7%) to their regular-season mark (11.0%).
Vegas' depth advantage should also help them in a long series. Not only can they curb their top players' minutes in a way Hynes and the Wild can't, but they also have a talent advantage, at least on paper. It's a big reason why the series is even tied at 2-2, despite Eichel and Stone having one assist each.
It's not all doom-and-gloom, of course. The Wild took Vegas into overtime on a night when their top players didn't have it. They also have to play the games, and anything can happen over three contests in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
But they're gonna have to learn how to take this latest punch. Minnesota had a glass jaw the last two times it got into this spot. For the Wild to truly take the next step, they must learn how to summon the energy and ability to bounce back after their opponent gets their second wind. If not... well, we know how this ends, don't we?
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