ST. PAUL, Minn – For the eighth time in the last ten seasons, the Minnesota Wild have lost in the first round. The only two years in that ten year span they did not lose in the first round, they missed the playoffs.
It is also the third consecutive postseason that the Wild had a 2-1 series lead and ended up losing in six games.
This series felt different than the two previous ones. During 2023 the Wild got outplayed in Games 5 and 6 against the Dallas Stars and lost that series in six games. They got outscored 15-5 in Games 4-6 in 2022 against the St. Louis Blues and lost in six games.
“It’s like I say before. I feel we played pretty good,” Kirill Kaprizov said. “Better than two years ago in the series. It was a nice series. Tough series. I don’t think it was easy for Vegas to beat us. You can see games. It’s overtime, overtime and 3-2 today.”
It was not the same script as previous years for the Wild. They had their chances in Game 5 and were inches away from a possible win until Ryan Hartman’s go-ahead goal in the third period with 75 seconds left was called back for offsides.
They ended up losing that game in overtime. They lost Game 4 in overtime as well in a game they played good in.
“We should’ve won one of those OT games, I guess,” Filip Gustavsson said. “You know every game we’ve been losing has been very tight. Um, small details.”
Game 6 was the same. The Wild were sent to the penalty kill early when Marco Rossi took a high-sticking penalty on Brayden McNabb.
Shea Theodore was able to give Vegas an early 1-0 lead 3:30 into the game. After a great rest of the period, Hartman was able to get his first of the playoffs for real this time after a nice pass from Marcus Foligno with four seconds left in the first.
Minnesota started the second flying. Noah Hanifin took a penalty on Foligno and the Wild got four shots on the power play but Adin Hill stopped them all.
After dominating more of the period, Brock Faber took a holding penalty on Jack Eichel and that seemed like it was all Vegas needed. After that the Golden Knights outshot the Wild 8-3 and scored.
It was Eichel’s first goal of the series after he caught a nice pass from Mark Stone to spring him for a breakaway. Kirill Kaprizov tried to dive to break it up but the puck passed his stick.
The breakaway happened after Faber went in from the blue line to pinch. the puck squirted free to Stone and Faber never got back.
Stone made it a 3-1 Vegas lead with 3:58 left in the period after he batted the puck out of the air in front of Filip Gustavsson. It came about eight seconds after Matt Boldy dove to block an Eichel chance with the open net.
“Yeah, was it three minutes left, maybe four? Yeah,” Gustavsson said. “Yeah, Boldy dived to make an unbelievable save there on Eichel first and then the puck goes to the corner and he just flips it in and hits it [out of] midair.”
But 31 seconds later, Hartman got Minnesota back within one goal. It came on a wraparound attempt after a battle in front of the net. It was Hartman’s second of the night and second of the series.
Vegas was able to hold on in the third period after a ton of huge saves by Hill with the Wild empty net and ended up walking away with the win to eliminate the Wild in six games.
“It is a little raw right now,” Wild head coach John Hynes said after the game. “The games were obviously very competitive, the series was competitive. It felt like our team worked enough and played well enough to continue to push the series. Unfortunately it didn’t go our way. But I commend the guys. This was a really fun group to coach, extremely competitive group, coachable. It’s just obviously disappointing right now because you feel like you deserve a little bit better, at least the past few games there, unfortunately it didn’t go our way for us.”
There have been a lot of unfortunate moments in Minnesota professional sports history, or should I say heartbreaking moments that changed series and games.
Well, you can now add Hartman’s overturned goal in Game 5 vs Vegas to that list.
Nonetheless, this series felt different than previous ones. This isn’t the same old Wild team that lost in six games previously. At least it didn’t feel like it.
“Yeah, it’s tough. I mean, especially when you felt like you deserve better, right? I think in those past ones, we didn’t. And this one, we did,” Marcus Foligno said. “We give credit to them. They’re a really good team, and it’s unfortunate. We just couldn’t get our looks and get our bounces and move on like they did. So just proud of our group, though. I mean, if you think about what we’ve done and overcame this year, and the steps we took, and the guys that took steps — big steps, and we always say the future’s bright. But, I mean, I really do believe we’re right there.”
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