Wild beats St. Louis in six games, prepares for rematch with Chicago

The Wild won 4-1 Sunday, clinching a playoff series (4-2) in front of the home fans for the first time in franchise history. The game-six win sent St. Blues home singing the blues for its third first-round exit in a row.

I've never been more happy to be wrong.

I said the #mnwild would win in seven. Do I care about being wrong? Of course not. #nhlplayoffs
— Heather Rule (@hlrule) April 26, 2015

Picking the series to go seven games really wasn't that big of a deal, especially if you look at the history. Before Sunday, the Wild have never won a playoff series in less than seven games, and those were all on the road, a couple after being down 3-1 in the series. But either way, the Wild won, and we can mark that in the history books.

Game six
The Wild got on the board thanks to a shorthanded goal from the hardest-working and grittiest player on the team, Zach Parise. He brought the puck into the zone all alone with speed, skated past defender Kevin Shattenkirk and finally took a sharp-angle shot from the goal line. It was a pretty soft goal for Blues goalie Jake Allen to let through.

About halfway through the second period, Blues coach Ken Hitchcock got interviewed for the national TV broadcast. He was asked about the soft goal and the possibility of pulling his goaltender. He dismissed that, saying you have to stick with the young kid.

A couple minutes after that, the Wild had a 2-on-2 rush into the zone, with Justin Fontaine as the puck carrier. He took a soft shot from the slot, and once again it somehow made it through Allen and into the net. That got Allen the hook.

You were saying, Hitch?

It looked like the Wild would lead 2-0 after two periods. Then I saw the fans at Xcel Energy Center start the wave. Next thing you know, T.J. Oshie, who was virtually absent on the stat sheets during the series, scored with four seconds left in the second, making it a 2-1 margin. I hope people at least learned their lesson about the wave.

Ugh. It seemed like a huge momentum killer, ala Minnesota sports. But then a minute into the third, the Wild did exactly what they needed to do: Parise scored his second of the game. As they say, the next goal is huge, and the Wild made sure they got it.

Another empty netter clinched the series for the Wild. Then the party was on. Time to celebrate the first playoff series win at home, ever.

Looking ahead
For the third year in a row, the Wild must face the Chicago Blackhawks to move forward in the postseason. Chicago ousted the Wild in five games in the 2013 first round and in six games in last year's second round. But if you remember last year, the Wild played a good series and didn't have the luck, apparently. It was a bad bounce off a stanchion that led to the series-winning goal. Ouch.

So far, we've heard that this year's Wild team is different. Obviously, it's been one of the hottest teams during the second half, thanks to the trade for goalie Devan Dubnyk (broken record, if you don't know that by now). I've also heard about the maturity and experience this Wild team has compared to the team a couple years ago.

It's all encouraging, and I do think the team is in a much better position than in the past. But I still don't like the Chicago matchup. Of course, they have the dangerous players that are just so talented. As I watched Chicago take down Nashville in the opening round though, I realized something: Chicago has a New York Yankee-like mystique.

Leading the series 3-2, the Blackhawks were down 3-0 in game six and pulled their goalie. But they came back to tie it up, then scored the game winner with something like three minutes left in the game. That's just a killer.

This team finds a way to win hockey games, whether they were the better team or not. They play physical, and they know how to score goals and kill any momentum for other teams.

Then there's Bryan Bickell, perhaps the biggest Minnesota sports killer ever. At least he's high on the list. He is not known for his offense when you look at his stats, except against the Wild. He has 15 goals in the past 22 regular season and playoff games against the Wild. He scored twice in the third period in a 4-2 Chicago win back on Jan. 8.

I don't know what it is, but it's gotten to the point where you feel like the Wild start the game already down 1-0 when he's on the ice. The Wild better be prepared to get that guy out of the way. Keep him off the puck, and get him out of the play completely. He's the kind of player where goals will bounce off his pinky toe and go in.

With this Wild team a little better, I'll say the series goes one more game than last year. I'm sticking with seven games.

My prediction: Wild beat the Blackhawks in seven games. #Becauseitsthecup

Yeo on Blackhawks: "They've beaten us two years in a row. It's up to us to prove something is different."
— RandBall (@RandBall) April 29, 2015

A chance for Wild to clinch in State of Hockey

Minnesota hockey fans held their breaths to see how the Wild would respond after an awful game four at home against the St. Louis Blues. Or maybe it was just me.

The series was tied 2-2 as the puck dropped Friday night in St. Louis for game five. The start was a tad shaky for the Wild, especially when they got behind 1-0 on a goal from (who else?) Vladimir Tarasenko. That was tough because all we've heard about is the team that scores first has won every game in this series. That wasn't a good stat for the Wild in a pivotal game five.

The tide turned, however, just three minutes later. Marco Scandella fired a shot past Jake Allen, who saw the puck bounce off his glove and into the net. It was 1-1 after the first period, which was a victory for the Wild, since it only had a couple shots on goal.

In the second, it was all Wild. Nino Niederreiter gave the Wild a lead, and then Mikko Koivu scored a power play goal. It was 3-1 Wild after two periods. The other stat they bucked in this game was about leads. The team that scored first and also held the lead for the entire game had won each game in the series. Until Friday.

Late in the third, Charlie Coyle surprised Allen with his shot on goal. That gave the Wild a nice cushion and some boosted confidence. They responded well from game four, but possibly more importantly, they responded well from the tentative start. It would have been easy to get down after Tarasenko's goal.

Minnesota's goalie Devan Dubnyk came up huge, just two days after being pulled out of the 6-1 loss. He made 36 saves Friday, including at least one game saver where the puck went off his leg pad as he was on his side.

Looking ahead 
Once again, the Wild are in an unfamiliar position. It's the first time in franchise history the squad goes into a game six up 3-2 instead of down. They'll faceoff against the Blues at 2 p.m. Sunday in St. Paul.

Of course, the obvious thing to do for the Wild is finish off the series at home. But as Minnesota fans know, that's easier said than done. The big question is: Can they respond to a series lead better than they did in game four, when they blew a chance to go up 3-1 in the series with a terrible 6-1 loss? We'll see.

I'm not saying the Wild can't do it; I'd say I'm cautiously optimistic. I'll say it again that the Wild seem to rise to the occasion when the chips are stacked against them. With a lead? I'm not sure how that will go. Clinching a playoff series at home would also be new territory. That could be fun.

Games in this series haven't been close, another change from previous Wild playoff games with OTs and one-goal contests. But if I had to guess, I'd say game six is finally the close game in the series, with the Blues sneaking away with the win.

Because I still think this series will go seven games.

Wild go from dominate to downright awful

First, I'm going to go ahead and focus on game three of the first-round series between the Wild and Blues. Because, let's get some positive vibes back into this Wild team.

But let's get the basics out of the way. The Wild and Blues were tied 1-1 in the best-of-seven series when the Wild beat the Blues 3-0 in game three. The Blues evened things again with a 6-1 hockey-clinic beating in game four. The series shifts back to St. Louis for game five Friday, all tied up at two.

Game three
Though Coach Mike Yeo didn't want to use the word "dominating" to describe his team's performance in front of the home crowd for Monday's game three in St. Paul, everybody else seemed fine with it.

The 3-0 win was the first shutout recorded in this season's NHL playoffs so far. Devan Dubnyk came through again.

It was a scoreless game until later in the second period, despite the Wild outshooting the blues by a significant margin. Chance after chance didn't go in for the home team, which was a bit nerve-wracking after awhile. Blues goalie Jake Allen kept coming up with the big saves. You just had the feeling that the Blues would strike first on some fluke bounce or rush, because that's often how it goes.

Jason Pominville finally scored to put the Wild up 1-0. He buried a Zach Parise rebound into a wide-open net. The second goal was all Parise. With the puck in the slot, he battled his way through a defender and tossed the puck past Allen for a 2-0 lead.

We all held our breath and then cringed as Granlund misfired a shot wide of the gaping-hole net in the third that would have been a dagger. Still, the Wild continued their strong play and Nino Niederreiter scored an empty netter with about two minutes left.

The Wild looked great and the Blues didn't. Through this point, some of the Blues key players were held off the scoresheets in the series. As a bonus, the Wild weren't engaging in the tough-guy act of the Blues. I think the best was when Steve Ott tried to engage Matt Dumba, who was on the Wild bench. Dumba just laughed.

Game four
But as good as the Wild looked in game three, the team left fans all across the state of hockey with a sour, maybe disgusting, taste in their mouths after a 6-1 implosion at home. It was brutal. If you didn't see the game, you probably helped your blood pressure in doing so.

Let's see, the Wild went down 1-0 just 5:34 into the game. It wasn't the best looking goal to give up if you're Duby. Things just got worse from there. About 90 seconds later, Vladimir Tarasenko scored the first of his two goals on the night to put the Blues up 2-0. It was 3-0 by the halfway mark of the first period.

The only glimmer of hope for the Wild came early in the second. They started out on the power play, thanks to our dear friend Ott, and did exactly what they needed to do. Jared Spurgeon scored to make it just a two-goal deficit again, trailing 3-1. After that, the Wild had some life again. We started to see a different team than the one in the first period, as at least three people in my Twitter feed noted. A little momentum went their way and with a lot of hockey left, we hoped for a turnaround.

That theory went down the drain two minutes after Spurgie's goal when Paul Stastny (a Wild killer in last year's playoffs in the Colorado series) scored to make the score 4-1. The game was already not going well, but to me, this tally was the real nail in the coffin for game four.

By the end of 40 minutes, it was a 6-1 lead for the Blues. Dubnyk got the hook, giving Darcy Kuemper a chance for some playoff minutes.

Dubnyk did not look sharp from the start, and I'm not sure why. Though after the way he saved the Wild's season, it's hard to get on the guy too much. Sure, he let in some bad goals. But he didn't have a team in front of him either. They gave him zero help.

I'm not sure what happened to the Wild. They came out flat and didn't seem to have any urgency all night. They couldn't get pucks through neutral ice effectively. When they had the puck looking to break out of their own zone, the made a bunch of non-crisp passes like they were the ones with a huge lead. They weren't making the same headman passes that worked so well for them earlier in the series. The list goes on.

Basically, they didn't show up.

It's never easy
Here's the other thing I know: The Wild just can't make it easy on themselves, for some reason. A win Wednesday would have meant a 3-1 series lead, putting them in a great position over the Blues, who must be feeling pressure to break out of the first-round slump they've had. This team has shown time and again that it plays well when backs are against the wall. This series is no different, I guess.

It's interesting, because throughout their playoff history, the Wild are usually the ones chasing. They've come back to win series down 3-1 multiple times. Now we've seen what happens when the Wild have a lead and momentum. If game four's play is a response to that, I guess I'll take being the comeback kids any day.

The Wild head to St. Louis for game five, and they will return to St. Paul for game six. It goes without saying that the Wild need a huge rebound response in game five, since they threw away momentum last night. But even if they lose, the series isn't over until it's over.