{"id":661709,"date":"2026-05-10T11:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T11:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/661709\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T11:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T11:16:10","slug":"wild-reclaim-their-game-hand-avalanche-1st-playoff-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/661709\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild reclaim their game, hand Avalanche 1st playoff loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kaprizov was dynamic, scoring Minnesota’s first goal at 15:11 of the first period and assisting on the two power-play goals.<\/p>\n

Faber also had a goal and two assists. Hughes had his goal and an assist on Kaprizov’s goal.<\/p>\n

Mats Zuccarello<\/a>, arguably the biggest key to the Wild’s power play with his distributing ability from the left-wing half-wall, assisted on both power-play goals. It was his shot from that spot on the wall that Hartman knocked into the net with a backhanded check swing.<\/p>\n

Matt Boldy<\/a> scored an empty-net goal, had five shots, and was huge on both the power play and PK.<\/p>\n

“We have so many good players, and when they deliver, when they score and they started off hot right away, it creates momentum for the whole team,” Wallstedt said. “And I think we fed off that the whole game.”<\/p>\n

Wallstedt did his part too.<\/p>\n

He got the net back after ceding it to Filip Gustavsson<\/a>\u00a0in Game 2, and the puck found his pads all night long, thud after thud after thud, sometimes popping out but not into harm’s way and other times sticking to him like his stomach was swallowing it whole.<\/p>\n

It was, shall we say, far different for Wallstedt than Game 1, when he gave up eight goals on 42 shots.<\/p>\n

He made 35 saves, sending the Wild’s confidence to attack, to play with pace, soaring higher and higher with each one.<\/p>\n

“I had no doubt he was going to be back, just kind of who he is and the reasons why we didn’t play him in Game 2 was for the right reasons, and you see the result tonight,” Hynes said. “He’s a competitor. He’s got confidence. He’s been very solid and I just thought he got right back to his game tonight.”<\/p>\n

The Wild didn’t sit on the lead in the third period with a prevent defense. They attacked and had shifts, pretty much every time Hughes and Faber were on the ice, where it looked like they were playing a game of keep away, players rotating, the puck moving high to low, low to high.<\/p>\n

Yes, they were looking to score, and they funneled the puck to the slot a handful of times, but most importantly with a 4-1 lead they had the Avalanche chasing all over the defensive zone, tiring them out so they had no gas left to attack.<\/p>\n

“They’re a dangerous group offensively and the best defense is holding onto the puck in the offensive zone and trying to extend the lead,” Hartman said. “We put the pressure on there in the third.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kaprizov was dynamic, scoring Minnesota’s first goal at 15:11 of the first period and assisting on the two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-661709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}