4-2 win<\/a>, because of their drive, their play in the dirty areas, their battle level and their poise. It was hard to tell which team was coming off three straight Western Conference final berths and which hadn\u2019t sniffed the second round since iPhone 6s were a thing. It starts with the top players \u2014 Boldy, Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek, Faber \u2014 and rubs off on the others. It\u2019s why they\u2019ve held the Stars to zero five-on-five goals in 207 minutes and 53 seconds. They\u2019re outscoring Dallas 11-3 at five-on-five. For the first time, they have the perfect blend of star power and sandpaper.<\/p>\n\u201cThis is why we believe in our group,\u201d Marcus Foligno said. \u201cWe feel like it\u2019s in here. We\u2019re playing a heck of a hockey team right now. But we have a lot of lethal weapons and guys that just understand that you throw one guy out and throw another guy out right after that. There was a lot of one-two punch. We have some superstars. And (Hughes) has done an unbelievable job out there.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, everyone is going over the boards with a purpose and belief we can get the job done.\u201d<\/p>\n
You want to know when this group started to feel different? It wasn\u2019t necessarily in its response after a season-saving team meeting held by Jared Spurgeon following a woeful October that resulted in just four wins in 12 games. It wasn\u2019t just the addition of Hughes, the former Norris Trophy winner and arguably a 1A\/1B with Cale Makar for top defenseman on the planet.<\/p>\n
It was how the Wild dealt with what could have been a death knell, a double-overtime gut punch at home in Game 3 when they were given every opportunity to win. It was how, with five minutes left in Game 4, trailing by a goal with their season looking dire, when recent-healthy-scratch Nico Sturm and struggling Marcus Foligno teamed up for the game-tying goal.<\/p>\n
It was how their star players have led the way, from the big-game ability shown by Boldy\u2019s on his overtime winner in Game 4 to the go-ahead goal in Game 5. It was how Kaprizov, relatively quiet from a goal-scoring standpoint, didn\u2019t just fire a 100-foot prayer into the empty net to seal the game but pushed forward, dragging all-world defenseman Miro Heiskanen with him and using one arm to get the puck into the net.<\/p>\n
It was gutsy blocked shots and goal-saving plays by Faber and Spurgeon. It was deadline-addition Michael McCarron, whose second-round pick price tag initially gave fans sticker shock, delivering a couple of big goals and sparking a struggling penalty kill to a few big ones late.<\/p>\n
Yes, the Stars still have nine power-play goals (9-for-23), and that\u2019s still an issue going into Game 6. But this could be the start of something. The Wild had three successful kills, two in the second and one in the third. Their power play snapped a 0-for-12 drought.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you get one, it\u2019s just confidence,\u201d McCarron said. \u201cWhen things are not going your way, you\u2019re kind of tentative. You\u2019re letting them come into the zone and letting them make plays they want. It\u2019s hard, man. I don\u2019t know how to explain it. It\u2019s like you\u2019re in a hole and it\u2019s hard to dig yourself out.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what the last decade has felt like for this franchise. There have been wonderful moments, exciting games, and a competitive team that fills the seats with a passionate and patient fanbase. But there\u2019s always been the dreaded \u201chere we go again\u201d kind of moment, from the Eriksson Ek injury in 2023 to the Gustav Nyquist offsides in 2025 in Vegas. There was the failed goalie rotation in 2022 against St. Louis with Cam Talbot and Marc-Andre Fleury.<\/p>\n
But this group doesn\u2019t have the same feel. It\u2019s extremely tight, and a couple of the Cup winners in the dressing room (Zach Bogosian and Sturm) like how the team has handled adversity and gotten stronger from it. They have a bunch of characters with character, like ageless wonder Mats Zuccarello, coming back after missing three games from an elbow in the head, bringing swagger and a goal in Game 5, and playfully telling the group, \u201cYou needed me.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was Bogosian, clearly playing on one healthy foot, blocking shots and digging in. The Wild might have to play without shutdown left-shot defenseman Jonas Brodin in Game 6. Coach John Hynes provided no update, but Brodin walked out of American Airlines Center on crutches with a walking boot on his right foot.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been here. We\u2019ve gotten taken out of the first round a few times,\u201d Faber said. \u201cGoing through that multiple times, you start to learn the ins and outs of what playoff hockey means and what it takes. The whole team is still learning every day. We learn from each other and push each other. That\u2019s it. We have a belief in the group and how far we can go and are just trying to take one step at a time. That\u2019s all we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
This sounded like a businesslike team following the Game 5 win. Confident? Yes. But they\u2019re not looking too far ahead. They\u2019re not planning postgame parties for Thursday night. They\u2019re also not afraid of that moment or what it will mean.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been here for nine or 10 years,\u201d Foligno said. \u201cYou go back to St. Louis (2022). We\u2019re tied 2-2 and you lose in Game 3 and you shy away in Game 4, hoping someone is going to help you. That was uncharacteristic of our group.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe rely on the Vegas series (in 2025) and how close it was and what could have been. We realized that you\u2019ve just got to throw everything you can at teams to win. You have to go out and win it. You can\u2019t defend it. We\u2019re battle-tested, and we feel good.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the Wild\u2019s youngest player, Wallstedt, 23, is so pumped for Game 6, you know they\u2019re in a good place. It was a gutsy call starting him over veteran Filip Gustavsson in Game 1, but Wallstedt has embodied what\u2019s made this team poised for a franchise-altering victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever played in that type of magnitude,\u201d Wallstedt said. \u201cWhich is exciting. I\u2019m looking forward to it so much.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Wild know their fans will deliver on Thursday night. And for the first time in many years, they\u2019ve got a team that\u2019s ready to do the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS \u2014 It felt like Matt Boldy was looking right through me. The Minnesota Wild winger had talked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[4828,385,99],"class_list":["post-612989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-minnesota-wild","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}