Here are three things to watch in Game 1:<\/p>\n
1. Makar vs. Hughes<\/p>\n
Two of the best defensemen in the NHL, they\u2019ve already faced off against each other plenty, be it in regular-season games or in the 2026 Winter Olympics in February.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s just a joy to watch these two. They even enjoy the talk about the two of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s just funny, like pretty cool to have been able to come in (the NHL) with him,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cHe’s a year older (27), but pretty much the same age, and there are so many great defensemen in the League right now, honestly. You want to play the best and have that opportunity, this series with Colorado, and I think it’s just a great opportunity to go up against those guys. They\u2019ve got a great team, we\u2019ve got a great team. Just looking forward to the matchup.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
2. Wild weathering injuries<\/p>\n
Neither defenseman Jonas Brodin<\/a> nor forward Joel Eriksson Ek<\/a>\u00a0made the trip here and will miss the first two games of the series.<\/p>\n With three days in between Games 2 and 3, the Wild will reevaluate them before Game 3 in Minnesota on Saturday. That may especially be true of Eriksson Ek, their second-line center who sustained a lower-body injury in their 5-2 win in Game 6 of the first round.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you have a player like him out that plays so many different situations, one player isn\u2019t going to take the brunt of that responsibility,\u201d Minnesota coach John Hynes said. \u201cOn his power play responsibility, someone else will have to take that. His center (work), 5-on-5, someone else will have to take that, his penalty killing \u2026 when you lose a guy that plays that many situations, you have to do it collectively as a group and it\u2019s not all on one guy.\u201d<\/p>\n 3. Blankenburg\u2019s challenge<\/p>\n Nick Blankenburg<\/a>\u00a0was inserted by the Avalanche for Game 4 of the first round for defenseman Josh Manson<\/a>\u00a0(upper body) after the latter sustained his injury in Game 3 against the Los Angeles Kings. What Blankenburg will have to adjust to this series is dealing with the extra physicality the Wild are expected to bring.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a challenge for him tonight, because the thing we\u2019ll miss with (Manson) is the size, the strength, the physicality against their bottom six (forwards), which is obviously huge,\u201d Colorado coach Jared Bednar said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Manson is 6-foot-3 and 218 pounds; Blankenburg is 5-9, 177.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s going to have to just defend smartly — that\u2019s using your legs, using your stick,\u201d Bednar said. \u201cHe still has that grit and physical edge to his game, but he has to be careful against bigger bodies tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here are three things to watch in Game 1: 1. Makar vs. Hughes Two of the best defensemen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-621982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621982","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=621982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}