Emotions run high as the Wild host the Stars. This physical series demands discipline; can Minnesota maintain composure and win the game within the game?
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Wild (1-1) is back in action tonight for Game 3 against the Dallas Stars (1-1). It is the first home game of the series for Minnesota.
And if the first two games were any indication, this isn’t just a playoff series anymore. It’s a fight.
The Wild are back inside Grand Casino Arena for the first time this postseason, and they’re bringing a series with them that already feels like it’s on the edge.
Mats Zuccarello took an elbow to the head and missed Game 2. Yakov Trenin was on the receiving end of a huge hit, leaving blood on the ice and a mark on the series.
You don’t need to sell this one. The building is going to be out of control.
“That's the beauty of playoffs, is when you go into an opponent's building. It's just another level than in the regular season. It's the same thing for ours," Wild head coach John Hynes said. "Our fans are unbelievable. It's a great place to play. We're sold out almost every night. I think the energy that the home crowd brings to the home team sometimes can be an advantage.”
That advantage matters tonight, maybe more than it ever has.
Because this is where the Wild have lived before. They’ve won three straight Game 3s in recent playoff runs. But they’ve lost every one of those series in six.
So yeah, this one feels different. Or at least it has to be.
The tone of this series has already been set. Heavy, physical, emotional, and now the challenge is walking that line without crossing it.
“It's a fine line but it's a line of really who we've been," Hynes said. "I'd say over the last two years here, I continue to talk about it, is the penalty discipline that we have, we do play with strong structure, we're a pretty focused group. We don't get too high. We don't get too low. We don't really get taken off our game. So I think those things are part of the fabric and the identity that we've built together as a group. Now we need to make sure that we continue to do that.”
So of course, there is a game within the game, like every playoffs. The question is if the Wild can win the game within the game or not. Penalty discipline and staying emotionally in check.
Dallas is going to push. They already have. They’re going to try to drag this thing into the mud, into the scrums, into the after-whistle stuff. They will try any way they can to make the Wild lose their structure.
And Minnesota knows it.
Minnesota Wild forward Marcus Foligno takes a penalty in Game 2. Jerome Miron-Imagn Images.“Yeah, I think like you said, I think we have the urgency," Joel Eriksson Ek said. "Win the battles but don’t go over the edge. Just stay composed.”
That composure might decide the game.
Because when this series has actually been played at five-on-five, the Wild have liked their chances.
They controlled Game 1. They had stretches of Game 2 where they could’ve been up early. But it hasn’t been clean. Not yet.
“Yeah, I mean, we’ve been playing really good," Marcus Johansson said on being the better team at 5-on-5. "We got away from it a little bit last game. Yeah, we stick to our game like we did in Game 1 and in a lot of Game 2, we give ourselves a really good chance to win.”
There’s nothing in hockey that fuels momentum like a playoff crowd. Everyone in the Wild's locker room knows that.
“Yeah no, it’s going to be awesome to come back here in front of our fans," Eriksson Ek said. "It’s huge. I mean, when it’s loud and we can get a little bit of momentum, it helps.”
Johansson added: “We’re excited, and the fans are excited, so yeah looking forward to it."
Simple as that.
The Wild don’t need to reinvent anything tonight. They just need to be exactly who they’ve been all year, without letting the moment pull them somewhere else.
“I don’t know. Obviously, there’s a lot of emotion in the playoffs," Johansson said. "Everyone wants it so bad. We just gotta stay calm and not get pulled into too much stuff that they want to pull us into. So, hopefully we can just play hard and focus on playing our way, and we’ll be fine.”
Because if they do that?
They’ve got the crowd. They’ve got the building. And they’ve got a chance to take control of a series that’s already boiling over.
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