The Minnesota Wild flew to Denver on Tuesday afternoon carrying regret, bruised pride and a must-win Game 5 after a flat Game 4 against the Colorado Avalanche. Marcus Foligno said the Wild slipped into “brain fog” on Monday night, while coach John Hynes said they made a conscious choice not to follow the game plan.
Foligno said the Wild showed “a bit of arrogance” in the way they approached Game 4, a sharp contrast to the mental commitment he said defined their Game 3 win. That difference showed up on the ice. Kirill Kaprizov, Matt Boldy and Mats Zuccarello all turned pucks over into Colorado pressure, and Boldy gave it away three times at the blue line on a second-period power play. Jake Middleton and Daemon Hunt also had turnovers that led directly to third-period goals, even after Nico Sturm had tied the score before Colorado answered with the winner a few minutes later.
Foligno did not soften the message. He said the Wild’s best is good enough if they actually play their best, but Game 4 was not close to that level. “A lot of east-west. Honestly, it was kind of just brain fog,” he said, adding that the game “just wasn’t how we played Game 3, and it comes back to bite you.” He also stressed that the Wild “miss Eriksson Ek and Brodin,” a loss that has hung over the series since Joel Eriksson Ek and Jonas Brodin did not make the trip to Denver for Game 5.
The injuries matter because they strip Minnesota of two players who helped set the tone in a series that has swung sharply on effort and execution. The Wild’s Game 3 win had looked like the blueprint, with the team outcompeting Colorado, winning more puck battles and playing with the edge Hynes wants. On Monday night, that edge disappeared. Hynes said the Avalanche were the harder and more competitive team in the hard areas of the ice in Game 4, and he said Minnesota got outcompeted.
That was especially costly in the middle of the lineup, where the Wild’s second line struggled to hold up under pressure. Danila Yurov, filling Eriksson Ek’s spot at five-on-five, was on the ice for a 21-0 shot-attempt differential, a number that captured just how much time Colorado spent on the front foot. Minnesota’s top players were also not its best players, and Hynes said the issue was less about line combinations than whether the team was willing to play the right way.
“The one thing I will say to you is we can talk about line combos and stuff like that,” Hynes said. But his larger point was about the compete level. “We got outcompeted last night. Like, Game 3, we outcompeted them. We were the harder team, won more puck battles. Last night, they were the harder team. They were more competitive in the hard areas of the ice. They won more puck battles.”
That leaves Minnesota heading into Game 5 with the same simple equation and far less margin for error. Foligno said the group has to take the reminder from Game 4 and turn it into something useful. The game was there for the Wild, he said. They just did not take it. Now they have to do it in Denver, without Eriksson Ek and Brodin, and against a Colorado team that made them pay the moment they stopped playing with conviction.
