ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Wild needed their cleanest hockey of the series on Monday night. They did not get it. Colorado beat the Wild 5-2 in Game 4 of the Western Conference Second Round at home, evening the tone of a matchup Minnesota had briefly tilted its way just one game earlier.
Brock Faber did not dress up the loss. “It was just sloppy,” he said, adding that the Wild did not want it any less but simply “didn’t have our best” in a game that demanded it. He said Minnesota showed in Game 3 that it could play with Colorado and win when it was at its sharpest, then added that the team will need “that absolute best” again for Game 5.
That next game comes Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET at Ball Arena in Denver, where the Wild will try to reset a series that has already swung on execution. Minnesota’s 5-1 win in Game 3 had been its best performance of the series, built on an attack mentality and a simple approach that pressured Colorado into turnovers and let the Wild’s best players drive the night. Matt Boldy and Kirill Kaprizov were among the skilled forwards who still had to do the dirty work of getting the puck into the zone, but the structure let them spend more time where they are most dangerous.
Game 4 looked nothing like that. Marcus Foligno said Colorado played well, but he also pointed to Minnesota’s own failure to keep things direct. He said too much of the Wild’s night came from “arrogance” in not getting the puck in and going to work, and he called for a return to the simple game that suits Minnesota best. “Ours isn’t as pretty as Colorado’s,” Foligno said, before adding that the Wild have to understand the Avalanche do not want to go back for pucks either, because “who does?” in this league, especially in this series.
The Wild’s problems were not limited to one line or one pairing. Their second line in Game 4 was Danila Yurov, Marcus Johansson and Matt Boldy, and their second defense pair was Jared Spurgeon and Daemon Hunt. Those combinations sat under the same larger concern that has followed Minnesota through the series: whether its depth can support the high-end talent when the game gets tight and the pace rises. The article’s read of the series has been clear that those areas need work, and Monday night did little to quiet that view.
John Hynes said the playoffs strip the game down to its essentials. “It’s hard to win and you have to be willing to do the things that winning requires,” he said, adding that after 10 days in a series the teams know what works and what the opponent is going to be. “It’s not playing the game that you want to play,” he said. “It’s playing the game that is required to win.”
That is where the Wild now stand. They have already proven once in this series that when they pressure Colorado, keep the game simple and let their stars be the best players on the ice, they can beat the Avalanche. They also proved Monday that without that formula, they are vulnerable. Game 5 is no longer about style or comfort. It is about whether Minnesota can find the game it says it knows it needs before Colorado takes control of the series.
