Boldy reaching new heights for Wild entering Game 2 of Western 1st Round

LAS VEGAS -- Matt Boldy wasn’t rattled in the aftermath of the Minnesota Wild’s 4-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 1 of the Western Conference First Round Series at T-Mobile Arena on Sunday.

Instead, he was calm and collected, the 24-year-old serving as a soothing voice after the loss, in which he scored both goals for his team.

“You’ve got to win four games, it doesn’t matter when or how,” he said after the game, which was the fourth time straight time the Wild had lost to the Golden Knights this season. “Just stay positive, keep going, take the good and work on the bad, I guess, and go from there.”

Game 2 of the best-of-7 series will be here Monday (11 p.m. ET; FDSNNO, SCRIPPS, ESPN, SN360, SN, TVAS). Teams that win Game 1 of a best-of-7 series own an all-time series record of 525-247 (.680).

There has been a lot of good in Boldy’s game lately.

A first-round pick (No. 12) by the Wild in the 2019 NHL Draft, Boldy is in his fourth NHL season and is coming off a career-high 73 points (27 goals, 46 assists). He is one of eight players in the history of the Wild to record more than 70 points in a season. He also had 10 game-winning goals, which was tied for third in the NHL.

But it’s more than just stats on the page. It's about the play on the ice.

Boldy is a different player today than he was at the start of the season, and it showed in Game 1. He had played in 12 Stanley Cup Playoff games in his first three seasons but had managed just one goal and was a minus-6.

On Sunday against a big, physical team with an unquestioned playoff pedigree, Boldy was one of the most noticeable on the ice for either team. He had the two goals, one a simple redirection of a highlight-reel pass from Kirill Kaprizov, and the other coming as the result of a tenaciousness on the puck and his battle level around the net.

On the first goal, Kaprizov threaded the puck across the ice, hitting Boldy in stride, and the result was a relatively simple tap-in. Boldy was left stunned in the aftermath.

“I didn’t even see it until it hit my stick, so if that says anything about how special the pass was, it was obviously pretty special,” Boldy said.

At 24 years, 16 days, Boldy became the fifth-youngest player in franchise history with a multigoal playoff game. Marian Gaborik (21 years, 77 days), Nino Niederreiter (21 years, 234 days), Mikael Granlund (22 years, 69 days) and Kevin Fiala (24 years, 13 days) are the others.

“Boldy, the plays he makes, especially ‘Bolds’ when he gets that big-man game going too, he’s a machine,” is how Minnesota defenseman Jake Middleton put it.

The machine found its optimal performance, it seems, at the 4 Nations Face-Off in February, according to many with the Wild.

He was a bit of a surprise to make the team ahead of some more established players, and there were initially suggestions that maybe it was because of Wild general manager Bill Guerin, who was also the GM for the United States for the tournament, and Wild coach John Hynes, who was a member of Mike Sullivan’s coaching staff.

Boldy disabused the idea of nepotism quickly and thoroughly. He had three points (one goal, two assists), a plus-2 rating and averaged 16:12 of ice time in four games, helping the United States advance to the championship game, which it lost 3-2 in overtime to Canada.

“I think all season we have seen a more mature Matt Boldy, but 4 Nations definitely helped with that, especially with the way he played there,” veteran Wild forward Marcus Foligno said on Monday during a press conference at the team hotel. “I think when you get that confidence level, you are playing with the best-on-best and you stand out, I think that is going to give you a lot of confidence.

“That’s what we need and that’s what we saw from Matt. He’s really been our best player all season offensively. The way he has grown this year has been awesome to see. Talk about playoffs and if he is going to score? He gets two last game. I think that’s huge for him and huge for our team. It just settles the nerves offensively."

After returning from the break for the 4 Nations Face-Off on Feb. 22, Boldy had 25 points (seven goals, 18 assists) in 26 regular-season games, the same total as Jack Eichel, who is the No. 1 center for the Golden Knights and is in the conversation for the Hart Trophy.

One of the areas where that confidence shows most is his willingness to shoot. He had 271 shots on goal during the regular season, the seventh-highest total in the League. In Game 1, he had nine shot attempts, which was tied with teammate Ryan Hartman for the most in the game, and scored on both of his shots on goal.

Alex Pietrangelo, the veteran Vegas defenseman, says that the willingness to shoot has changed Boldy’s game over the course of the past two seasons.

“He can skate, he can make plays,” Pietrangelo said. "I think he is probably shooting the puck more than he was, and that is something to be aware of.”

Hynes couldn’t be happier. The midseason international tournament was a boon for one of his go-to forwards.

“He was a big factor for our team with the U.S.,” Hynes said. “I thought as the tournament went on he was better and better and his role increased as it went on. So, probably more for him, the confidence in his own game and what makes him an elite player and a hard player to play against, and he is doing it regularly now, so it’s good.”