Wild ‘didn’t have an answer’ in Game 4, pushed to brink in Western 2nd Round

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- John Hynes summarized what went wrong for the Minnesota Wild fairly succinctly.

“The style of game we needed to play to win the game, we made the conscious choice not to play that way tonight,” the coach said after the Wild lost to the Colorado Avalanche 5-2 in Game 4 of the Western Conference Second Round at Grand Casino Arena on Monday.

“So, we’ll readdress that and get ready for Game 5.”

The choice not to play their game leaves the Wild on the brink of elimination, trailing the Avalanche 3-1 in the best-of-7 series heading into Game 5 at Ball Arena in Denver on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET; HBO MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC).

“It starts from the first period. We didn’t get pucks in, we turned pucks over at the blue line, we fed their offense, then those guys start feeling it,” Wild forward Michael McCarron said. “That was the story of the night. I really don’t think we had our best at all.”

The Wild came in with momentum thanks to their 5-1 win against the Avalanche in Game 3 on Saturday. They looked well on their way to building on that after Avalanche defenseman Josh Manson was assessed a double-minor for pushing the butt-end of his stick into the left ear of McCarron. Forward Danila Yurov scored a power-play goal on the second minor for a 1-0 lead at 9:46 of the first period.

The crowd was buzzing. The atmosphere was electric.

Then the Wild went quiet. Too quiet.

After Yurov’s goal, Minnesota didn’t get another shot on goal until 12:21 of the second period. That was from Yurov, too, a slap shot from 39 feet away.

“It felt like they were doing a lot of what we want to do: quick up (with) the puck, get it down deep, work our players down low and then trigger a lot of pucks to the net,” Wild goaltender Jesper Wallstedt said. “They were creating rebounds, they were creating scoring chances, and we just seemed to not get there.

“We want to do the exact same thing, but it just took a little long for us to get there and then I thought we did a good push at the end of the second there. Then in the third it felt like we were going a little back and forth. Unfortunately, today they scored a couple more than we did.”

When Nico Sturm tied the game 2-2 at 9:15 of the third period, it seemed that once again the Wild were turning the momentum to their side.

Their following shifts, however, were tough. Bad puck handling, turnovers. It all led to the Avalanche getting the upper hand on a goal from forward Parker Kelly, off a turnover from Wild defenseman Jake Middleton, about two minutes after Sturm’s goal.

Unlike Game 3, when the Wild had answers throughout, on Monday they didn’t.

“Said it a couple of days ago, shifts after goals are the biggest shifts in the game. You want to try to ride that momentum,” McCarron said. “They played good, we didn’t. I think that’s really what it comes down to.

“They came out and had a push, kind of like us in Game 3 when they scored their power-play goal, we came out right again and scored and they didn’t have an answer. Tonight, we didn’t have an answer for them. It starts from the first period. We didn’t get pucks in, we turned pucks over at the blue line, we fed their offense, then those guys start feeling it. That was the story of the night. I really don’t think we had our best at all.”

The Wild aren’t finished yet. They’ve been a resilient group this season and they’ll have to call on that trait again a few more times, starting on Wednesday.

“There’s beauty in that you just live one day at a time right now,” Sturm said. “Right now, I know that my season is going to go on at least for another 48 hours. And in two days’ time, you're going to try to extend it for another 48 hours. Not worried about next week or Saturday or Sunday. Just the next game on Wednesday night. Everything else kind of falls away.

“All you should do right now, all that's in your head is to prepare for 6 or 7 o'clock Wednesday night, and how you eat, how you sleep, or preparing, and that's all that matters in your life right now.”