Wild 'love where we're at' heading back to Vegas for Game 5

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The man-in-black look John Hynes wore to his postgame press conference after Game 4 of the Western Conference First Round should be taken as a fashion statement, not an emotional one.

The Minnesota Wild coach, wearing a black dress shirt and an equally dark tie as he sat at the podium, was looking forward to the morning, not in mourning.

He was excited about what lay ahead, not what had just happened.

“Ah, man, we’re in a good spot,” Hynes said. “It was a hard-fought battle; we played well again. Game was right in our hands. Both teams competed hard. We knew it would be a hard series.

“Love where we’re at. We knew it was going to be a hard-fought series. We really like our game. We’re here, man. We’ll just keep grinding.”

Yes, his team had just lost 4-3 in overtime to the Vegas Golden Knights at Xcel Energy Center on Saturday.

Yes, the game-winning goal by Ivan Barbashev at 17:26 of overtime evened the best-of-7 series at 2-2 and stole home ice from the Wild.

In a race to two wins, the Golden Knights will have home ice in two of the possible three games, starting with Game 5 at T-Mobile Arena on Tuesday (9:30 p.m. ET; FDSNNO, SCRIPPS, ESPN, SNE, SN360, TVAS).

And yes, the Wild failed to take a 3-1 series lead for the first time in franchise history, seeing their odds of winning the series go from a sure bet to a coin flip in the time it took Barbashev to flick his wrists after claiming a loose puck in a goalmouth scramble.

In the history of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, 316 of 348 teams (90.8 percent) have gone on to advance if they can get a 3-1 lead.

Now the series is a 50/50 proposition. There have been 590 playoff series in the NHL tied at 2-2. Each team has won 295.

“Two-two doesn’t scare us,” veteran Wild forward Marcus Foligno said.

Still, for Hynes and the Wild, this was not the time to be funereal, even if Game 4 was the first time in 32 games this season that the Wild blew a third-period lead and lost.

Hynes believes this; it is not whistling past the graveyard for him. The foundation, he says, has been set in the growth this team has undergone in the past seven months.

He knows about the recent past most of his players share, leading each of its past two playoffs series 2-1 only to lose three straight games, to the Dallas Stars in 2023 and St. Louis Blues in 2022. He knows the Wild have not advanced from the first round since 2015.

In 2021, the Wild lost to these Golden Knights in Game 7 after erasing a 3-1 series deficit.

No matter. This team is different, Hynes says.

More importantly, his players believe it.

“This is a series. They’re a heck of a team,” Foligno said. “Not going to be easy. It was a good game by both sides. This is what we expect. Best out of three going back to Vegas, and yeah, we’re in a good spot.

“Keep our heads up here. We played a hard game and it’s got to be the same effort in Vegas.”

Of course, there is optimism to be found while the Wild take Sunday off. They will practice Monday before flying to Las Vegas.

The team was dominant in winning the previous two games of this series, outscoring the Golden Knights 10-4 in the process. They won 5-2 in Game 2 at T- Mobile Arena, and their top line of Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy dominated their matchup.

In Game 4, the Wild had a 2-1 lead in the third period and blew it, falling behind 3-2 on a puck-luck bounce goal by Tomas Hertl at 10:03 of the third.

The Wild answered 54 seconds later, captain Jared Spurgeon scoring a wraparound goal, his team’s 15th in the first four games of the series.

“The way we answered and came back after their goal is the mental toughness that we have been showing all year,” said Foligno, who scored for the third straight game and was moved up to the second line after Marcus Johansson was unable to play because of a lower-body injury.

Hynes said after Game 4 that he does not know how long Johansson will be out.

The Wild have had the better goalie in this series, as well.

Filip Gustavsson made 42 saves in Game 4, often brilliant against a Vegas team that had its most offensive-zone time in the series. He is playing to a .919 save percentage. Vegas goalie Adin Hill was pulled in Game 3 but played better in Game 4, making 29 saves.

“I think the feeling in the locker room is very good. You know everyone has a lot of confidence right now,” Gustavsson said. “If we’re playing like we’re playing today and last game, we have a really good chance at beating this team.”