Golden Knights will play Wild in first round of Stanley Cup Playoffs
Will be first postseason series between teams
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Vegas (40-14-2) was second in the Honda West Division and will have home-ice advantage against third-place Minnesota (35-16-5) in the best-of-7 series.
Game 1 is at Vegas on Sunday.
"They're a great team. We're a great team. It's going to be a fun series," Minnesota forward Marcus Foligno said. "When we play aggressive, we're a big hockey team, a smart hockey team and we know how to play with that style and that emotion, and we just come out most times against them."
The Wild were 5-1-2 against the Golden Knights this season but were outscored 24-23.
"We know, like you said, we've outplayed them a lot of times this season, and I think we know how to play them to be successful," Minnesota forward Joel Eriksson Ek said. "We [have to] work together and be smart, and at the same time play aggressive. I think we play our best game when we play aggressive."
The Golden Knights, who were 3-4-1 against the Wild, were led by forward Mark Stone with 10 points (two goals, eight assists) against them. Forwards Alex Tuch (three goals, three assists), William Karlsson (two goals, four assists) and Chandler Stephenson (two goals, four assists) each scored six points. Marc-Andre Fleury was 3-3-0 with a 2.41 goals-against average and a .919 save percentage against Minnesota, and Robin Lehner was 0-1-1 with a 3.87 GAA and an .884 save percentage.
"We've had some good games against them this year," Stone, the Vegas captain, said. "Obviously very familiar, playing them eight times. They've got some big forwards. They're good in front of the net, they're good in front of our net. We'll have to be ready for a big, physical series."
Forward Kirill Kaprizov led the Wild with eight points (six goals, two assists) against the Golden Knights. Foligno scored seven points (three goals, four assists), and Eriksson Ek (four goals, two assists) and defenseman Jonas Brodin (two goals, four assists) each scored six points. Cam Talbot was 3-1-2 with a 3.26 GAA and an .898 save percentage against Vegas, and Kaapo Kahkonen was 2-0-0 with a 1.51 GAA, a .943 save percentage and one shutout.
The Golden Knights are 5-10-1 against the Wild and have never won a game in regulation at Minnesota.
"They beat us," Vegas coach Peter DeBoer said. "They found ways to win games. I'm not going to get in to the details of what I think they do well, or what we're going to try and exploit or what we didn't do well. That's for team meetings and amongst our group. They found ways to win games, even in games when we had played well and had the lead late in games, they found a way to climb back in. That's going to be something that we have to be aware of."
Stone led the Golden Knights with 61 points (21 goals, 40 assists), and Pacioretty was second with 51 points (24 goals, 27 assists). Marchessault (18 goals, 25 assists) scored 44 points, and defenseman Shea Theodore (eight goals, 34 assists) scored 42 points. Fleury was 26-10-0 with a 1.98 GAA, a .928 save percentage and six shutouts in 36 games. Lehner was 13-4-2 with a 2.29 GAA, a .913 save percentage and one shutout in 19 games.
Kaprizov, a rookie, led the Wild with 51 points (27 goals, 24 assists). Fiala scored 40 points (20 goals, 20 assists), forward Mats Zuccarello scored 35 points (11 goals, 24 assists), and forward Jordan Greenway scored 32 points (six goals, 26 assists). Joel Eriksson Ek was third on Minnesota with 19 goals. Talbot was 19-8-5 with a 2.63 GAA, a .915 save percentage and two shutouts in 33 games, and Kahkonen was 16-8-0 with a 2.88 GAA, a .902 save percentage and two shutouts in 24 games (23 starts).
"They're really good at grinding," Lehner told The Athletic. "I was talking to Fleury about that. How good they are at creating offense around your net. They always move. There are a lot of plays from behind the net and a lot of cross-ice plays."
The teams have never met in the playoffs.
Vegas, which qualified for the playoffs for a fourth straight season since entering the NHL in 2017-18, lost to the Dallas Stars in five games in the best-of-7 Western Conference Final last season.
Minnesota lost to the Vancouver Canucks in four games in the best-of-5 Stanley Cup Qualifiers last season after failing to qualify for the 2019 postseason.
"There's always those teams that you seem to match up well and are very similar hockey clubs," Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. "I don't know the reason but they've always, every game, certainly this year, have been real good games, real intense hockey games. It'll be a lot of fun if that's how it shakes out."
The series winner will play the winner of the series between the Colorado Avalanche (No. 1) and St. Louis Blues (No. 4) in the second round.
"We knew we were going to have to go through somebody good," Stone said. "The four teams that are in, St. Louis is a proven Stanley Cup winner, Minnesota's obviously become one of the better teams in our league, and of course the same with Colorado. We knew going into the playoffs we were going to play a pretty strong opponent. We're proud of our regular season; we had the most wins, our goaltenders gave up the least amount of goals. There's some good things, but it starts now, and we'll be prepared for Sunday."
NHL.com independent correspondents Jessi Pierce and Danny Webster contributed to this report
