Wild Warmup: Minnesota at Vegas, Game 5

The essentials

The Wild Warmup is presented by Bryant Heating and Cooling
LAS VEGAS -- The 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs has come down to a series of win-or-go-homes for the Wild as it preps for Game 5 of its best-of-7 series against the Vegas Golden Knights.
Vegas leads the series 3-1 with Game 5 set for Monday at what will be a raucous T-Mobile Arena.
But instead of looking at the deficit as a three-game mountain, the Wild instead must look at it as a trio of three must-win games. Believe it or not, there is a difference.
"What we have to do now is go to Vegas and win one hockey game," said Wild defenseman Ian Cole. "We just have to turn into one game. There's one hockey game we have to win. It's do-or-die, an absolute must-win, obviously. But we gotta win one hockey game. That's all we can worry about at this point."
Unlike the series so far, which has featured consecutive home games for each team, the rest of the series looks much different.
If Minnesota can accomplish its goal of winning in Las Vegas, like it did in Game 1 and nearly did in Game 2, the series continues, and the reward would be a home game on Wednesday night.
Win that and it's back to Vegas for an unpredictable, anything-can-happen Game 7 situation.
But first things first. The Wild must focus its attention on a Knights team that likely has no interest in seeing this series go on any long than it has to.
Why?
Since 1942, NHL clubs have come back to win from down 3-1 in the series a grand total of 29 times. The most recent club to do it was the San Jose Sharks, who did it against ... the Vegas Golden Knights. The Sharks, down 3-1 in the series, rallied to force a Game 7 on home ice, then trailed 3-0 in the third period of that game, capping a furious rally with the winning goal late in overtime of that game.
Minnesota has its own history of rallying from such deficits, doing so twice in the same postseason in 2003, a feat that remains unmatched in NHL history to this date.

"Tremendous belief. If you look at the stats, any stats, and the chances from last game, we generated a ton and didn't give up a whole lot. That is encouraging for us with the group," Wild coach Dean Evason said of his confidence that his club can rally back in this series. "We'll look at our chances with the team and show them that we are doing the right things. We are getting to the right areas. We are putting pucks to areas where we can gain that bounce or that break, and it just hasn't quite come yet. That's our belief. We've believed it all year."
Minnesota is coming off a 4-0 loss on home ice in Game 4, but the score wasn't indicative of how the Wild carried play for large portions of that game, most notably on the shot chart, where it outshot the Knights in every period, including a 24-9 margin over the final 40 minutes.
Vegas scored first in the game, but the Wild appeared to tie it on the very next shift on a goal by Joel Eriksson Ek. But the Knights challenged for goaltender interference and the call was reversed, taking a goal by Eriksson Ek off the board for a second consecutive game.
"We have a lot of positives, even from [Saturday] night's hockey game," Evason said. "Obviously if you look at the score after the game, it didn't seem like it was a positive game. But we had plenty of opportunities to score. Clearly we didn't and that's an area of concern for us.
"But we've gone through this at the start of the season, where the pucks just weren't going in the net. And we just kept sticking with it, getting to the net and getting pucks to the net and finally got a few bounces and breaks and they started going in. We've gotta believe that's gonna happen."
Chances certainly haven't been an issue for the Wild for most of this series, as it has fired at least 30 shots on Vegas goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury in three of the four games, out-chancing the Knights in three of four games as well.
But while the Wild has struggled with its finish, it seems like the Knights are capitalizing on most of their grade-As.
That was especially the case in Game 4. Much of the game was spent in the Wild's offensive zone, but a couple of crucial breakdowns allowed Vegas some prime scoring opportunities, most notably, Alex Tuch's and Mark Stone's second-period goals, which pushed a one-goal deficit for the Wild to three.
"I think we created some puck luck for them," said Wild forward Jordan Greenway. "We had some costly turnovers, bad changes, stuff like that and that can catch up with you. On the flip side, we gotta find chances to take advantage of situations when they're going in our favor."
After a couple of tweaks to the lineup ahead of Game 4, Evason hinted that there could be more changes on the horizon for Game 5. What those look like, Evason wouldn't reveal ahead of the team's flight to Sin City on Sunday afternoon.
Of course, injuries could also play a factor in any changes that take place, especially this time of year.
"We've always got bumps and bruises this time of year because our series is extremely physical," Evason said. "We've got some banged-up guys, no question about that. Guys are resilient and tough and will play through it if they can."
Vegas has been without leading goal scorer Max Pacioretty all series because of a lower-body injury. There's no indication that he's any closer to returning to the lineup.
Forward Tomas Nosek also missed Games 3 and 4 after he was hurt in the first period of Game 2. His status is uncertain as well.