What a fun series. I did expect a fight like that from Minnesota. I knew that they were good, but not competing with the Golden Knights until game 7 kind of good. Cam Talbot proved his haters wrong, and Marc-Andre Fleury made hockey fans excited from across the league with his incredible play. Despite me wishing that game 7 was more entertaining, I’m hyped to see what Minnesota will do in the Central Division next season. I also can’t wait for the Colorado vs Vegas series we were robbed of last season, but how did we get here?
Game 1 was about as good as a goaltending battle I’ve seen. After 63:20 of play, the score was only 1–0, with the shots being 42–30 in favour of the Golden Knights. It was a very physical, hard-fought game. It was fairly disciplined as well. After some great hockey, Joel Eriksson Ek ended the game 3:20 into overtime to give the Wild a 1–0 series lead.
Game 2 was a bit more exciting and was exactly what most people expected from Vegas in game 1. After Matt Dumba scored the first goal in regulation of the series, Marc-Andre Fleury and the Golden Knights then shut the door for the rest of the game. Only 18 seconds later Vegas tied the game, and they would carry that momentum to a 3–1 win. However, it was Minnesota that led in shots 35–28.
Game 3 was much of the same. The Wild had a 2–0 lead heading into the 2nd period, although it wouldn’t last for long. The Golden Knights would dominate the rest of the game. They drew 5 penalties, albeit they never scored on one. They also outshot Minnesota 40–16, and that resulting in them scoring 5 straight for a 5–2 victory. This would give the Golden Knights a 2–1 series lead, but it also gave them back home-ice advantage after losing it in game 1. Fleury was looking great, but Vegas was just playing like the better team.
Game 4 was a different story. This time the flow of the play was determined by Minnesota by them playing some very good hockey, but they just couldn’t get past Fleury. Despite everybody talking about how good Fleury was in game 1, I think that this game was stolen from the Wild by the Vegas netminder. The shots were 35–18 in Minnesota's favour, but for some reason, Cam Talbot had a very bad home game. An empty netter from Nicolas Roy sealed the deal, giving Vegas a 3–1 series lead with a 4–1 win. After this game, most of the people that thought Minnesota would put up a good fight in this series had given up, but they may have given up to early.
Game 5 was once again, all Vegas. But it was Fleurys turn to lose a game for his team. The shots were 40–14 in the favour of the Golden Knights, but they somehow didn’t manage to close out the series on home ice. Fleury only saved 10 of 13 shots against before Nico Sturm buried an empty netter in a 4–2 win for the Wild. To this point in the series, each goalie had played very well for 3 of the 5 games, with an alright game, and a terrible one. Minnesota would bring the series within reach, and they would have a chance to force a game 7 on home ice.
Game 6 was such a boring hockey game. You could tell that neither team wanted to play too aggressively in case they made a mistake. The Wild’s season was on the line, and the Golden Knights obviously didn’t want to go to a game 7. The final shots would end up being 24–23 in the Wilds favour, but there would be no goals through 2 periods of play. It would be Ryan Hartman of all people to break the goalless drought early in the third. The game would end in a 3–0 win for the Wild, and we were heading back to Vegas off of Talbot's second shutout of the series.
Game 7 was not what everybody wanted it to be. After what was an exciting 6 games, for the most part, this one was just a whitewash. The Golden Knights controlled most of the play with a 34–20 shot advantage, but the magic of Cam Talbot wore off. After a very physical, yet disciplined game, Mattias Janmark put the puck into an empty net to give himself a hat trick, but it also secured the series for the Golden Knights with a 6–2 win. At a certain point, this game looked like it would be extremely close, but Vegas showed their poise by pulling ahead in the 2nd period.
Mark Stone was his usual self in this series. He was very solid offensively, but his defensive game is where he shined, as he usually does. We’ll get into the Wilds scoring more when we talk about them, but you’ll see what I mean. Mark Stone is a very good captain, and I think that Vegas has done a fantastic job of capitalizing off of his elite talent on all parts of the rink. Shea Theodore has been very cold as of late. To end the season he was on a long pointless streak, and that only continued until game 7 of this series. He got two assists in that game, and it was on the game-winning goal and the insurance marker. He’s going to have to be on the top of his game if the Golden Knights want a chance against the Avalanche. Alex Tuch was about as good as I expected him to be in this series. I had him as the underrated player on Vegas heading into this series, and he proved me right. Fleury looked good in this series. I still think that there are cracks in his game. He had a couple of bad games, but he carried a fantastic start to the series to some fantastic numbers. I love the flower as much as anyone, but I’m not as confident in him against Colorado as other people are.
Here we go. 8 players with 3 points. That’s not bad. Well, how many had more than three? None. No one. Notta single player. I mean that’s just not good enough for a 7 game series. Especially with Kaprizov on the team. Zach Parise looked very good in the 4 games that he had played, and I think that he did everything he could. Despite the length of that contract, I don’t think that Minnesota expected them to be their leading playoff scorer in 9 years when he signed that 13-year contract. Jared Spurgeon looked decent in this series. I think that he played very, very well last season, but this year I thought that he had more to give. Especially in the playoffs. He wasn’t bad whatsoever, but if he was a little bit better he may have been able to change the outcome of this series. I really like Kevin Fiala. I did not like how Fiala looked in this series. He was completely shut down by Vegas. I think that Minnesota is going to be very good again next season, and I hope that Fiala follows. Cam Talbot is a very good starting goalie. Despite him losing the series, and the numbers saying otherwise, I think that he had the best series between him and Fleury. Minnesota looks set in goal for the future with Talbot and Kahkonen.
What can you say here? Vegas shot a lot more, they scored a lot more. The majority of that was at 5-on-5 because for some reason the Golden Knights' powerplay was awful in this series. They played some fantastic defence against the Wild, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that leads to some success against the Avalanche. They’re going to need to convert more on their powerplay opportunities however, the Avs will be able to abuse that. For the Wild, this was an important stepping stone of a season. They have erupted in popularity with the help of Kirill Kaprizov, and now they have more eyes on them next season. Minnesota now has a reason to be named the state of hockey, and I think they have a bright future ahead of them if this keeps up.