Wild Outlast Knights in Tight Game-One Overtime Thriller

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The Minnesota Wild and Vegas Golden Knights entered Sunday afternoon with two completely different playoff reputations. The Wild are known as a team that always makes the postseason but can never advance past the first round. Meanwhile, Vegas has only been in the NHL for two seasons but they’ve aready played for a Stanley Cup.

But none of that mattered when these two teams finally took to the ice at 2 PM CT. The Golden nights held all of the momentum in the first period but couldn’t turn that startup energy into a goal. It was very reminiscent of what we’ve seen from Wild teams in recent playoff pasts. Lots of shots and even more zone time but nothing to show for it in the end.

Talbot didn’t have to stand on his head. Vegas’ opportunities weren’t of that type. He just had to play consistent, which he did. From the second period on, the game tightened but the score stayed the same 0-0 throughout. In the third, the goalies started showing off, especially Marc-Andre Fleury, as the offensive pressure mounted.

Scoreless into Overtime

Even with the additional pressure, neither team could solve the opposing goalie and the game went scoreless into overtime. Ryan Hartman tried his glove side on way too many occasions and came away disappointed every single time.

The Minnesota Wild were awarded a power play right after overtime started but Vegas killed it off without much of a problem. But toward the end of the power play, you felt Minnesota start to gain their footing inside the Golden Knights’ blue line.

Then, on the first Wild rush after the power play expired, Joel Eriksson Ek was fed in the slot by Jordan Greenway and that’s when the Wild went up 1-0 on both the game and series scoreboards.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan

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