After dropping Game 1, the Wild are in danger of heading to St. Louis down two games in the best-of-seven series.
Although the Blues squeaked away with a victory, even their local newspaper acknowledged, “‘If they play like this again, they’ll lose.”
It’s also irrational to believe the Wild will put up 52 shots again. According to Michael Russo of the Star Tribune, it sounds like the Wild will have the same lineup from Game 1.
Here’s three things the Wild need to do to walk away with a win on Friday night.
1. Continue to shut down Tarasenko
The Blues have one of the most talented forwards in the league in Vladimir Tarasenko, but Minnesota did an excellent job of shutting him down on Wednesday.
Yes, he assisted on the game-winning goal in overtime, but throughout regulation, he was held in check and Minnesota can thank Ryan Suter for that.
According to Chad Graff at the Pioneer Press, when Suter and Tarasenko were both on the ice, the Wild outshot the Blues 7-1.
2. Convert on the power play
It’s imperative the Wild score on the man advantage in Game 2. The team went 0-3 on the power play in their loss on Wednesday, which is rare considering how lethal the Wild’s power play has been on home ice.
The Wild posted the best power-play percentage on home ice this season, converting more than 28 percent of their opportunities.
With Jake Allen dialed in, the Wild have to cash in on the power play.
3. Better puck luck
The amount of fluky and unlucky events that happened in Game 1 was honestly impressive. Zach Parise’s stick prevented a puck from going in and poor Charlie Coyle was snake bitten the entire game.
If his stick had not broken in overtime, the Wild would be up a game right now.
Obviously you can’t predict or control luck, but there’s no way the Wild will be that unlucky again, hopefully.
Puck drop on Friday is slated for 7 p.m. at the Xcel Energy Center.
