Losing Friday night in Winnipeg would put the Wild on their back and getting up would be difficult.
Only 50 teams have come back to win a best-of-seven series after going down two games to none. Considering the situation has presented itself 393 times, that leaves just a 12.7 percent chance for the Wild to win the series if they lose Friday night.
It happened eight times in last year’s playoffs and only one team was able to come back to win its series, and it wasn’t the Wild, who went down 2-0 against St. Louis and went on to lose the series in five games.
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The Wild have gone down 2-0 in a best-of-seven series eight times and only once – 2014 against Colorado – have they come back to win the series.
- 2003 vs. Anaheim: lost in four games (conference finals)
- 2007 vs. Anaheim: lost in five games (quarterfinals)
- 2013 vs. Chicago: lost in five games (quarterfinals)
- 2014 vs. Colorado: won in seven games (quarterfinals)
- 2014 vs. Chicago: lost in six games (semifinals)
- 2015 vs. Chicago: lost in four games (semifinals)
- 2016 vs. Dallas: lost in six games (quarterfinals)
- 2017 vs. St. Louis: lost in five games (quarterfinals)
Despite being out-shot 40-20 in Game 1, the Wild led Winnipeg 2-1 in the third period before the Jets scored a pair of goals to seal the win.
Devan Dubnyk made 37 saves in Game 1 and head coach Bruce Boudreau thinks he’s confident going into Friday’s Game 2.
“He’s dialed in,” Boudreau said of Dubnyk. “Everything he was seeing he was stopping. We count on him as any team counts on their goaltender. If they want to make any kind of run, they gotta be great – and we’re no different.”
Here are the projected lines the Wild will roll with for Game 2.
- Line 1: Jason Zucker, Eric Staal, Nino Niederreiter
- Line 2: Zach Parise, Mikko Koivu, MIkael Granlund
- Line 3: Jordan Greenway, Matt Cullen, Charlie Coyle
- Line 4: Marcus Foligno, Joel Eriksson Ek, Daniel Winnik
- D-pair: Jonas Brodin, Matt Dumba
- D-pair: Carson Soucy, Jared Spurgeon
- D-pair: Nick Seeler, Nate Prosser
- Goalie: Devan Dubnyk
Game 2 starts at 6:30 p.m. and will be televised on Fox Sports North and USA.
