Despite a blowout win over Winnipeg in Game 3, Minnesota Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau doesn’t feel any less pressure going into Game 4 Tuesday night in St. Paul.
“We’re still in a desperate situation. We were last night, we are tomorrow,” Boudreau said Monday. “If we lose tomorrow we’re still down 3-1 going into Winnipeg. It’s not a question about feeling good about yourself. We survived.”
Minnesota cruised to a 6-2 victory in Game 3, but Boudreau doesn’t think a carbon copy of that performance will be good enough to win again in Game 4.
“I think we have to play better. They’re going to play better, guaranteed. I know we’re going to have to play better if we want to win. There’s no way we can play and do what we did yesterday and come out on top,” he said. “We have to play better.”
Related:
Since the Wild became a franchise in 2001, only 12 teams have rallied from a 3-1 hole and went on to win a best-of-seven series.
Two of those 12 were the 2002-03 Wild, who did it against Colorado in the quarterfinals and Vancouver in the semifinals.
Montreal did it in 2004 and then it didn’t happen again until 2009 when Washington rallied to beat the Rangers.
The Rangers are the last team to pull it off, doing so in the second round of the 2015 playoffs against Washington.
