The Minnesota Wild remained perfect on home ice during the playoffs. They beat the Chicago Blackhawks 4-2 to even the series at two games a piece. The Wild improved to 5-0 this post season at the Xcel Energy Center.
Matt Cooke returned to the Wild lineup after serving a seven game suspension for a knee-to-knee hit on Tyson Barrie in the first round of the playoffs. He forced turnovers, checked, and even assisted on the first Wild goal. Cooke forced a turnover and got the puck over to Justin Fontaine. Fontaine then waited for Corey Crawford to make a move and beat the goalie upstairs.
The Wild were clearly the better team in the first period, out shooting and out chancing the Blackhawks. With only 39 seconds left, Michal Roszival passed the puck to Marian Hossa, who made a nice pass over to Patrick Sharp. Sharp made a nice move around a sliding Mikko Koivu, took the shot and beat Ilya Bryzgalov five hole. Bryzgalov should have made the save but instead the game was tied 1-1 after one period. The Blackhawks only managed four shots but one of them found the back of the net.
The second period started off kind of slow, but picked up the pace in a hurry. The Wild scored just 3:51 into the period on a deflection by Jason Pominville. Zach Parise got the puck over to Ryan Suter, who took a shot that went over the net and Crawford appeared to have lost sight of it. Pominville found the loose puck and banked it off Crawford's skate and into the net.
Sharp went in on the forecheck for the Blackhawks and Michal Handzus got to the puck. Handzus passed over to Hossa and then back to Brent Seabrook, who took the shot from the point with traffic in front. Handzus got his stick on the puck to deflect it past Bryzgalov to tie the game at two.
The Wild came right back. Charlie Coyle got the puck in the neutral zone and made a nice touch pass over to Nino Niederreiter, who took the shot from just outside the face off circle and beat Crawford high glove side. The Blackhawks had a chance to tie the game on a breakaway by Sharp, but Bryzgalov did the splits and held the post to make the pad save.
Keith Ballard left in the second period after taking a hit from behind from Brandon Bollig. Bollig was assessed a two minute minor for boarding on the play. Ballard got up from the hit, skated to the Wild bench, and then right back to the locker room. He didn't return for the rest of the game. The Wild out shot the Blackhawks 18-9 in that second period and lead 3-2.
In the third period, the Wild scored a power play goal against the league's best penalty kill in the playoffs. Suter got the puck over to Mikko Koivu, who sent a no look pass over to Jared Spurgeon. The pass was on edge but Spurgeon had time to settle it onto his stick and then roof it high over Crawford for the 4-2 lead.
Bryzgalov made two huge saves, in close, on Jeremy Morin, which would have put the Blackhawks down by only one goal had Bryzgalov not made the saves. The Blackhawks were just outplayed and outworked in every facet of the game. The Wild played with speed but played smart, for the most part, too.
If the Blackhawks don't want to go down 3-2 in the series on home ice then they need their big time players like Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane to step up and start making some plays. The Hawks also need to play with some more effort and urgency. The Wild need to play how they played tonight if they want to take home ice away from the Blackhawks.
Game 5 will be on Sunday night at 9 p.m. (EST) on CNBC.
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