This was not a game to check your phone or look away from the ice for any reason. If you did, you probably missed something.
Wild coach John Hynes twice referred to the game as “helter-skelter.”
“Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot to unpack in this one,” he said. “Was a bit of a helter-skelter game. Obviously, you can tell by the score. We’ll take a look at some things and take some lessons out of this one. Be ready for Game 2.”
Oh, and the much anticipated matchup between two of the League’s top defensemen, Colorado’s Cale Makar and Minnesota’s Quinn Hughes, lived up to its billing, especially from an offensive perspective. Hughes had a goal and two assists, and logged a game-high 28:57 of ice time. Makar, who missed most of the first period after taking a big hit from Marcus Foligno 2:46 into the game, scored two goals, both in the third period, and notched a secondary assist on Blankenburg’s goal at 4:16 of the second.
“Obviously, coming from the last game we played, it was really tight out there it felt like. Weren’t generating a lot. Today it just felt a little bit more open. Sometimes that can be a tendency to lack a little bit on the defensive side,” Makar said. “On both teams, it happened a little bit tonight. I don’t think we’re going to see that again. Just was probably a one-off. I like that we were able to stick with it and find a way to win in, obviously, a unique way.”
It was quite a departure for both teams after their respective first rounds. The Avalanche allowed the Los Angeles Kings five goals through four games in their sweep of that series. The Wild dealt with more offense from the Dallas Stars allowing 15 goals, but none in that six game series played out like this.