The Minnesota Wild, down 2-1 in their opening round Stanley Cup playoff series against the Colorado Avalanche, gave the road team a terribly rough ride in the opening 20 minutes of Game 4 on Thursday night.
Minnesota nice? Forget about it, this was some Lorne Malvo-schtick.
Here's an unblocked shot attempt chart logging the performance of the two teams at even-strength in the opening 20 minutes:
[Courtesy extraskater.com]
If you're reading the above graph you might notice that it took the Avalanche over 10 minutes to record their first shot attempt at even-strength. That's not going to get it done in the playoffs, even against a lower seed like the Wild.
Despite the Canada vs. Latvia-style dominance exhibited by the Wild in the period, Minnesota only scored a single goal. Wild defender Jared Spurgeon opened the scoring, capitalizing on over three minutes of uninterrupted offensive pressure from Minnesota.
That the Wild haven't already buried the Avalanche in Game 4 is a credit to the steady play of Vezina trophy favorite Semyon Varlamov, who made 13 saves in the period. This rejection of a Matt Moulson breakaway late in the frame was easily Varlamov's best work:
[Courtesy NHL.com]
