NHL playoffs: Down a goal, Wild’s muscle line answers the bell — again
Staring down a 3-1 series deficit late in the third period, the Wild’s muscle — line cooked up something special. It was greasy, and it was just what the team needed. With under six minutes to play in regulation, and trailing the Stars 2-1, things were starting to look bleak for Minnesota.
Without a late equalizer, they were going to go to Dallas needing three straight wins to advance to the second round of the playoffs. Then Marcus Foligno crawled over Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger to knock a stray puck over the goal line to tie the game, 2-2, with 5:20 left in regulation. “You have to get production in different ways,” coach John Hynes noted.
Indeed, with Minnesota’s power play struggling, and Oettinger recovered from a 6-1 loss in the series opener, the Wild needed something different to solve the Stars’ Olympic gold medal-winning netminder. Something earned with brute force, with Oettinger on his rear end. Something greasy.
With top D pair Brock Faber and Quinn Hughes at the back end, the fourth line of Foligno, Michael McCarron and Nico Sturm went to work on the forecheck, looking to at least keep the Stars in their own end for a shift. Faber and Hughes kept the zone and pumped the back back down low, and eventually Sturm took a shot from the left circle. Oettinger swatted it away with his blocker arm but so hard that it bounced off the back wall and behind him.
That’s when Foligno used all of his 6-foot-3 reach and all of his 225 pounds to drape Oettinger and reach for a loose puck in the crease and swipe it over the goal line. Does it count as net-front when you’re reaching around the post? No matter, the game was tied 2-2, and Matt Boldy won it in overtime — with 28.