Wild get major boost from St. Paul crowd, sometimes at Ryan Suter’s expense

Wild coach Dean Evason took over behind the bench on Feb. 14, 2020. He’s approaching 250 games as the man in charge. He maintains that the sellout crowd for Game 3 was as loud as he’s ever heard the Xcel Energy Center.

“Absolutely incredible,” Evason said on Friday after the Wild put the finishing touches on a 5-1 win over the Dallas Stars. “Tonight was a level that was off the charts.”

It was a similar sentiment from almost every player in the Wild locker room.

“When you’re wondering as a kid in the crowd if players hear you or if it affects the game, playing, it sure does, hearing that crowd,” rookie defenseman Brock Faber said. “Just feeding off that was special.”

There might have been a reason for the rowdiness throughout Game 3. Let’s just say the 8:50 p.m. puck drop gave fans ample time to pregame on West 7th Street adjacent to the arena in downtown St. Paul.

“They probably had a lot of downtime before this game to have a couple of beers,” veteran winger Ryan Hartman said with a laugh. “We love it. It’s obviously a big advantage for us. We’re expecting to see that throughout these games and hopefully we get another huge turnout on Sunday.”

There was indeed another sellout crowd for Game 4.

“Our crowd is going to be in it no matter what,” Evason said on Sunday before the Wild hosted the Stars. “You walk through the tunnel and get goose bumps seeing six, seven, eight deep watching warmup. Our crowd is absolutely fantastic. We look forward to them pushing us forward here.”

Though there wasn’t as much lag time ahead of Game 4, the decibel level was about the same, especially when it came to the jeering of former Wild defenseman Ryan Suter. He’s quickly become a villain in this neck of the woods after delivering multiple cross-checks to Kirill Kaprizov earlier in the playoff series.

As a response, the sellout crowd showered Suter with boos every single time he touched the puck. It mixed in the occasional “SUTER SUCKS!” chant to really hammer home how they felt about him. Even the game ops got involved in Game 4, showing Suter on the screen to incite even more boos.

Asked about the chants involving his former teammate, Hartman tried his best to be politically correct, replying, “Uhh, I didn’t hear them.”