Wild suddenly on brink of elimination after Game 5 loss to Blues

Kirill Kaprizov was the best Russian on the ice. Until he wasn’t.

In a span of 1 minute, 28 seconds on Tuesday night at Xcel Energy Center, Blues winger Vladimir Tarasenko took complete control of the game with a pair of goals. In the process, the Blues took complete control of the series, as Tarasenko finished with a natural hat trick.

Despite some incredible play from Kaprizov, especially in the opening 20 minutes, the Wild suffered a 5-2 loss to the Blues in Game 5. They now trail 3-2 in the best-of-seven series and will be on the brink of elimination heading back to St. Louis for Game 6.

Asked how he was feeling postgame, Kaprizov responded, “Not great.” He clearly didn’t want to talk about his personal success.

“The goal isn’t for a player to play well. The goal is for the team to play well,” Kaprizov said through a translator. “We didn’t win. Ultimately that’s what we play for. We have a chance to make some changes to get the series back home for Game 7. That’s what we have to do.”

While it’s certainly not impossible for the Wild to advance to the next round, the numbers aren’t exactly in their favor at the moment. When a best-of-seven series is tied 2-2, the winner of Game 5 goes on to advance 79.1 percent of the time.

“It is what it is,” Marcus Foligno said. “It’s on to Game 6 now. We have to control what we can control.”

From the moment the puck dropped, Kaprizov looked destined to score a goal. He worked so hard to win board battles early on, creating something out of nothing on multiple occasions.

Nevermind that Blues captain Ryan O’Reilly put his team in front 1-0 with a power play goal early in the first period. With the way Kaprizov was playing, it felt like only a matter of time before he got rewarded for his effort.

It finally happened midway through the first period when Kaprizov accepted a pass from Jared Spurgeon on the power play, delayed for a couple of seconds to find the right angle, then fired a shot past Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington to tie the game at 1-1.

A few minutes later, the Wild garnered another power play, and Kaprizov went right back to work.

After a loose puck squirted toward Blues defenseman Colton Parayko for what looked like an easy clearing attempt, Kaprizov busted his butt to keep the play alive. He pilfered the puck from Parayko with a perfect stick lift, then pirouetted back toward the net. He finished the play a few seconds later with a snipe top shelf to make it 2-1 in favor of the Wild.

“He’s unbelievable,” coach Dean Evason said of Kaprizov. “It’d be nice to have 20 of him, right?”

The offensive explosion by Kaprizov got the announced crowd of 19,197 on their feet. It was an incredible play from bonafide superstar. The only superstar the Wild have ever had.

If only the Wild could’ve bottled that and used it throughout the game. Maybe then they wouldn’t be on the brink of elimination.

Instead, the Blues weathered the storm, and after the home crowd started to calm down in the second period, Blues winger Brandon Saad tied the game at 2-2 with a nifty deflection in front of Marc-Andre Fleury.

That started the comeback and Tarasenko made sure it continued pretty much as soon as the third period started.

After working hard to win a board battle behind the net Blues winger Pavel Buchnevich delivered an incredible pass to Tarasenko all alone in the slot. To no one’s surprise, the Russian did the rest with a goal to make it 3-2 in favor of the Blues.

“You never want to give up those goals right away,” Foligno said. “We felt like we were in a good spot to win that game. Give them credit.”

A minute and a half later, Tarasenko collected a pass from Blues center Ivan Barbashev and beat Fleury to stretch the lead to 4-2. As the final minutes mercifully ticked away, the Wild pulled Fleury, and Tarasenko completed his natural hat trick with an empty-netter to finalize the score at 5-2.

“They pushed and created some chances,” Fleury said. “Obviulsy I’d like to save them all and prevent that from happening. It happened and we have to put it behind. Just forget about it quickly and move on.”

For a group that’s responded to adversity so many times this season, the Wild will need to do it once again in Game 6.

“We’ve got nothing to lose and we seem to like that position,” Foligno said. “No one is going to be quitting on each other. We are a very close group for a reason. We battled all season and Game 6 is no different.”

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