TL;DR
The Minnesota Wild face a challenging Game 6 against the Dallas Stars, aiming to end their season. Forward Nico Sturm emphasizes the difficulty of defeating a desperate team, while defenseman Brock Faber highlights the importance of emotional control.
As he prepared to slot into the home lineup for Game 6 on Thursday, Minnesota forward Nico Sturm could reflect back on his two previous deep playoff runs and know that ahead of him was the toughest game he would encounter, so far, in his second stint with the Wild.
“The hardest thing to do in sports is to end a team’s season that’s desperate,” said Sturm, who owns Stanley Cup rings from the Colorado Avalanche’s 2022 title run and from his time with the Florida Panthers last season. “So, I think that’s the biggest mindset going into tonight.”
The Wild entered Thursday night’s game with a 1-0 all-time record in Game 6 of a series they led 3-2. They notched a decisive 4-1 win over the Blues — who had a young forward named Vladimir Tarasenko on the roster then — in 2015, which is the last time Minnesota had advanced to the second round of the NHL playoffs.
In the happy but subdued Wild locker room following the Game 5 win in Dallas, defenseman Brock Faber noted that he might have been in the audience in St. Paul that day. He was 12 years old at the time.
“I’d play tomorrow if we could,” Faber said on Tuesday night, noting that, as much as they embrace the support of the crowds at Grand Casino Arena, keeping your wits about you and your emotions in check is vital. “It’s gonna be fun. We’ve gotta be ready to compete. We’ve gotta control our emotions. Sometimes when it gets loud like that, you’re kind of running all over. Try and stay poised and feed off it.”
For Wild coach John Hynes, the franchise’s decade-plus stretch without a playoff series win and the overall tortured history of Minnesota men’s sports were of absolutely no concern or focus as he prepared his team. Whether it’s Game 1 or Game 7, concentrating on the 60 minutes of hockey in the immediate future is the message.
“The circumstances around the game don’t do us any good if that’s where our focus is,” Hynes said on Thursday morning, when asked about the bigger picture. “The focus has to be on making sure that we’re executing the game, and we’re focused on playing the game and doing the things that we need to do to win the game. Whenever you focus on things that are out of your control or don’t really have any impact on your performance, then it’s kind of wasted energy.”