Wild about Minnesota: Fernandez stops 43 shots as Wild advance
In just their third year, the Minnesota Wild qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. That in and of itself is quite an accomplishment. Many teams would happily accept that, take a beating in the first round, and go home. The Wild managed to beat the heavily favored Colorado Avalanche by playing tenacious defense and waiting for Colorado to make mistakes- in spite of being down three games to one and having to go to overtime to win the last two games of the series. No one gave them a chance to win, and who could have argued?
Andrew Brunette scored 3:25 into overtime and Manny Fernandez stopped 43 shots as the Wild won their first playoff series with a 3-2 victory over Colorado on Tuesday night.
"Every player put heart and soul into it," said Marian Gaborik, who scored Minnesota's second goal. "The feeling is something that I don't have words for right now. I don't know. It's just unbelievable."
Several Wild players said before the series that they would be happy with just one victory against the two-time Stanley Cup champions. Minnesota coach Jacques Lemaire even said after Game 4 that his team had no shot at winning the series.
Yeah, right.
The Wild won three straight games -- the last two in overtime -- to become just the eighth team in league history to come back from a 3-1 deficit with two victories on the road.
The Wild will face Vancouver in the next Western Conference series. The Canucks beat St. Louis 4-1 Tuesday night.
Vancouver was also down by a 3-1 count in their series. This should be some sort of fun, eh??
