The game basically started with the Wings misplaying the puck along their boards, allowing Freddy Gaudreau to make a tic-tac-toe pass to Matt Boldy (who scored a hatty against Detroit about a month ago) via Kevin Fiala. 1-0 Wild. Sure, there was a faceoff and stuff before that, but within 90 seconds Detroit found itself down a goal.
Five and a half minutes in, the Wings finally broke lose of the Wild swarm and Robby Fabbri registered Detroit’s first shot on goal. Then on the next shift, Jakub Vrana got a little help from Gagner and Veleno to win a board battle deep in Minnesota’s zone.