Dubnyk, Wild make uncharacteristic mistakes in blowout loss
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The most fitting shot in St. Louis' first-round, Game 4 win Wednesday night didn't even find the mesh behind Devan Dubnyk.
Instead, with the Wild trailing 4-1 midway through the second period, the midseason pickup who carried Minnesota to this point took a David Backes elbow to his giraffe-adorned mask followed by a puck between his legs. As he spread-eagled himself across the goalmouth, Dubnyk earned a deep bruise on the back of his thigh for keeping Alex Pietrangelo's shot from turning a blowout into a bloodbath.
(It'd happen anyway moments later, when Vladimir Tarasenko and Patrik Berglund scored 1 minute, 3 seconds apart, sending Dubnyk to the home bench at Xcel Energy Center). Dubnyk remained keeled over on the ice talking to Don Fuller for a few moments before telling the Wild's head athletic trainer he'd be OK and reassuming his position between the pipes.
But in the analogous sense, there are gut-punches, and there are blows to the most vulnerable areas. This was the latter.
"We know we've got better than that. I know I've got better than that," Dubnyk said after the Blues knotted this Stanley Cup playoff series at two games apiece.
Yanked for backup Darcy Kuemper with 3:10 left in the middle frame, Dubnyk gave up six goals on 17 shots on goal -- the same number he'd faced in a 3-0, shutout victory here two days before. That win put the Wild in position to gain their first-ever 3-1 postseason series advantage.
But markers from every one of Blues coach Ken Hitchcock's tweaked lines, including two from Tarasenko, created a best-of-three scenario as the series heads back to Missouri.
"I attribute it to a team game that was not even close to good enough for us," Wild coach Mike Yeo, whose team lost 6-1 in its most lopsided postseason defeat all-time, said in defense of his stud netminder. "It didn't have the feel of the type of game that we were going to come back. We weren't on it from the start, and it got worse."
Still, they were the most goals Dubnyk's allowed since Minnesota traded for him Jan. 14. During that span, his NHL No. 2 goals-against average (1.78) proved the most central ingredient in a post-All-Star run that vaulted the previously-floundering Wild into the playoffs.
Dubnyk started 39 straight games during that time -- a franchise-record 38 for Minnesota and the most in the NHL since 2007-08 -- and has been the man in net for 43 of the Wild's past 44 contests. But fatigue wasn't a factor Wednesday night, Dubnyk said.
"I was fine," said Dubnyk, who spent the first four years of his career in Edmonton before bouncing from Nashville to Arizona and landing in the Twin Cities earlier this year. "I felt good at the start of the game. They put some pucks to the net and got some deflections. That's how goals go in sometimes."
Unlike Monday's series-commanding win, the defense in front of Dubnyk couldn't clog the middle of the ice as St. Louis ambushed Minnesota's zone from the opening faceoff. The Blues outshot the Wild 26-18, including 10-4 in the opening period.
Dubnyk, who'd allowed more than three goals just once previously during his Wild hot streak, gave up three on 10 shots in the first period and three more on eight shots in the second. Ryan Reaves beat him on a wicked one-timer, and Tarasenko -- the hat-trick hero in the Blues' Game 2 win -- had a deflection and a filthy breakaway move that both would've been difficult for any goalie to stop. But Backes was able to jam in a rebound to make it 3-0 10:06 into the first, and Paul Stastny and Berglund's second-period goals were the type Dubnyk usually thwarted this season.
After Jared Spurgeon's wrister made it a two-goal game at 1:41 of the second, Stastny answered with a short-side shot on the rush that somehow snuck between Dubnyk's right pad and the goalpost. Berglund beat him on a backhand from the opposite slot, prompting Yeo to pull Dubnyk from the lineup for just the second time since his Jan. 20 Wild debut.
Dubnyk said he could've stopped both shots, "but at that point it's just about stats which don't matter at this time of the year anyway.
"It makes no difference. If we lost 1-0 or we lost the way we did, we're in the exact same situation going into St. Louis."
Pairing Backes with potent playmakers Alexander Steen and T.J. Oshie and letting Tarasenko skate freely alongside Jaden Schwartz and Jori Lehtera, Hitchcock went with forward lines and defensive pairings akin to those used during the regular season. The Blues won the Central Division and finished tied for the Western Conference's best record.
"It looked like we had some continuity back in our game," Hitchcock said.
In his first playoff action since last year's conference semifinals, Kuemper stopped all nine shots he faced in relief.
Yeo said if he could do it over again, he would've pulled Dubnyk after Tarasenko's breakaway goal made it 5-1 in order to keep the goalie as fresh as possible for Game 5. The Wild play St. Louis on Friday night in a second straight 8:30 p.m. Central start.
Dubnyk, meanwhile, was thankful Pietrangelo's shot didn't hit him an even more sensitive area as most in the arena feared initially Wednesday night. "I'd be still laying out there if it got me there," Dubnyk joked.
Afterward, Yeo expressed zero doubt in a guy who was mostly an afterthought until honing his game under Coyotes goalie coach Sean Burke and showing it off after Arizona traded him for a third-round pick in this year's draft. Dubnyk didn't put together a remarkable run by folding when things didn't go his way, Yeo said.
"I think he'll react great," Yeo said. "I'm very, very confident in that, knowing his personality, just knowing what he's been through No. 1 to get this opportunity and how we got our team here. So yeah, no concerns about that."
Minnesota's captain agreed.
"There's no doubt on that," Mikko Koivu said. "I'm not even going to talk about it. No, not at all."
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