Wild overtime: Takeaways from Minnesota’s Game 3 victory over Vegas in the NHL playoffs

During the regular season, Vegas’ top line of Jack Eichel centering Mark Stone and Ivan Barbashev combined to produce 70 goals and 142 assists while amassing 475 shots on goal for a Golden Knights team that won the Pacific Division and earned the No. 2 seed in the NHL’s Western Conference.

Through the opening two games in a first-round playoff series against the Wild, that trio’s total was zero goals, zero assists, only nine shots on goal and a plus/minus rating of minus-7. That was a big reason why Minnesota and Vegas were tied 1-1 entering Game 3 at Xcel Energy Center.

Thursday night, the Wild did a number on Vegas’ top guns once again in a 5-2 victory that gave Minnesota a 2-1 series lead.

All three were held off the score sheet. Eichel was a minus-2 with three shots on goal. Stone was a minus-2 with two shots on goal. And Barbashev, who took a first-period embellishment penalty that negated a Vegas power play, was minus-2 with no shots on goal.

Wild defenseman Brock Faber credited his team’s attention to detail in helping hold the Eichel line in check.

“They’re obviously extremely dynamic,” Faber said. “The way they move, they always find little spots, little seams, little pockets on the ice. Trying to kill plays early and not let them get going, not let them feel comfortable, is the major thing. We’ve done a pretty good job so far. And the goal is to keep that rolling.”

The Vegas trio, though, made it interesting.

With the Wild clinging to a 4-2 lead, Vegas got a power play with 5:37 to play. Wild goalie Filip Gustavsson made a key glove save on Eichel, followed shortly after with a pad save on Tomas Hertl. On a Vegas power play that started with 3:28 to play, Eichel twice was denied zone entries by well-placed Wild sticks.

Led by the Eichel line, the Golden Knights tilted the ice in their favor in the final 10 minutes of the first period and the first eight of the second period. And when Wild forward Marcus Foligno was called for tripping at 6:28 of the second, it appeared Vegas was on the verge of knotting the score. Gustavsson and the Wild’s penalty killers had other ideas. Gustavsson made two saves during the kill, and Foligno contributed a key hit after exiting the penalty box to swing momentum Minnesota’s way.

At 11:05, Boldy stole the puck from defenseman Noah Hanifin behind the net, skated up front and wired a shot past Hill for a 3-1 lead. The Wild ended the second period with a 21-18 advantage in shots on goals after getting the final five shots on goal in the period.

“That’s our whole team — just playing tight together, just trying to take time and space away from them and just defending well as a team, as five guys and a goalie for sure,” Wild center Joel Eriksson Ek said.

Wild center Ryan Hartman has given the Wild a surge of energy in this series, and the veteran showed off his savvy in the final minute of the second period.

With the Wild on a power play and the clock ticking down to less than 10 seconds remaining, Hartman had the puck along half-wall, looked up at the scoreboard to check the time and fired a pass that Kirill Kaprizov tipped in with 1.3 seconds left for a 4-1 lead.

“Yeah, it’s so smart by him,” Kaprizov said of Hartman’s pass. “That’s what I tell him too: ‘Smart play.’ ”

Wild coach John Hynes on Wednesday indicated he was considering making a change in his third defensive pairing after the Zach Bogosian-Zeev Buium duo was on for both Vegas goals in Tuesday’s Game 2. Thursday, he opted to keep the same lineup, leaving the third pairing as is and not altering the forward lines to start the game.

Buium responded early by earning his first career point, assisting on Kaprizov’s first-period power-play goal that made it 1-0. Known as an offensive defenseman, Buium finished 14:37 of ice time over 14 shifts and was a minus-1. Bogosian logged 11:57, had an assist and was a plus-1.

Dropped from the third line to the fourth line after Game 1, Wild center Marco Rossi made his presence known Thursday, taking a fantastic pass from Yakov Trenin from behind the net and beating Hill with a one-timer from the slot for a 2-0 lead at 6:51 of the first period. Rossi, in his third career playoff game, added an assist on a second-period goal by Kaprizov.

“That’s the group of guys we have — up and down the lineup, whether you’re top-six or the bottom two lines,‘’ Faber said. “That’s the mindset we have. We’re in this together. And him, especially, he’s going to take it on the chin and he’s going to work.”

The Wild got a power-play opportunity in the first period when the Golden Knights were called for too many men on the ice 2:46 into the game. Kaprizov cashed in with a laser through a screen and past Hill for a 1-0 lead at 3:13. Buium got the first assist on the goal for his first point as a pro.

The Wild went right back on the power play at 3:29 when Vegas defenseman Nicolas Hague was whistled for tripping. The Golden Knights killed the penalty, allowing no shots on goal.

Minnesota went 2-for-4 with the man advantage, adding Hartman’s marker late in the second but giving up Reilly Smith’s short-handed goal that made it 4-2 in the third period. Foligno scored a short-handed empty-net goal to ice the game. Vegas was 0-for-4 on the power play.