Stanzel’s Sports Takeout — BREAKING NEWS: 5.1.26
Full moon tonight, indeed, as the Wild and Wolves are both into a second round in the same season for the first time ever. Better yet, both teams were for sure the better team in the series.
Loons at Columbus on Saturday as they go back to MLS play.
Frost opens up best-of-five first round series at Montreal Saturday at 2 p.m. on Prime.
Wild Earns Rare Home Clinch
The last time the Wild won a playoff series, Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar had not yet released Bad Blood.
The Wild dispatched of their own Bad Blood rivals last night with a 5-2, series-clinching win over the Dallas Stars in a charged-up arena formerly known as Xcel Energy Center. Minnesota is into round two of the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2015. They’ll visit Colorado in Game 1 at a date to be announced. Dallas had made the last three conference finals. This marked just the second time ever the Wild has been able to celebrate a series win in front of its home crowd.
It was far closer than the final score indicated. The teams were always within a single goal of each other or tied until Matt Boldy’s two empty net goals. The second one came after a turnover by Jamie Been - poetic justice because Benn should have been suspended for the second of two crosschecks of Ryan Hartman two nights ago.
Everyone thought this would be the league’s best series of the first round, and it didn’t disappoint. Each team held a one-goal lead at one point, and nerves were at an all-time high when Vladimir Tarasenko, who hasn’t done much this series, scored a goal while falling down with 2:58 left in the second period for a 2-2 game. That came less than a minute after Mavrik Bourque briefly quieted the Wild crowd to take Dallas’ only lead of the game.
The third period was all Wild, culminating when all-world defenseman Quinn Hughes shot from the left circle banked in off a Stars defender midway through the third. The Stars were no match for this team at any moment at 5-on-5.
The Wild won without Jonas Brodin, putting even more pressure on Hughes and Brock Faber. Shutdown D Jake Middleton played almost 20 minutes and was a plus-two.
And how about Jesper Wallstedt? Fourteen goals against all series, and allowing just six in the final three games.
This team is deeper than most. Its fourth line skates a regular shift - everyone but Nico Sturm played at least 10 minutes. That’ll make a difference against the Colorado Avalanche.
Just take a deep breath and watch the best two defenseman on the planet play against each other…
Wolves Survive Injuries to Advance
The war of attrition in the Wolves lineup was so bad, a guy Chris Finch pulled from the lineup in Game 5 played a starring role in a Game 6, series-clinching win at Target Center.
Terrence Shannon, Jr., scored 24 points to complement Jaden McDaniels’ team-high 32, as the Wolves won without Ayo Dosunmu, 110-98, to advance to play the second-seeded Spurs and 7-foot-4 Victor Wembanyama on the road Monday.
Can you even imagine a world where the Wolves could win without Anthony Edwards, Donte DiVincenzo, Dosunmu and also Kyle Anderson? Improbable, for sure. Impossible? Sure seemed so. The Wolves became the first NBA team to ever win a playoff game much less series when missing three double-digit scorers.
Finch was not happy with Shannon’s defensive effort the other night. Sure, he missed 10 shots, and five 3-pointers, but the Wolves don’t win this one without Shannon. The former Illini player also hit a clutch 3-pointer in the fourth quarter, plus an old-fashioned, three-point play.
McDaniels, who earned the ire of the Nuggets for the entire series, hit a dagger pull-up jumper with a minute left, just before stealing a Nikola Jokic pass. McDaniels also held Jamal Murray to 4-for-17 from the field.
Joker got his - 28 points, 10 assists, nine rebounds, but the Wolves were clearly the deeper team with what they lost…
The Wolves’ incredible defense held the Nuggets to one field goal over the last eight minutes. Denver, the highest scoring team in the NBA, didn’t reach 100 points in any of the three games at Target Center. The Nuggets, you’ll remember, won the final 12 games of the regular season and Game 1 of this series.
The Wolves aren’t going to get Donte (who was back at Target Center after surgery in NYC) back at all, and Edwards would seem a stretch to play before Game 4 or 5 of this series. Obviously, Dosumnu’s health could be an issue. This series not going to Game 7 is good for more than the obvious reason.
Buxton Homers Again as Twins Take Series Opener from Blue Jays
The Twins won for just the second time in nine games to close out a woeful last three weeks of April, beating the Blue Jays 7-1 last night at Target Field.
Byron Buxton homered for the Twins, and the bullpen was very un-Twins-bullpen-like, making six strong innings from Bailey Ober stand up.
The Twins are 14-18. I mean, .500 is going to win the Central…
Two more against the Blue Jays this weekend.
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