This wasn’t the way many envisioned this series shaking out. The play of Minnesota Wild superstar Kirill Kaprizov and the rest of the youngsters have the State of Hockey believing.

Kirill Kaprizov missed half of the regular season with a lingering lower-body injury that kept him out until just before the NHL playoffs began as the Minnesota Wild barely got in.He's fully recovered now.

Kaprizov became the first player in Wild history with three career multigoal playoff games and the third Wild player to start a postseason with consecutive multipoint games, joining John Klingberg (2023) and Eric Staal, who had a record four assists in the first two games in 2020.