The Minnesota Wild dominated Game 3 with a 5-2 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights to take a 2-1 series lead Thursday night, and the roar inside the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul might've been the loudest in the 25 years its housed the Wild.
The lid nearly blew off the building when Marcus Foligno scored an empty-net goal to end a last-minute comeback bid by Vegas. Michael Russo, who has been covering the Wild and the NHL for decades, said Thursday's crowd was the "loudest I've ever heard" the X get.
"Recency bias, but loudest I’ve ever heard the place was after the (Ryan) Hartman to (Kirill) Kaprizov goal and the last penalty kill thru after Foligno’s ENG. Was deafening and [building] was vibrating. Team gave the fans a reason to deliver and they did," Russo wrote on X.
"It's very fun. You can't hear anything. They are screaming there after the goal at the end of the game and the puck comes down and you have no idea what the D is going to do because usually we talk to each other." Wild goalie Filip Gustavsson said. "You hear nothing, it's just screaming from the crowd. It was a big difference from going to Vegas. I didn't think that building was as loud as I expected it to be, and then you come here and you can't hear anything."
Defenseman Brock Faber agreed. "We definitely feed from that energy," he said.
Karpizov's power-play goal from Hartman gave the Wild a commanding 4-1 lead with only two seconds remaining in the period, and the crowd went bonkers.
Minnesota's 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series marks the first time they've led in a playoff series since they were up 1-0 over the Dallas Stars in the first round of the 2023 postseason. The Wild eventually lost that series in six games.
Minnesota will look to build on its momentum in Game 4 when they host the Golden Knights at the Xcel Energy Center once again for a 3 p.m. CT start on Saturday.
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