Minnesota Wild look to take commanding lead in playoff series

The Minnesota Wild took control early in Game 3.

The Wild, unlike the St. Louis Blues kept their emotions in control.

And because of that, the Wild took control of the series.

Minnesota — which has scored 11 goals over the past two games  —heads into Game 4 on Sunday afternoon with the opportunity to take a commanding 3-1 lead in the best-of-7 first-round Stanley Cup playoff series.

“It seems right now, and we’ve been doing it all year, when we get those (scoring) chances, we’re putting them in the back of the net,” Wild forward Marcus Foligno said in a media availability session on Saturday. “It’s something that you need to do in the playoffs, you need to put teams away.

“To jump out to a lead early in (Friday) night’s game was big for us to quiet their crowd. We just seemed to get our game and get better from there,” Foligno said. “There’s moments in the game where you need to cash in and we did that more than (St. Louis) did last night.”

The Wild will try to do that again on Sunday.

Minnesota is 1-1 all-time in Game 4 matchups with St. Louis, both of which came in first-round playoff series. The Wild beat St. Louis 2-0 in 2017 and fell 6-1 in 2015.

The Wild took the lead just 39 seconds into Game 3 as Jordan Greenway converted on a pass from Joel Eriksson Ek.

“Obviously it was big for our line to score right away,” Foligno said. “It changes (the Blues) feelings on who they’re going to throw out there. I feel just the way we played all night where we were really good on pucks and Greener and Ekker skated really well last night.

“For our line, its just going about our business,” Foligno said. “We know our best game is in the offensive zone and really hemming teams in that way. We’re a big and strong line and know we can score. It’s nice to produce in a game like last night. ”

Minnesota was shut out in Game 1 but has not trailed the Blues over the past two games. The frustration that the Wild felt after the opener switched to St. Louis in Game 3.

“We ran around a lot in Game 1 and it wasn’t our style,” Foligno said. “We were all over the refs and weren’t focusing our attention on the Blues. You kind of saw it last night, (the Blues) had a lot of guys running around, and so be it. We had a lot of guys who took hits, but everyone’s feeling good today.

“We were ready for it and it’s good to see our team  learn lessons in Game 1 and move on.”

And, with a win again on Sunday, the odds that the Wild move on to the next round of the postseason will be that much better.