Golden Knights vs. Wild playoff preview

The first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs features 16 teams in eight division-based best-of-7 series, which start Saturday.
Today, NHL.com previews the Stanley Cup First Round between the Vegas Golden Knights and Minnesota Wild.

No. 2 Vegas Golden Knights vs. No. 3 Minnesota Wild

Golden Knights: 40-14-2, 82 points
Wild: 35-16-5, 75 points
Season series: VGK 3-4-1; MIN 5-1-2
Game 1: Sunday (3 p.m. ET, NBC, SN, TVAS)
The Golden Knights and Wild will play each other in a Stanley Cup Playoff series for the first time.
Vegas has made the playoffs in each of its four seasons since joining the NHL as an expansion team in 2017-18, reaching the Stanley Cup Final in its inaugural season and the Western Conference Final last season.
Minnesota has made the postseason eight times in the past nine seasons but has not advanced past the first round in its past four appearances. It has not made the Western Conference Final since 2002-03, its third season in the NHL.
Neither has won the Stanley Cup.
But the Golden Knights are top contenders again, finishing tied with the Colorado Avalanche, who won the Presidents' Trophy as the NHL's top-regular season team. Vegas placed second to Colorado in the Honda West Division and the NHL standings because of the regulation-wins tiebreaker (35-30).
The Wild not only were 5-1-2 against the Golden Knights, they won five straight games against them at one point.
"There's always those teams that you seem to match up well [against] and are very similar hockey clubs," Wild coach Dean Evason said. "I don't know the reason, but they've always, every game, certainly this year, been real good games, real intense hockey games."
The last two games were particularly entertaining.
The Wild won 6-5 at home on May 4, after forward Kirill Kaprizov tied it 5-5 with 1:32 remaining in the third period and defenseman Jonas Brodin scored the winner with 1:06 to go.
"Thankfully it's not two weeks from now in a playoff series, because that would obviously be a lot harder to take," Golden Knights coach Peter DeBoer said afterward.
The Golden Knights responded with a 3-2 overtime win there two days later, their first win against the Wild in six games, rallying after Kaprizov scored twice in the third period to give Minnesota a 2-1 lead.
"I'm glad we ended the curse, at least for tonight," DeBoer said.

Game breakers

Golden Knights: Forward Mark Stone scored 61 points (21 goals, 40 assists) in the regular season. That included eight game-winning goals and a Vegas-leading 10 points (two goals, eight assists) against Minnesota. Defenseman Shea Theodore scored 42 points (eight goals, 34 assists).
Wild: Kaprizov made Minnesota far more dynamic and dangerous. He leads NHL rookies with 27 goals and 51 points. Not only did he lead the Wild in goals (six) and points (eight) against the Golden Knights, he produced at key times.

Goaltending

Golden Knights: Marc-Andre Fleury and Robin Lehner shared the Jennings Trophy when Vegas allowed the fewest goals against (124) in the regular season. Lehner started ahead of Fleury in the playoffs last season, but Fleury took the lead this season. The 36-year-old was 26-10-0 in 36 games, with a 1.98 goals-against average, the lowest of his NHL career, and a .928 save percentage, the highest of his NHL career. He also had six shutouts. Lehner was 13-4-2 with a 2.29 GAA, .913 save percentage and one shutout in 19 games. Against Minnesota, Fleury was 3-3-0 with a 2.41 GAA and a .919 save percentage in six games. Lehner was 0-1-1 with a 3.87 GAA and an .884 save percentage in two games.

Wild: Cam Talbot was 19-8-5 with a 2.63 GAA, a .915 save percentage and two shutouts in 33 games. Rookie Kaapo Kahkonen was 16-8-0 with a 2.88 GAA, a .902 save percentage and two shutouts in 24 games (23 starts). Kahkonen had better numbers against Vegas (2-0-0, 1.51, .943, two games) than Talbot (3-1-2, 3.26, .898 six games) did, and each was rocky down the stretch. Talbot allowed 24 goals in his last six games and was 2-2-2. After winning nine straight games, Kahkonen was 4-4-0 with a 4.51 GAA and an .858 save percentage in his last eight. He allowed six goals in one game, seven in another and nine in another.

Numbers to know

Golden Knights: Their penalty kill was strong at 86.8 percent, but they scored at 17.8 percent on the power play, the third-lowest of the four playoff teams from the West Division. The Wild were slightly lower on the power play, scoring at 17.6 percent, and their penalty kill was 80.8 percent.
Wild: They have more wins (11), regulation wins (10) and points (25) against the Golden Knights than any team. Vegas has never won in regulation at Minnesota. In eight games at Xcel Energy Center, they are 2-6-0, with a win in overtime and one in a shootout.

X-factors

Golden Knights: Alex Tuch was traded by Minnesota to Vegas during the 2017 NHL Expansion Draft so the Wild could protect another player. The forward has made an impact for the Golden Knights with his size (6-foot-4, 220 pounds), speed and skill, with 139 points (61 goals, 78 assists) in 249 regular-season games and 24 points (15 goals, nine assists) in 47 playoff games. He scored six points (three goals, three assists) in eight games against the Wild this season.

Wild: Marcus Foligno has given Vegas fits not just with his physicality but with his offense. The forward scored seven points (three goals, four assists) in six games against the Golden Knights this season.

They said it

"It's just emotional games against them. It's always been fun. It's always been back and forth and physical and heavy, so it suits us well. They're a great team, we're a great team, so it's going be a fun series." -- Wild forward Marcus Foligno
"Obviously we're not going to have an easy path if we want to go all the way, but we have the gamers in that locker room, and I'm pretty confident that we could go a long way here."-- Golden Knights forward Jonathan Marchessault

Will win if …

Golden Knights: They keep it simple and don't give too many opportunities to Minnesota's quick-strike offense, and health isn't an issue. Forward Max Pacioretty, who led Vegas with 24 goals in the regular season, missed the final six games with an injury. Forward Ryan Reaves, an intimidating physical presence at 6-foot-2, 225 pounds, missed the final 16.
Wild: Kaprizov continues to dazzle, they stay aggressive, and the goaltending shores up. The Wild know how to defeat the Golden Knights and should enter the series with a lot of confidence. But they have to take that style into the playoffs, and the goalies can't be as leaky as they were late in the season.

How they look

Golden Knights projected lineup
Max Pacioretty -- Chandler Stephenson -- Mark Stone
Jonathan Marchessault -- William Karlsson -- Reilly Smith
Mattias Janmark -- Nicolas Roy -- Alex Tuch
William Carrier -- Keegan Kolesar -- Ryan Reaves
Alec Martinez -- Alex Pietrangelo
Brayden McNabb -- Shea Theodore
Nicolas Hague -- Zach Whitecloud
Marc-Andre Fleury
Robin Lehner
Scratched: None
Injured: Tomas Nosek (undisclosed), Peyton Krebs (upper body)
Wild projected lineup
Jordan Greenway -- Joel Eriksson Ek -- Marcus Foligno
Kirill Kaprizov -- Ryan Hartman -- Mats Zuccarello
Kevin Fiala -- Victor Rask -- Marcus Johansson
Nick Bonino -- Nico Sturm -- Nick Bjugstad
Ryan Suter -- Jared Spurgeon
Jonas Brodin -- Matt Dumba
Carson Soucy -- Ian Cole
Cam Talbot
Kaapo Kahkonen
Scratched:Zach Parise, Brad Hunt
Injured: None