In St. Paul, the 28-year-old recorded his first point of the series and put nine shots on net. Eichel turned a corner against the Wild’s defense in those games and he needs to rip more pucks on net in Game 5 with Vegas back at home.

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.

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.