ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Depth, discipline, determination, denial and domination.
That was the recipe for the favored Vegas Golden Knights in the Western Conference First Round against the Minnesota Wild.
For the second straight game, the underdogs stole the formula and made it their own, slogging and slugging their way to a 5-2 victory in a series-altering Game 3 at Xcel Energy Center on Thursday.
The Wild have won the past two games in convincing fashion to lead this best-of-7 series and be in a position from which 68.8 percent of the teams (386-175) holding it have advanced all-time in seven-game series.
There is no reason for Vegas to grip the stick too hard.
Win here in Game 4 on Saturday (4 p.m. ET; FDSNNO, SCRIPPS, MAX, truTV, TBS, SNP, SNW, SN1, TVAS) and this becomes a best-of-3 series with home ice once again favoring the Golden Knights.
Plus, Minnesota has led a best-of-7 series 2-1 on four occasions; they have advanced once.
"There's no need for panic," veteran forward William Karlsson said. "It's one game at a time. All we can focus on is the next one. And, you know, have a status quo going back to Vegas and that's what we're aiming for."
The Golden Knights just have to combine the ingredients they have properly. The recipe has been out of whack for the past two games.
"There's been some good stretches of hockey for us in this series, but I think the difference is, we've spotted them a few chances," Vegas captain Mark Stone said Friday. "We take a penalty, mistake early in the game, and they score, then we have another turnover. It's all self-inflicted. It's nothing you can't clean up. I'd be a lot more worried if I sat here feeling we had been brutally out-played for 60 minutes, which is not the case."
The Golden Knights are supposed to be the deeper team, one capable of getting goals from each of its four lines. Yes, fourth-liner Brett Howden got two goals in a Game 1 victory, but in the past two games, Reilly Smith is the only bottom-six forward to score.
The top line of Stone, Jack Eichel and Ivan Barbashev has no goals in three games. Minnesota's top line of Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy has eight of the 12 goals the Wild have scored in the series, but each of the four lines has scored in the past two games.
"We feel like we are getting looks, but we haven't executed to put them in the back of the net, which we think is going to come for us," Stone said.
The Golden Knights were supposed to match up well in goal with Adin Hill going up against Filip Gustavsson. Instead, Hill has allowed eight goals in the past two games and was pulled after two periods in Game 3, replaced by Akira Schmid, who stopped all nine shots he faced in the third period.
Hill is playing to an .825 save percentage.
"I think Hill, he'd be the first to admit he needs a good practice to regain his footing and feel good about his game," Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said after Game 3.
Hill practiced Friday and is expected to be the starter in Game 4.
The special teams' battle was supposed to heavily favor the Golden Knights. They were short-handed the fewest times in the League during the regular season and their power play was elite, hovering around 30 percent for the regular season before finishing second at 28.3.
In Game 3, the Golden Knights took five penalties, including a too-many-men infraction in the first. The Wild scored two power-play goals and didn't allow a shorthanded goal in four tries.
"We could've started better for sure," Cassidy said. "And that's why we got ourselves in penalty trouble. We got ourselves in penalty trouble early, and it's always good for the other team to get some touches and they get going and you're not using your bench so eventually you've got to work your way out of that."
But there are answers. The recipe works. It earned them the Pacific Division title. It earned them 50 wins for the third time in franchise history, reaching the Cup Final each of the other two times.
The Golden Knights know who they have been, who they are and who they can be in this series.
They need to start proving it in Game 4.
"It's a playoff series, right?" Stone said. "Luckily you have to beat us four times, not twice. …It's never a bad thing to go through a little bit of adversity, to work a little harder to get what we want and what we want is Game 4."
