It's possible that the work done by the Minnesota Wild over the next three days could make the difference in turning around their postseason or having it come to an end.
Their 5-2 defeat Tuesday to the Colorado Avalanche in Game 2 of the Western Conference semifinal now has the Wild in a 2-0 series hole. The Wild have only authored one comeback from down 2-0 in the franchise's postseason history. In 2014, they rallied to eliminate the Avalanche in seven games.
Now, the Wild will seek to replicate a similar result against the Avalanche, who along with the Carolina Hurricanes, have gone undefeated this postseason at 6-0.
"It's not good enough," Wild forward Matt Boldy said. "So, it's on us. We've got to make adjustments and be way better."
Opening the series with a 9-6 loss led to Wild coach John Hynes making a few changes. He replaced rookie goaltender Jesper Wallstedt with veteran Filip Gustavsson along with removing defenseman Zach Bogosian for Jeff Petry.
The Wild were still without veteran top-four defenseman Jonas Brodin and top-six center Joel Eriksson Ek. Both missed Game 1 with lower-body injuries and didn't make the trip to Denver.
Colorado's Martin Necas scoring within the first three minutes before Minnesota's Kirill Kaprizov scoring six seconds later created the belief that there could be another high-scoring game.
And it was for the Avalanche.
Tuesday became the fourth consecutive game in which the Avs have scored more than four goals this postseason. Two of those goals came at the expense of a Wild penalty kill that has struggled in the playoffs.
Gabriel Landeskog scored the Avalanche's first power-play goal with 11:36 remaining in the first period for a 2-1 lead. And Colorado already had a 3-1 lead entering the third period when Nathan MacKinnon scored their second power-play goal for a 4-1 lead with 6:42 left in the game.
All told, Colorado went 2-for-5 on the power play with its fifth goal being an empty netter.
"We did good things tonight," Hynes said. "Special teams need to be better."
In the regular season, Minnesota was a league-average unit whenever it was short-handed. Its 79.8% successive rate was 16th out of 32 games. The playoffs have been a different story, though, with the Wild's penalty kill registering a 59.4% success rate. As the postseason enters Wednesday's action, that is the second-lowest rating behind the Edmonton Oilers.
"We've got to keep our frustration away and keep going with what we have," Wild captain Jared Spurgeon said. "Obviously, they are a good team over there and they're going to make plays when we make mistakes. We've got to limit those."
Hynes and his staff will now have three days to figure out how to swing the series back in their favor.
The Avalanche and Wild will have an extended break because Grand Casino Arena, the home of the Wild, is hosting the PHWL Walter Cup Playoff semifinal games Thursday and Friday between the Montreal Victoire and the Minnesota Frost.
It's possible that the time between games could be enough for the Wild to get Brodin and Eriksson Ek back into the lineup with Hynes saying at morning skate before Game 2 that both players would be re-evaluated.
There's also the chance that Hynes could look at other adjustments. Hynes was asked about what he could do with his defensive pairings knowing that their second defense pairing of Jake Middleton and Spurgeon have faced challenges to start the series.
Middleton has been on the ice for nine goals while the Avalanche have had eight goals whenever Spurgeon has been on the ice.
Those struggles along with Brodin's absence has further emphasized the importance of their No. 1 defense pairing in Brock Faber and Quinn Hughes.
Faber and Hughes finished with more than 28 minutes in average ice time in Game 2. Hughes is second among all skaters with an average ice time of 30:53 while Faber is fourth at 29:31.
"We travel back tonight and we've got a couple days there," Hynes said. "It'll be a combination of practice and meetings and recovery time. Usually, we have a good schedule for that and regroup a bit and be ready to go."