Physical Wild-Vegas game results in record number of hits

LAS VEGAS – Jordan Greenway wasn't keeping a running tally, but he knew he dished out more hits than he usually does.

"I can promise you that," he said. "It felt like a good amount."

Try 11, a personal best and franchise record for Greenway, whose contributions headlined the mind-boggling 71 hits the Wild accrued in its 1-0 overtime playoff win over the Golden Knights on Sunday.

The victory in Game 1 at T-Mobile Arena gave the Wild a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven, first round.

The teams combined for 128 hits, counted by the NHL; the 71 for the Wild are the most the team has recorded in its postseason history.

"That's playoff hockey," center Ryan Hartman said. "They've got some guys over there that can hit, especially the first game of the series you're trying to set the tone of the series. As the game goes on, things get tighter — especially in a tie game or in a 0-0 game.

"It was definitely physical, but we should expect more of that."

The return of Ryan Reaves bolstered that edginess from Vegas.

After sitting out the last 16 games of the regular season with an undisclosed injury, a stretch that included the previous two matchups between the Wild and Golden Knights, Reaves finished his checks regularly — racking up 10 hits. One of those collisions was against Greenway.

Although that aggressiveness from Reaves didn't spark any offense for Vegas or lead to costly breakdowns for the Wild, it underscored a punishing style that both teams should maintain.

"It was a physical game," Greenway said. "It was a battle out there, for sure. But that was a big focus for the entire squad. It's a long series, and we just want to wear them down as much as we can, especially the way that we play."

Generating more offense for the Wild might be as simple as keeping the puck away from Golden Knights goalie Marc-Andre Fleury's glove.

The future Hall-of-Famer was ready for pucks that sailed at his left hand, even breaking out a few windmill-style saves as he stymied the Wild through regulation.

"Me and Kirill [Kaprizov] made eye contact before the overtime period and just kind of laughed because we knew we've had our chances and we were able to get a lot of Grade A opportunities and they weren't going in," Hartman said. "You can't do anything but kind of laugh about it."

Not only was Hartman thwarted by Fleury's glove, but he also had two unsuccessful breakaways on a team-high eight shot attempts.

But Fleury's best stop of the game came against Kaprizov, who split the Vegas defense before Fleury reached his glove behind his back to clip Kaprizov's shot in the third period.

"I just tried to push as quickly as I could, and I got a piece on the finger," Fleury said. "So, it was close. But it was a nice feeling to get that one."

The 42 saves Cam Talbot made are the third most he's had in a playoff game and the fourth highest for a Wild goalie in its playoff history, but Talbot's workload would have been even greater if the Wild hadn't blocked so many shots.

Led by Jared Spurgeon's four, Wild players got in front of 23 shots by Vegas with a willingness to clog up shooting lanes that was clear from the first period when Kaprizov got in front of a Shea Theodore wind-up on his first career postseason shift.

Arguably the most important block, though, came in the third period when defenseman Ian Cole sprawled out on the ice to impede a centering attempt by William Karlsson late into a Vegas power play.

"Give the guys in front of me a ton of credit for putting the bodies on the line there," Talbot said.

Aside from Reaves, defenseman Alec Martinez and forward Tomas Nosek returned to Vegas' lineup after missing the end of the regular season with injuries, but top-liner Max Pacioretty (upper-body injury) remained sidelined.