ST. PAUL, Minn. — There’s a reason why thousands of tense, out-of-breath Minnesota Wild fans in the lower bowl stood nervously and with hearts palpitating from pretty much the first moment of the third period until the last second of overtime, when Ivan Barbashev ruined the potential party inside Xcel Energy Center.

The Wild have been here before. And their fans have seen this before.

This is a franchise that hasn’t won a playoff round since 2015. This is a franchise that held a series lead for a fifth straight postseason — but lost the previous four. This is a franchise that was 0-4 all-time when trying to turn a 2-1 series lead into a 3-1 stranglehold.

Fans knew exactly how crucial Game 4 was against the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday.

Now, Wild fans must hope that Barbashev’s goal, which evened this best-of-seven first-round series and turned it into a best-of-three, wasn’t the turning point toward the latest Wild playoff death blow.

And now it’s up to the Wild to get some much-needed rest on Sunday, have a good practice Monday, put the disappointment and worry of a 4-3 overtime loss behind them and find a way to win at least one game in Vegas, preferably on Tuesday night in Game 5 so they can close out this series at home Thursday and advance to the second round for the first time in a decade.

“Oh man, we’re in a good spot,” coach John Hynes insisted. “Hard-fought battle, played well again. The game was right in our hands. Both teams competed hard. We knew it was going to be a hard series. Love where we’re at. I mean, we knew it was going to be a hard-fought series. Really like our game, you know? We’re here, man. We’ll just keep grinding.”

There’s no doubt Saturday’s game was a grind, and it was the best Vegas played and looked in the series.

The Golden Knights fired 46 pucks at Filip Gustavsson. They had the better of the territorial play, got to the inside a lot more than the Wild (39 slot-driving plays, according to Sportlogiq), got 10 shots from top-liners Jack Eichel and Mark Stone — who each got their first point in the series — and seemed to have the better legs late in overtime after the Wild pushed ferociously in the first half of the period and were unable to convert on an extra-session power play.

But the Wild also believe there’s a big difference between this year’s team and the teams, over the past four postseasons, that failed to turn 1-0 and 2-1 series leads into 2-0 and 3-1 leads.

First, these Wild have Gustavsson looking sharp and on top of his game. Sure, he may have given up four goals Saturday, but he saved nearly two goals above expected at five-on-five and had to make a couple of huge robberies late in the third period, including two on Reilly Smith, simply to get the game to overtime.

FILIP GUSTAVSSON ARE YOU KIDDING ME pic.twitter.com/cOh0caP8jp

— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) April 26, 2025

Second, and third, they have the two best players so far in the series. Superstar Kirill Kaprizov is second in the league with eight playoff points and Matt Boldy clearly has taken a significant step since his initial two postseason experiences, with four goals and six points.

“We all mature as a group, right?” said veteran Marcus Foligno, who extended his goal streak to three games and supplied the Wild with a 2-1 lead in the second period. “Those guys gain confidence after (playoff) years like that, and understand. The way Kirill and Bolds have been playing, it’s who they are as players and the reason why they’re top, elite players.

“So, yeah, we’re in a great series. We got our guys going. And, yeah, we feel confident going into Game 5.”

Now, Vegas did so a terrific job on both stars Saturday, holding Kaprizov to one assist, Boldy to zero points for the first time in the series and the two to a combined total of five shots on goal.

But Sunday’s day off could do them and the Wild wonders, because they sure looked like they were running out of gas late in OT and seemed to be hoping they could evaporate the final four or five minutes just to get to another intermission and regroup and reenergize for double overtime.

“Talking to the guys after, it felt like we could have went for another overtime,” Golden Knights defenseman Shea Theodore said. “We felt fresh, we felt ready to go.”

Unfortunately for the Wild and those standing fans who had to have sore legs by the end — and gnawed-off fingernails — Jonas Brodin whistled a puck the length of the ice with the fourth line out. Justin Brazeau was basically interfered with and pushed offside. Because the puck was sent from the defensive zone, the offside whistle earned the Golden Knights an offensive-zone draw.

Hynes threw out his top line of Kaprizov, Boldy and Joel Eriksson Ek. Assistant coach Jack Capuano threw out defensemen Jake Middleton and Brock Faber.

All should have been well, especially when Eriksson Ek won his 18th draw of the night. But nine seconds later, Barbashev backhanded a loose puck at the top of the goalmouth with 2:34 left in overtime, after some mayhem in front of the Wild net caused by Middleton flubbing an attempted pass to Faber, then scrambling back toward the crease to try to frantically save the day.

He did not, and it capped a rough game for Middleton, who, according to Natural Stat Trick, was on the ice for 36 of Vegas’ 81 shot attempts, along with Jared Spurgeon.

VEGAS HAS TIED THE SERIES! ⚔️

Ivan Barbashev wins Game 4 in @Energizer overtime for the @GoldenKnights! #StanleyCup pic.twitter.com/DQGSoCldst

— NHL (@NHL) April 26, 2025

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“Those overtime goals are usually not that pretty,” said Nicolas Roy, who played a huge part in Barbashev’s winner and scored a third-period, game-tying power-play goal after rookie Zeev Buium’s errant stick clipped Stone and triggered a four-minute Vegas power play.

The third period was as tense as it gets for the Wild and their fans, especially when Stone directed a puck off Tomas Hertl and into the net for the go-ahead goal, with Hertl on top of Ryan Hartman as the two wrestled in front of the net following Hertl’s takedown. It was the latest example of referees Trevor Hanson and Kyle Rehman drawing the ire of the paying customers.

To the Wild’s credit, they have done a tremendous job in this series of letting others whine about the officiating, as they keep playing and worrying about the bigger task at hand — shutting down the Cup-contending Golden Knights and their long list of terrific players.

“Wasted energy there,” Spurgeon said. “If we get frustrated with that, it bleeds into your game.”

And 54 seconds later, Spurgeon responded anyway by tying the score at 3-3 and sending the game to overtime.

IT’S ALL TIED UP AGAIN! 🤯

54 seconds after Vegas took the lead, the @mnwild have evened the score! #StanleyCup

🇺🇸: @NHL_On_TNT (TBS) & @SportsonMax ➡️ https://t.co/4TuyIATi3T
🇨🇦: @Sportsnet or stream on Sportsnet+ ➡️ https://t.co/4KjbdjVctF pic.twitter.com/hUXfL0rl7W

— NHL (@NHL) April 26, 2025

“We got forced to kill some penalties there and (spent) a lot of time in our own zone,” Gustavsson said. “It was fun.”

Gustavsson’s idea of fun probably isn’t the same as the Wild portion of the crowd of 19,324, but to each his own.

“This is a series,” Foligno said. “They’re a heck of a team, and not going to be easy. I mean, it was a good game both sides, and this is what we expect. So best-out-of-three, going back to Vegas, and, yeah, we’re in a good spot. Keep our heads up here. We played a hard game, and it’s got to be the same effort in Vegas.”

What also gives the Wild confidence is that they’ve liked their game for the majority of the series. They could have won Game 1 but didn’t, then significantly outplayed the Golden Knights in Game 2 while building a 4-0 lead that led to a 5-2 win thanks to goals from their top three lines.

Still, it’ll be interesting to see if Hynes makes any lineup adjustments depending on the health of Marcus Johansson, who didn’t play Saturday due to a lower-body injury.

Vinnie Hinostroza was inserted, took a penalty on his second shift, which resulted in Shea Theodore’s power-play goal, and logged 11:57 on a line that had four total shot attempts with Gustav Nyquist and Freddy Gaudreau.

Would the Wild consider Liam Ohgren, who has not been practicing with the big team but has been with the Iowa callups, for Game 5? He made his NHL debut in Vegas last year and had a big last few months in Iowa. Or how about a line of Nyquist-Marco Rossi-Gaudreau, and inserting Devin Shore as fourth-line center?

Despite being the Wild’s second-leading scorer and scoring for the second consecutive game Saturday, Rossi continues to get the short shrift. He logged 11:01, but only because Hynes rolled four lines in overtime. He had logged only 4:40 through two periods, sat for most of the final 14 minutes of the second period, and took only three shifts in the third.

“We’ll take it game by game here,” Hynes said, tersely, when asked about Rossi.

On the back end, it’s doubtful they’d take out Buium, but he didn’t play a shift in overtime, including on the power play that Joel Eriksson Ek drew, which resulted in one shot on goal despite it being such a golden opportunity to win.

The Wild were obviously dejected after the game. They knew they had plenty of chances to win, but Adin Hill rebounded from a rough last few games with some huge stops on Kaprizov, Hartman and Eriksson Ek, and on Yakov Trenin’s breakaway attempt.

Adin Hill with a huge pad save on Kirill Kaprizov’s backdoor one-timer. pic.twitter.com/UlDDeSOlfn

— Jesse Granger (@JesseGranger_) April 26, 2025

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But, as Hartman said as a matter of fact after, “We had to win two games this morning. We still have to win two games. Nothing has really changed.”

We’ll see if he’s right, if this team is really different than the many over the last decade that couldn’t deliver a playoff series victory.

They do have a goalie playing well, a couple of stars and an aura of confidence in the locker room, especially when it comes to playing on the road, where they’ve won 24 times this year.

“We’ve got strong belief in how we’re playing and nothing really rattles us, whether you win a game, lose a game,” Hynes said. “One of the main reasons why we’re here is because a) we’ve got a great team, and b) we’re resilient. We just play. So we’ll move on.”

Same with Vegas.

“You’re jumping on a plane feeling good about yourself. Maybe they’re jumping on a plane … not (feeling good),” Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. “When you get the second end of it, there’s a little bit of that emotion. But at the end of the day, it’s 2-2. It’s a best-of-three.

“We came here, thinking, ‘OK, it’s a best-of-five, we lost home ice, we got it back, it’s a best-of-three.’ It’s been hard-fought for every inch of ice out of there. So that’s how I’m looking at it. Emotionally, we’re going to enjoy it. (Sunday) we’ll rest and get back to work on Monday.”

(Photo: Bruce Fedyck / Imagn Images)