The physical nature of this series has taken its toll on the Blues and Wild and their coaches
This is the third playoff series in two seasons that has taken Wild fans through wild swings of emotion, from joy to anger to satisfaction to regret.
Wild players and coaches, too.
In five games of the team's series with the Blues, the Wild has, in turn, played spectacularly well in a victory, played well but lost close, dominated, failed to show up and overcome a slow start.
Same team. Same coaches. Same players. Same opponent. Yet in every game, the Wild has played like a different team. So has St. Louis.
The enduring randomness of sports explains the variance to a degree, but Blues coach Ken Hitchcock offered a more detailed and relevant explanation on Friday.
Hitchcock has won a Stanley Cup. He ranks fourth in NHL history with 708 victories. Even he isn't sure he's seen so much effort expended on checking in a playoff series as he has during the last week.
"Both teams, I've never seen shift lengths so short in my life, since I've been coaching in the NHL," Hitchcock said after the Blues' morning skate. "From the opening buzzer to the end of the game, shift lengths are in the 30s [seconds]. I've never seen that before. Usually, you get it down there in the third period, but this opens the game. That's how much is being put into each shift by each player."
