Down 3-1 in the series Wild knows, 'you need everybody'

DALLAS – Over the course of a hockey career, team meetings blend together, but Darby Hendrickson remembers vividly a particular one in the spring of 2003.

The Wild trailed its best-of-seven first-round series against the Colorado Avalanche three games to one. With its season on the line, players gathered to refocus and pick each other up.

"Dwayne Roloson talked about a conversation he had early in that series with [Avalanche defenseman] Rob Blake and how he told him, 'We've got the talent, but you've got a special group,' " Hendrickson, a current Wild assistant coach, said Thursday before the team boarded a flight for Dallas with aspirations of making sure Friday isn't the final day of the 2015-16 season.

"Then, a lot of guys stood up and just talked and said, 'This is not done, so let's just try to find a way tomorrow.' I remember walking out of the room thinking, 'I'm not afraid.' "

The Wild was a huge underdog in that series against future Hall of Famers Peter Forsberg and Joe Sakic, 50-goal scorer Milan Hejduk and decorated goalie Patrick Roy. But the Wild responded with three consecutive 3-2 victories, including back-to-back overtime wins in Games 6 and 7 courtesy of goals by Richard Park and Andrew Brunette.

A team has trailed 3-1 in a best-of-seven Stanley Cup playoff series 255 times. Only 28 times has a team rallied to advance. The Wild, in 2003, did so twice, following the Colorado comeback with an encore against Vancouver in the next round.

In Game 7, Hendrickson scored the winning goal.

But, Hendrickson said: "Ultimately, you have to feel it within the team. You can talk past stories that are important, about the values of not surrendering. But ultimately you have to feel it as a team collectively. You need everybody.

"When we were in this situation, we had a cast of guys where different guys stepped up. We all had our moments. You just stayed within your role and what you had to do and you got real dialed into that. If you can come in and put a complete game together and find a way, then all of a sudden the pressure shifts.

"But these type of moments are team driven. It's not manufactured out of clichés. It's a feeling you've got to have. You just have to try to win a game and go from there."

That's the goal Friday. Games 2 and 4 — both one-goal losses — were winnable, but Thursday was a refocus day to get those disappointments and the regrets that came with them out of the system.

Interim coach John Torchetti, knowing full well a loss could spell the end of his Wild tenure, wants better execution in all areas. The Wild has allowed a playoff-low 24.8 shots per game against the league's highest-scoring team in the regular season.

There was something special about that hard-working, defensively sound, Jacques Lemaire-coached 2003 Wild team. This version of the Wild has been inconsistent all season, has lost eight of its past nine games and is playing without injured Zach Parise and Thomas Vanek.

The Wild is also 4-17-6 in Dallas since 2003-04 and 3-14 on the road in the playoffs the past four years, allowing 3.59 goals per game.

"You can't push a button and all of a sudden you turn it on," Hendrickson said. "You've got to feel it and you've got to do it.

"But Dallas is beatable. I mean, they are a beatable team. You look at a lot of spots on their team and it's not like they have guns-a-blazing right now. So there's an opportunity. But you have to get over [Game 4] real quick."

The Wild can't look at the big picture of having to win three games. Friday's is the only one that matters, players say.

"Nobody wants to go home, so you just have to use it as motivation to make sure that you give the best game possible, and see what happens."