Chicago – The Wild held one obvious and one possible advantage entering the second-round playoff series with the Blackhawks.

The obvious advantage: Devan Dubnyk had played like one of the top three goalies in the NHL for four months, while the Blackhawks had benched Corey Crawford before reinstating him.

The possible advantage: The Wild's defensive system has thrived since Dubnyk's arrival.

The latter betrayed the Wild in the first period, and the former betrayed the team when it mattered most.

The Wild's usually-reliable defense handed Chicago three goals in the first period, and Dubnyk whiffed on a long shot in the last minute of the second. The Wild lost 4-3 instead of finishing what might have become the most remarkable comeback in franchise history.

"I just have to work harder at the beginning of that play," Dubnyk said. "I have to get down and move to where I can see the puck the whole way.

"I didn't see it until it was six or eight feet out, and I put my glove where I thought it was going, and I missed it. Simple as that."

The soft goal led to a hard loss.

"We'll get better as the series goes along," Wild coach Mike Yeo said.

The Wild might have learned that just because you're in Chicago, you don't have to eat a pregame meal of large deep-dish sausage pizzas.

What's more difficult to digest — sluggishly falling behind by three goals quickly, or failing to finish a dramatic comeback?

"I didn't think we were pressure as hard as we usually do on the forecheck," Yeo said. "We had to get back into that. …

"I'm not concerned. I think there were some good things there. We have to be better than that, but that's what we do well, is get better as the series goes along."

Friday, the Wild on Friday visited a bizarre alternate universe where Thomas Vanek is unstoppable and Dubnyk unreliable, which left the Wild in the very familiar universe where they trail the Chicago Blackhawks in a playoffs series.

Vanek finally arrived on the playoff landscape, earning two assists and hitting a post. His re-emergence was offset by Jason Pominville whiffing when facing an open net in the final minutes of the game.

It was the second costly performance by Dubnyk in his past four games.

"I made a mistake and it won't happen again," he said.

The Wild dominated most of the second period, making the Blackhawks look as helpless as the Wild's two playoff victims the past two seasons, the Avalanche and the Blues, when the Wild is possessing the puck. The Wild still fell to a team that has defeated them the past two years in the playoffs.

This game began the same way the 2014 series ended — with a Blackhawks pass bouncing wildly off a stanchion toward the front of the Wild net, with Blackhawks star Patrick Kane on the ice.

Friday night, the puck did not bounce directly to Kane, and the Blackhawks didn't score. Not immediately. But moments later, Brandon Saad wheeled past Ryan Suter to score the first goal in a series that promises to be an improvement, in terms of entertainment value, over the Wild's first-round series.

In the first round, the Wild faced a physically intimidating team featuring a muscle-bound bruiser in Ryan Reaves and a silly agitator in Steve Ott. The St. Louis Blues were big and deep and promised to be punishing.

Some of them also played like dogs. Wait: Let's not anger PETA. Dogs are loyal and energetic. The Blues played like three-toed sloths.

It was apparent by the way some of their veterans avoided big hits and refused to go to the net that they wanted to get their coach, Ken Hitchcock, fired. In that, they probably succeeded.

The Blackhawks are nothing like the Blues, and unlike the Blues, the Blackhawks seized an immediate advantage in the playoffs by winning at home.

"We'll bounce back," Dubnyk said.

They did in the second period Friday, only to see a long, floating shot somehow elude their most important player.

Jim Souhan's podcast can be heard at souhanunfiltered.com. On Twitter: @SouhanStrib. • jsouhan@startribune.com