What a difference one day and one game make. No, the Wild didn't blow the Blues away in a 2-0 victory Wednesday in St. Louis. But the Wild certainly played well enough to win. And in doing so, Minnesota woke up Thursday down 3-1 instead of 3-0.
Suddenly the history isn't filled with lonely exceptions of victory to the cruel rule of defeat. Actually, it's filled with glorious examples from which the Wild can draw.
In NHL history, 28 teams have rallied from 3-1 deficits to win a best-of-seven series. That's 10 percent of all teams that faced those odds. The Wild accounted for two of those in the 2003 playoffs, when they rallied from 3-1 down to stun both Colorado and Vancouver.
The NBA's Warriors could tell the Blues a 3-1 lead is no sure thing after blowing that advantage in last year's NBA Finals. MLB's Indians would say the same after they watched the Cubs come back from that deficit to win the World Series.
Read Michael Rand's blog at startribune.com/randball. michael.rand@startribune.com.
