Wallstedt and the Wild Take Over in Seattle
Minnesota was the better team in Seattle for most of the night, and the 5-1 final mostly tells the truth. The Wild outshot the Kraken 36-23 and owned the puck far more often, ending with roughly three shot attempts for every two of Seattle's (74-50).
The bigger gap was in the quality of looks. Minnesota's chances were worth about 5.86 goals by expected goals (how many goals a team's chances would usually produce), against just 2.02 for Seattle. The Kraken simply didn't get many good ones.
When they did, Jesper Wallstedt was there. He stopped 22 of 23 shots and turned aside 8 of 9 from close in, so the lead never looked shaky.
At the other end, Joey Daccord made 31 saves on 35 shots and stopped 12 of 14 from close range, but his side spent the night pushing uphill.
Blake Coleman led the scoring with two goals on five shots, and Kirill Kaprizov added a goal and an assist.
