(Video courtesy of the Minnesota Wild web site)

Round two of the Stanley Cup playoffs start Friday night for the Minnesota Wild.

The head coach of the Wild is North Bay’s Mike Yeo.

At one point this season, the Wild were out of playoff contention but then they acquired Devan Dubnyk and they played well enough to get back into contention and eventually made the playoffs as a wild card team. 

The Wild are fresh off a six game series win over St Louis and visit Chicago on Friday in game 1 of the 2nd round.

Yeo says the key to the opening round win was using their speed to dictate the pace of play in the series.

As for the Blackhawks, the two teams met last year in Chicago’s run to the Western Conference final and the ‘Hawks won in six games.

Yeo says Chicago’s very dangerous with players like Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews.

He says Chicago doesn’t need 20 scoring chances to win so the secret for his team is to be good at both ends of the ice.

Meantime, Yeo also says it would be great if the North Bay Battalion can continue their great run in the OHL playoffs.