ST. PAUL, Minn. — Maybe that was just what the doctor ordered.
As they say in pro sports, you’re never as good as you think you are and you’re never as bad as you think you are.
The Minnesota Wild, who started the season 8-1-2, had an opportunity to sweep a three-game homestand Tuesday night with their final opponent being a team that in the first period looked like it left its hands and legs in Nashville with Monday’s 3-0 win.
But despite playing on the second night of a back-to-back, the Los Angeles Kings walked into Xcel Energy Center and easily beat the Wild 5-1.
But why could this have been a decent wake-up call heading into a very winnable trip to San Jose, Anaheim and Chicago?
Because let’s be honest: Even though the Wild won the first two games of this homestand, they weren’t overly impressive in victories against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Toronto Maple Leafs.
Their special teams were awful, their offense was choppy, and they won because they capitalized on terrific defensive structure and great goaltending from Filip Gustavsson while also taking advantage of a tired Maple Leafs team two nights earlier.
But Tuesday night, Gustavsson was off his game, the Wild’s offensive game continued to lack execution, their fourth line and third defensive pair had a tough night and they finally paid for losing the special teams battle.
If you’re counting at home, the Wild actually lost the power play and penalty kill battle for a fourth straight game but finally lost because of it.
“That was not our best,” said Mats Zuccarello, a minus-3. “We’ve been flying high a little bit some games and playing good. And sometimes it’s good to get a kick in the nuts, as long as you get back up next game. I think we’re all in here not happy.
“When you lose 5-1 at home, that’s a tough one. But we’re going to lose this year, and hopefully it’s a one-off and then we can get back on the horse again. But yeah, obviously we weren’t happy about that game.”
Let’s start with the penalty kill because that calamity is what finished 30th in the NHL last season, allowing goals on 74.5 percent of opposing power plays. They vowed to fix it this season, yet here they are sitting 31st in the NHL at 62.5 percent. They have allowed a power-play goal in five consecutive games — six goals on their last 11 chances against, to be exact.
That’s downright outrageous, and Tuesday night they allowed the tiebreaker and eventual winning goal to former Wild gamebreaker Kevin Fiala on the Kings’ only power play of the game.
Imagine how bad things would look right now if the Wild weren’t so doggone disciplined. They’ve been short-handed an average of twice a game, the second-fewest in the NHL.
Marco Rossi has taken a penalty in three of the past four games. He has done the walk of shame after each of those instances because the puck ended up in the back of Minnesota’s net.
One game after John Hynes said it’ll be a “process” to repair the penalty kill and that he’s largely satisfied with the structure but not the individual mistakes that continue to plague them, Matt Boldy got overly aggressive after Brock Faber tried to block a shot and went down low on a switch. It’s rare to see a forward skate lower than the defenseman on a penalty kill. But when he did, Faber tried to block Fiala’s shot, couldn’t, and the former Wild player scored his seventh goal of the season with purpose.
“The revenge tour continues!” 🔥
Kevin Fiala has goals in back-to-back nights against his former teams (Nashville last night, Minnesota tonight) pic.twitter.com/9mqAEYaF5S
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) November 6, 2024
Though Hynes conceded the error, he clearly, without naming names, pinned the problem at the stick of Jonas Brodin, who along with Faber has been on the ice for six of the Wild’s nine power-play goals against this season. It was Brodin who didn’t get a puck out earlier on the shift.
“They rimmed the puck and it bumps back, and we had an opportunity to pop the puck right to the middle and break that puck out,” Hynes said. “Now the puck’s cleared. To me it started before the goal was actually scored. If we’re on five-on-five and it goes D-to-D and that D’s got some time and space and we have a guy in the middle, we pop pucks to the middle all the time.
“Should be the same thing on the penalty kill. Instead, we rim it off the boards. So, that’s one opportunity to get the puck out of the zone. If you’re good on your stand and you’re good on your shares and you have opportunities to get the puck out of the zone, that’s when it has to get out of the zone because if you’re going to get opportunities where we have chances to clear pucks or pop pucks out, now you’re going to have to be able to defend. … It’s little situations like that, that cause that error.”
Now let’s talk power play, which on this night was the bigger problem.
The Wild went 0-for-4 and are now 0-for-14 the past four games with the streak going back 15 power plays to five games ago in Philly. The No. 2 power-play unit is without a goal in 12 games, but it’s the No. 1 power play that spends the majority of the time on the ice. And Kirill Kaprizov, Zuccarello, Joel Eriksson Ek, Boldy and Faber are in one giant funk.
They’re losing battles, skating pucks into traffic, throwing pucks away and aren’t even attempting shots. On one power play in the first period, the Wild basically had a five-on-three because a Kings killer broke his stick. Eriksson Ek promptly gave the puck to a Kings player, who thanked him with a quick clear. In the third period with a chance to tie the score at 2-2, Boldy threw a puck out of the zone and Eriksson Ek skated the puck into traffic for a short-handed breakaway that Gustavsson at least denied.
Hynes pinned much of their issues on faceoffs, but Eriksson Ek, the center on the No. 1 unit, entered Tuesday’s game winning 57.1 percent on power-play faceoffs this season and went 2-for-4 Tuesday. They were 5-for-10 on power-play draws Tuesday, going 4-for-4 in the third period. It was the second when they were indeed 1-for-5.
“We’re not winning any faceoffs so we’re always starting on a breakout,” Hynes said. “Everybody wants to have a hard stand, so (the Kings) did a good job at standing at the line so then you gotta rim pucks in and get them back. Now you’re just eating time off the clock. So, that’s one area that’s gotta certainly improve.
“We’re trying to make plays standing still. We’re looking for seams. We’re not delivering the puck to the net. We’re not getting top shots.”
Zuccarello concurred.
“Our power play was not good. Hasn’t been good in a while,” he said. “But we work on it every day. The 10 guys that are on there take pride in the power play, and maybe we want to help our team win. But I think it’s important that we don’t get down on ourselves. When you lose a little bit of confidence, the puck bounces everywhere and your passes don’t go tape-to-tape and stuff like that.
“In a game like this, we would have liked to score a couple of goals on the power play and help the team. But that was not good enough on our part today. … We just can’t let that creep into our game and get frustrated. It’s gonna come. It’s gonna take a s—ty goal, and then you’re back in it.”
Kirill Kaprizov left the game for part of the second period after taking a puck to the face. (Brad Rempel / Imagn Images)
The Wild held a 1-0 lead until 5:30 left in the second period. It took a bad wholesale line change to cost Minnesota the tying goal, but the game turned after Kaprizov missed the final 12 minutes of the second period after taking a puck to the mouth.
He left with a 1-0 lead. By the time he returned, it was 2-1 Kings.
The fourth line of Jakub Lauko, Marat Khusnutdinov and Yakov Trenin didn’t play well. Zach Bogosian, who scored the Wild’s only goal, and Jon Merrill also were victimized for two goals.
Rookie Michael Milne, considered Iowa’s most consistent player to start the season, was called up for the trip and Hynes indicated he could make his NHL debut, perhaps as soon as Thursday in San Jose.
“I’d still like to see some more from certain guys,” Hynes said. “I thought there was some light players tonight, so we’ll make some decisions.”
Maybe that’ll be Trenin, who was signed to a four-year contract worth $3.5 million annually this offseason. He was demoted to the fourth line three games ago and has no goals, one assist, 11 shots and 34 hits in 12 games.
Every team has clunkers. This was one. Maybe it’ll be cured against three cellar-dwellers on the road, where the Wild are 5-1-1.
“We definitely can’t lose sight of how well we’ve played the last stretch of games,” Bogosian said. “Unfortunately when you play 82 games, games like that happen. Not something we’re happy about, but we’ll turn the page pretty quick and get ready for a big road trip.”
(Top photo: Brad Rempel / Imagn Images)
