ST. PAUL, Minn. — This may have been the template if the Wild want to keep their head above water until Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek and (once again) Jonas Brodin return.
Terrific defense. Great goaltending. And greasy goals.
The Wild picked up a much-needed 1-0 win over the Boston Bruins Sunday afternoon during a brief return to Minnesota before hitting the road yet again Monday for a two-game trip to Seattle and Vancouver.
“We’re obviously in a little bit of a rut right now, but I mean, for the most part, nice to get a win and just play a simpler game and more connected than we saw the last two games,” veteran Marcus Foligno said after the Wild snapped a three-game losing skid. “So big, big win for us. Hopefully, this can just trickle some more confidence. And I think Gus helped, too.”
Filip Gustavsson sure did.
He made 28 saves for his fourth shutout of the season, a performance that included several robberies and five stops on David Pastrnak to end the superstar’s 17-game point streak.
Freddy Gaudreau scored the game’s lone goal — Jared Spurgeon got away with a blatant penalty by slashing Morgan Geekie’s stick out of his hand right before the puck hit the net — when Marcus Johansson deflected it off his “ass.”
“Butt, I should say. Sorry,” Gaudreau said, censoring himself.
Freddy Gaudreau 🚨 #mnwild
Assisted by Johansson + Zuccarello pic.twitter.com/qPZsYn8ahp— MN State of Hockey (@MinnesotaSOH) March 2, 2025
Gustavsson looks more like himself
After allowing three or more goals in nine of his previous 12 starts, Gustavsson was dynamite in recording his 10th career shutout.
It was a big confidence booster for Gustavsson after a rough outing in his last start two nights earlier in Colorado, and admittedly giving up a “bad goal” for the tying goal on Feb. 25 in a home loss to Detroit in which the Wild gave up only 16 shots.
“We had a tough loss to the Red Wings at home and then we played horrible for two games there on the road and to get back here and get a dirty 1-0 win, it feels good,” Gustavsson said.
It’s fair to say Gustavsson has been a far cry from the Vezina-like Gustavsson we saw before being yanked on Jan. 7 against St. Louis. Before, he was 18-6-3 with a 2.20 goals-against average and a .926 save percentage. In 12 starts since before Sunday, he was 4-7-0 with a 3.80 goals-against average and a .884 save percentage.
“That’s the problem with this league,” Gustavsson said. “You can’t play good, you have to be great and otherwise you’re not winning unless the guys are really, really having their ‘A game’ out there and that’s just how tough this league is.”
Coach John Hynes added, “I don’t think he’s been bad. It’s just, you need a game-winning save here and there and tonight he did it. He held serve. When we needed saves he came up with some big ones. I thought he was competitive in the net, and that’s what we need from him.”
Nyquist ‘debuts’ for a second time
One day after being acquired by the Wild for a 2026 second-round pick, Gustav Nyquist debuted for the Wild for a second time. Two years ago, Nyquist played three games after recovering from shoulder surgery before the trade deadline pickup, then played six playoff games.
This time, Nyquist was slotted into injured Kaprizov’s spot on the top line with Marco Rossi and Matt Boldy. That’s quite the change from Nashville, where he scored nine times this season — four into an empty net.
Nyquist logged 16 minutes, 57 seconds of ice time with one shot and two others attempted, and had a 65.38 Corsi for percentage — second-best amongst Wild forwards, according to Natural Stat Trick.
“It makes it a lot easier,” Nyquist said of walking into the same locker room for the second time in two years. “Basically, minus a few guys, it’s the same group basically. Obviously (played with) two great players. Had some good looks out there. Unfortunately couldn’t get one. But I thought we played pretty well. Just nice to get a win here first game back.”
Nyquist played 1:24 on the power play but didn’t get on the Wild’s one penalty kill with Foligno and Gaudreau being on one rotation and Devin Shore/Brendan Gaunce and Jakub Lauko being on the other. Perhaps he would have been on the third set with Yakov Trenin (Marat Khusnutdinov was Trenin’s partner before Khusnutdinov was sent to Iowa on Saturday), but Trenin took the Wild’s two minor penalties.
Hynes just said it was too soon to use him.
“He played in a completely different system,” Hynes said. “Come in here, two o’clock game, three meetings. We had him on the power play, knew he was going to be playing some pretty big minutes playing with Rossi and Boldy, but he will for sure be on the penalty kill.”
Nyquist is in the building 🤩 pic.twitter.com/CMODyI8W0N
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) March 2, 2025
Penalty kill comes through
For a change, the Wild’s 31st-ranked penalty kill helped them win a game. Of course, it probably helped that they were facing the NHL’s 29th-ranked power play.
Nevertheless, going two-for-two is something to rave about.
“It’s something we spend a lot of time on,” said Hynes. “It was good for the guys to come in and kill those and we did. So we keep building on it and maybe look at some different guys and some tweaks, so we’ll go from there. But it was good to stabilize it tonight.”
Foligno, a big part of the penalty kill, was pleased.
“I think everyone just played smart and we got some good saves by Gus,” he said. “But I just like the way we (played). The entries and stuff were a little bit tough for them.”
It was a big game for Foligno, who was strong defensively and sparked his team with a first-period scrap with Mark Kastelic.
He said it was also intended to jolt himself out of a recent malaise.
“I’ll be honest, got to get myself going,” Foligno said. “I’m not happy with the last two games for myself, and it was just needed. It was a physical game early and then something we need to establish more of. Everyone just needs to be a little bit more grittier. And it’s my job from time to time to do that and spark the guys. So it’s good to do that and get a win.”
Old school drop-the-gloves and start chuckin’ knucks from Kastelic and Foligno 👊 pic.twitter.com/QYzR17uF4g
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) March 2, 2025
Hartman set to return from suspension
Ryan Hartman’s once 10-game suspension, later reduced to eight by commissioner Gary Bettman, has finally expired. The veteran forward, suspended after his match penalty for roughing Ottawa’s Tim Stutzle on Feb. 1, is free to return Tuesday night in Seattle after a month of being skated exhaustively by the assistant coaches.
And boy is he needed, with Eriksson Ek injured, Gaunce and Shore centering the third and fourth lines Sunday, and Khusnutdinov sent to the minors for salary cap reasons. The Wild realized when doing the Nyquist trade that if Nashville retained half his contract, they could activate Kaprizov later this regular season and become cap-compliant with Khusnutdinov and his $925,000 cap hit off the roster.
What does president and general manager Bill Guerin expect from Hartman for the remainder of the season? To go up to the line and not cross it.
“I expect his best behavior,” Guerin said Sunday. “I think Hartzy will be excited to be back. We will be very happy to have Ryan back to the lineup. He’ll bring a lot of juice for the group. We all look forward to having him back.
“It’s getting to that level of emotion and passion to play a certain way. He knows it more than anybody he has to do a better job. I think maybe we need to do a better job in helping him. So can his teammates in the moment, getting to him and calming him down. That’s a responsibility that we all have, that we can all help him. But there’s no more leeway.”
Hynes agreed.
“We need Ryan to come back in and play really well for us,” Hynes said. “Obviously he’s had some time off. I do think he’s done a good job of putting some work in on the schedule and the program that we established for him. But now we need him to play. We need him to come in, and he needs to be an impact. He’s had some time off. He’s had some time to recalibrate himself. I don’t want to say his game because he didn’t play, but conditioning and some skill work. Now we need him to come in and be a factor for us.”
Brodin is week to week … again
After missing 12 games from Jan. 9-Feb. 1 with a lower-body injury after breaking his foot blocking a Brayden Schenn shot, Brodin is once again listed as week to week with a lower-body injury after blocking Martin Necas’ shot at Colorado. (Guerin clarified that the injury is not expected to be season-ending.)
This is Brodin’s fourth time out of the lineup this season and it comes after playing only seven games since his return from the last time out.
Asked if it concerns him how often Brodin gets injured, Guerin said, “He plays hard. He blocks shots. He goes in and gets the puck first. He competes. This is a hard game.
“I think I get frustrated because it’s so much a part — not just our team but in the league — if you don’t block shots now, you can’t play in the league. Never mind like the guy standing behind him with all the padding on. Defensemen can’t clear guys out of the front of the net because we don’t want cross-checking in front of the net, because players are gonna get hurt. Well, now they gotta stand there and block shots and they’re getting hurt from that, so I don’t know.
“I don’t have a concern about any of the guys. It just seems like every time this year we get hit with a puck, something breaks or somebody gets a bone bruise or a break or this or that, because our guys play hard and they do what it takes to win and sometimes that comes at a price.”
Zach Bogosian, who didn’t play Friday’s game at Colorado with a lower-body injury, returned. Even Hynes joked that it was a shock to him to have a Wild player only miss one game as opposed to a week. With Bogosian back, recalled David Jiricek was scratched.
(Photo of Filip Gustavsson, David Pastrnak and Brock Faber: Matt Krohn / Imagn Images)
