ST. LOUIS – We all know what the Wild are going to get from the new top line of Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy.
That’s because we saw it last year when they were one of the NHL’s most dominant trios. They were dynamic and came up with lots of goals, tons of sustained pressure and a plethora of pucks toward the net.
But the Wild’s big fear of loading up one line, especially on the road, is whether they’ll be able to find the offensive depth and balance to take pressure off the Wild’s big guns.
Well, at least for one game, the Wild found a line to do just that.
Yes, the Wild’s first line got theirs during a 4-2 win over the St. Louis Blues. Kaprizov scored his 12th and 13th goals to extend his road point streak to a franchise-record-tying 10 games, and the three linemates combined for 13 shots and another 14 attempted.
But in the Wild’s eighth road win, it was the new second line of Marcus Johansson, Marco Rossi and Ryan Hartman that could be relied upon shift after shift for persistent offensive zone time and scoring chances.
The line connected for two goals, the first being Hartman’s game-opening goal for the team’s league-leading 12th first goal of the season, then teaming up to help create Jonas Brodin’s winning goal with 6 minutes, 16 seconds left in the third period.
“I thought Rossi’s line had good chemistry,” coach John Hynes said. “That’s what we needed from them. They obviously all have a high skill level, but I thought that they played with speed. They worked as a three-man unit. I thought they moved the puck well. They were competitive on the puck in the offensive zone and that allowed them to be able to help us produce tonight.”
Hartman didn’t get an assist on Brodin’s winner, but it was his board battle win that allowed Johansson to come out with the puck and pass up top to Jared Spurgeon, who swung it left to Brodin to unload.
Welcome back, Jonas Brodin 💣
Clutch goal to beat Binnington short side and give the Wild the lead pic.twitter.com/wzUovhyVD8
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) November 20, 2024
“I think when Hartzy’s moving his feet, and he’s competitive on the puck, that’s what makes him a good player,” Hynes said. “Tonight he had those things. He’s shown over the course of a while now in the offensive zone, he gets to the net front. He’s a real competitive guy and he’s playing competitive in those areas of the ice and that’s what you need when you have a guy like Marco and Johansson where they’re good skating, open-ice players.
“When Hartzy’s moving his feet to keep the pace with those guys and then he competes in hard areas, it complements them.”
He’s not alone.
On Hartman’s goal for a 1-0 first-period lead, Rossi made a tremendous play along the wall at the red line. He stick-lifted Dylan Holloway, protected the puck and pushed it ahead to Hartman.
“I saw (Brock Faber) at the back of me and I saw the other forward coming in front of me,” Rossi said, laughing. “I should probably check first if there was someone coming. So I had to stick lift and just pass it to Hartzy.”
Ryan Hartman works around the defender and opens the scoring up for Minnesota!#mnwild pic.twitter.com/H4ab0Xlw4N
— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) November 20, 2024
Rossi is second on the Wild with 13 even-strength points and has a point in 13 of 18 games. What makes him so impressive is for an undersized guy, he often makes these nifty plays in high traffic in all areas of the ice. And he always is willing to go to the net front.
“He’s strong. He battles,” Hartman said. “There were a lot of one-on-one battles this training camp, and I went against him a couple times. And he’s strong. He’s like a little pit bull in there. He’s got skill. He can score goals. He can make really strong plays. He’ll go to the net.”
Hartman chuckled, saying, “The goalie might be looking over (Rossi) a little bit, but he’s there, he’s creating chaos in there.”
The Wild improved to 12-3-3 and are tied with Washington with the second-most points in the NHL (27). They also lead the league with 18 points on the road, tied for the most road wins with eight.
A lot of the reason is Kaprizov, who just continues his torrid pace on the road. He has multi-point games in nine of his past 10 road games. He leads the league with 12 multi-point games overall and is tied for first with four multi-goal games. He is second in the NHL with 33 points and tied for second with teammate Jake Middleton with a plus-17. Middleton, a plus-3 Tuesday, choked up on his stick to intentionally fire a puck for Kaprizov to redirect for his first goal.
Kirill Kaprizov is a machine 🛠️
His 12th of the year gives the Wild the lead pic.twitter.com/NmYf2ZT55O
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) November 20, 2024
He’s also got a knack for burying empty-netters, leading the league with five now. He’s not out there to pad his stats — Hynes just trusts Kaprizov that much to protect a lead and then ice a victory.
In the Wild’s second road game of the season, Filip Gustavsson became the first goalie in Wild history to bury an empty-net goal. Tuesday night, he just continued to do what he always does – stop pucks. He made 22 saves to improve to 9-3-2 and left the empty-net honors to Kaprizov.
“Of course,” Gustavsson said of Kaprizov, who is eligible to sign a monumental extension July 1. “Kirill needs to get his points. He’s got (to get) a contract here.”
The Blues got off to a fast start with Gustavsson having to make five saves in the first 90 seconds. But the Wild suddenly found their game and their legs and played a strong, tight game the rest of the way.
In St. Louis a month ago, the Wild dominated the third period. Tuesday, after Kaprizov gave the Wild a 2-1 lead, Jake Neighbours scored on the power play to potentially force overtime.
But the Wild’s second line went to work and created Brodin’s big goal to avoid consecutive regulation losses for the first time this season.
“We just like to play on the road,” said Brodin, who missed the previous two games with an upper-body injury. “When we have a bad game I feel like we come back and have a good next game. We don’t let it slip to two, three games right now. So that’s a good thing. It’s been good on the road and I feel like everyone is going.”
What Hynes really liked is the Wild had a hard practice the day before in St. Paul, in which he stopped practice a few times and implored his players to play with purpose and stop passing up shots. Even if the perfect play wasn’t there, he wanted shots for rebounds, and the Wild sure listened to him because there were many examples of that Tuesday, especially from the Rossi line.
“We had an emphasis in practice and emphasis in the meetings when we talked about our offensive game the last couple of days,” Hynes said. “Showed them examples of what it is and I think three of the goals were basically top shots with some net-front presence in those areas.
“So it was good. That’s the thing with the guys. We try to do our job to make sure we’re trying to present them with the right things to go through, but they’re very receptive. They’re coachable. We’re on the same page and tonight they got rewarded for it.”
(Photo: Jeff Curry / Imagn Images)
