Article: Game 5 Was Bill Guerin's Worst Nightmare

[Tony Abbott]

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[B1GKappa97]

Dean's got to go. The continued ST ineptitude is just too much. How have you not made any adjustments? The Stars continue to score at will against us. Our own stars are, once again, getting stifled with no changes to their lines to spark a different result.

I don't want to hear about how we don't have Ek, they don't have Seguin so it balances out. We are flat out getting beat behind the bench. Again. 

0-3 in the 1st round despite being the better 5-on-5 team 2/3 times? Its too much. Something's got to change and Dean sure does his best to resist change so...

Edited April 26, 2023 by B1GKappa97

[Protec]

The Foligno penalty turned Seguin goal was a big factor. The Wild just don’t have the guts they think they do up to this point. They’re not so good they can win despite gifting goals to quality opponents. 
 

Taking a shit-ton of penalties and having a garbage PP has been a problem for three years. They’ve barely deserved to win the two games they’ve got. Dallas blew one themselves but the Wild better capture the momentum early and keep it or they’re done.

[Greenbean]

13 minutes ago, B1GKappa97 said:

Dean's got to go. 

I agree 100%! But it can't stop with him, the entire coaching staff has to go. This team has been bad at faceoffs, and special teams for a while now. I also think Leopold is part of the problem as well. The wild could use this cap crunch to rebuild but his ego won't allow Billy G to do that either. Get used to being good enough to not get good draft picks, and not good enough to make it past round 1 for the next several years. 

[MNCountryLife]

Put things into perspective.  Two very important penalty killers (Shaw and Ek) are out with injury.  We do not have the payroll capacity to have spares.  So I don't put the entire onus on BG and Evason.  We have a tough road ahead with limited resources.  

However, if I see Steel lose one more faceoff in our zone while on the pk I may lose it.  He has been losing them cleanly and contributing to these ultra fast goals for Dallas.  He should never take a faceoff on the PK again.  It gives the zone to Dallas uncontested.  Whoever takes the faceoff must at least prevent it from being a clean win for Dallas.

[Skolwild]

13 minutes ago, MNCountryLife said:

Put things into perspective.  Two very important penalty killers (Shaw and Ek) are out with injury.  We do not have the payroll capacity to have spares.  So I don't put the entire onus on BG and Evason.  We have a tough road ahead with limited resources.  

However, if I see Steel lose one more faceoff in our zone while on the pk I may lose it.  He has been losing them cleanly and contributing to these ultra fast goals for Dallas.  He should never take a faceoff on the PK again.  It gives the zone to Dallas uncontested.  Whoever takes the faceoff must at least prevent it from being a clean win for Dallas.

Herein lies the problem. Who can win an important draw at all?! This is why they are losing the series, this is why they likely don’t make it out of the series. They can appear to dominate 5 on 5 all they want but they seem to have lost the ability to score 5 on 5 this series and everyone knows their wonderful PK stats. Not a winning recipe. All Dallas has to do is tread water and wait for the next wild penalty. 

[Jon]

Seguin, Hintz, Heiskenan, and Oetter have been a collective difference as well.

Kirill plays with grit clearly. Boldy doesn’t have an edge, or if he does, he’s not applying it to the Stars. Gus, or any goalie, facing the PP is insane when your team is not disrupting lanes. With so many other issues, it is really hard to pinpoint what are the causes of the issues and how many there are. 

[Beast]

40 minutes ago, MNCountryLife said:

Put things into perspective.  Two very important penalty killers (Shaw and Ek) are out with injury.  We do not have the payroll capacity to have spares.  So I don't put the entire onus on BG and Evason.  We have a tough road ahead with limited resources.  

However, if I see Steel lose one more faceoff in our zone while on the pk I may lose it.  He has been losing them cleanly and contributing to these ultra fast goals for Dallas.  He should never take a faceoff on the PK again.  It gives the zone to Dallas uncontested.  Whoever takes the faceoff must at least prevent it from being a clean win for Dallas.

We did have the payroll capacity to have spares (at least not any less than anyone else does).  We chose to use that to facilitate difference making trades like OReilly to Toronto (who, once again, has flipped the playoff switch and is a monster - if Geurin want to learn what grit really means, look at that guy).  We also made a bunch of trades for those spares.

Dont get me wrong.  The trades were good.  The 4 guys we acquired have combined for 11 points in the series and a +5 in the series.  My point is our inability to acquire players isn’t the problem.  It’s the regulars on the team that are problem.

Shaw isn’t that much of a difference maker.  I love him as a spark plug and a fourth liner.  But, that’s not why we’re getting our asses kicked on special teams.  Shaw isn’t flipping this series.

Ek is a big loss.  But, they’re missing a top line winger who is a 30 goal scorer with 80 points and a +40 on the season (and guess what - he’s been out all but 5 minutes of the series and still has as many points as Kaprisov in the series).  Ek was a +4 on the ice this year.  Different roles for sure, but probably equally valuable.  They’ve adapted and found a way to score without Pavelski.  We haven’t found a way to defend without Ek.

This is squarely on BG and Evason, IMO.  We have limited resources going forward because BG chose to buy out the guy who is absolutely kicking our ass in this series.  The Fleury decision was absolutely inexcusable.  Guatavsson, even after last night, has a 2.01 GAA and .928 SV% in the series.  He hasn’t allowed more than 3 goals in a game.  Hindsight is 20/20, I get it.  But they get paid to get these decisions right, and they haven’t.

[Millante]

Boss ruined the game for me yesterday so I didn't even watch it... still not happy though. A shutout just hands Dallas massive momentum.

 

Maybe with two days off they'll practice the PK...

I'm also part of the group that's almost positive the refs were going to call Foligno for anything and eject him from the game to 'send a message.' He shouldn't have handed it to them on a silver platter and so early... that was dumb.

[jgodwin17]

So Foligno.......you make a bunch of public comments about how the refs calls were Bullshit (they were) and how they are arrogant (again, they are), and then you take to the ice and immediately take a penalty. Was it probably overcalled (probably a two minute trip in my mind), considering you didn't change angles to hit the knee? Sure. But you can't go and say all those things about the refs publicly and expect them to not be watching you like a damn hawk for any single thing they can call you on. So stupid.

The problem with the this team is despite being "grit first" how many goals has this team banked in off the a rebound, or hammered home in the blue paint this series? How many goals have we scored when we were screening Oettinger? Not freaking man. I don't know what it is with our forwards, but its almost like they are afraid to screen the goalie and get dirty in the blue paint. In game four when we were 6 on 5, we had Jared Spurgeon screening the goaltender. FFS, why is the smallest guy on the team AND a defenseman screening Oettinger? Is he the only one willing to do it? Is Ek our only forward who can play that role?

This along, with the inability to win a face-off (especially agains the Stars who have several players who are very good at sniping off of face-off wins), is why we most likely will not win the series. We also are taking a lot of stupid penalties, and it's pretty clear that the refs don't like us (especially after Foligno's comments). If we are a better 5 vs 5 team, why not try playing disciplined hockey? Is "Grit First" just playing hockey where you take more bone-headed penalties?

We clearly have the ability to suffocate the Stars in five on five (Robertson has zero points in 5 vs 5), so how about trying to screen their goaltender a bit, and may stop taking so many stupid penalties?


 

[Imyourhuckleberry]

After game 1, I thought that whoever won game 4 was likely going to win the series. I'd really enjoy the Wild turning things around, but I'm skeptical that game 7 will go in their favor if they are able to extend to that game.

Dallas winning game 2 was virtually inevitable given that they are at least as good as the Wild and could not afford to lose it.

The Wild played their best game in game 3, but couldn't get the win in game 4 when Dallas was desperate for a win again, then couldn't buy a goal in game 5.

Eriksson-Ek missing is probably just too much for the Wild to overcome, particularly with Kaprizov playing through injury.

Shaw & Dewar had a chemistry that was undeniable and the Wild have lost quite a bit of grit with Eriksson-Ek and Shaw out.

Johansson brings some quality skating, but grit he does not have--he had 1 hit in 20 games with the Wild in the regular season. His offense has been surprisingly effective, but he's also not really good defensively, so I don't understand using him on the PK.

The Wild are missing 2 key penalty killers and it's certainly showing. The replacements simply don't bring the same skillset.