Article: Wild Suffer Brutal 7-1 Loss To Oilers

[Thomas Williams]

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[TheGoosesAreLooses]

The more concerning element is that Midsy was injured. 

I think we take a breath and bounce back fine. We are knee deep in injuries right now, missing 2 of 4 top defensemen and 2 of our top 6. We still have 14.7m in cap hit and it will show through in our depth. If we can continue to beat teams not destined for playoffs until we start getting back guys from injury we should still be in good shape. I think Gus may be playing with something lingering too and it may be a good time to call up the Wall and let him have some games to let Gus rest. We had a bad game, those are going to happen. Our trajectory is still good and I feel like if we can tread water until we fill back in the season will still end in playoffs.

[Sam]

It was brutal, but we will bounce back. Lauko should get a point for that fight. Man, that was a good scrap!

[MacGyver]

I'm not saying they aren't capable of it but it would take a nose dive of pretty epic proportions for them to miss the playoffs at this point. 

[mnfaninnc]

I turned off the game after the 2nd period. I can only hope that Heinzy did the only sane thing which was give Fleury the 3rd period. This has nothing to do with how Goose played, I thought he was good. Even that fluky one that looked like a slow pitch softball pitch was hard to track. Nobody expects those. 

It was the team in front of him. They were extra bad. We haven't had too many of those types of games this season, but they do creep in from time to time. These are the ones where you throw the tape away and burn it....but, there were some valuable teaching tools inside the tape.

As TGAL said above, losing Midsy in 37 seconds was a killer. The tape will show that Faber tried to play his off side and didn't do well. I don't know how many were scored against him in this area, but his gaps and angles were all off. This would be good material to show him, he needed to settle down into his normal calm playing demeanor. 

Spurgy, I thought, got abused physically. This is not the 1st time this season it has happened either. For the most part, he's been pretty good, but he's still kicking rust off those side panels. Simply put, Edmonton was too fast for him. 

Merrill looked a bit like an orange cone, he was not competitive and this game was well above his head. Chisholm looked off to me too. His skating was faltering and that's not Chisholm. Bogosian looked pretty much like his usual self. 

Let's just say Midsy broke his hand. Now what? Do we call up Jirzy and play one of the defenders on their offside? Or do we call up Lambos who's a little more familiar with the structure and is playing well? Or, do you call up both and sit Merrill? I would probably opt for C.

So, the early injury put the defense in a tough spot. Defending McDavid is never easy but defending them and being short is pretty taxing. The forwards didn't really pick up much slack. They followed up passes in their skates by putting passes in each other's skates. 

Many will look at Boldy and just shake their heads. These penalties have been deserved even if he disagrees. The big issue here, I think, is that Boldy is trying to do too much. He's trying to put the team on his back and has put pressure on himself to be dominant. He doesn't need to play outside of his own capabilities, and this is a common occurrence in a younger player. He also looks like he's playing tight, which adds to this opinion. I like the extra effort, but we don't have to be spinning the wheels every play.

[mnfaninnc]

2 minutes ago, MacGyver said:

I'm not saying they aren't capable of it but it would take a nose dive of pretty epic proportions for them to miss the playoffs at this point. 

You mean like when Koivu exited the lineup and we fell from the top to out of the playoffs many years ago? Good thing lightening doesn't strike twice....I hope. 

Just out of curiosity, who else had this same feeling when we were #1 in the league just finding out Ek was hurt? 

[raithis]

Do we have any idea when Ek or Brodin might be back?  I'm not saying Zuccarello wouldn't help too, but I'd rather have Ek or Brodin back more than Zuccarello.  If we can stay in games, we can find a way to score.

Any idea on returns for either of them?

[Willy the poor boy]

16 minutes ago, raithis said:

Do we have any idea when Ek or Brodin might be back?  I'm not saying Zuccarello wouldn't help too, but I'd rather have Ek or Brodin back more than Zuccarello.  If we can stay in games, we can find a way to score.

Any idea on returns for either of them?

Brodin started skating along with Zuck yesterday so they shouldn't be to far away. Ek still not skating.

[Thatoneguy]

20 minutes ago, raithis said:

Do we have any idea when Ek or Brodin might be back?  I'm not saying Zuccarello wouldn't help too, but I'd rather have Ek or Brodin back more than Zuccarello.  If we can stay in games, we can find a way to score.

Any idea on returns for either of them?

I thought I read that Brodin was skating again, so his return should be soon. I didn't see any definite time line though 

[FredJohnson]

2 hours ago, TheGoosesAreLooses said:

The more concerning element is that Midsy was injured. 

I think we take a breath and bounce back fine. We are knee deep in injuries right now, missing 2 of 4 top defensemen and 2 of our top 6. We still have 14.7m in cap hit and it will show through in our depth. If we can continue to beat teams not destined for playoffs until we start getting back guys from injury we should still be in good shape. I think Gus may be playing with something lingering too and it may be a good time to call up the Wall and let him have some games to let Gus rest. We had a bad game, those are going to happen. Our trajectory is still good and I feel like if we can tread water until we fill back in the season will still end in playoffs.

Reminiscent of last season. 😳

[raithis]

16 minutes ago, Willy the poor boy said:

Brodin started skating along with Zuck yesterday so they shouldn't be to far away. Ek still not skating.

Good to know.  Hopefully no more than a week then on those two.

[Enforceror]

This season, the Panthers have beat the Jets 5-0. Blackhawks beat the Stars 6-2. Utah beat Vegas 6-0. Sharks beat the Kings 7-2. 

Just a blip. Forget it and move on. Even with injuries, we have enough depth to keep from nose-diving too far. Plus hockey is just weird sometimes.

[Citizen Strife]

Dermott taken off waivers.  Probably the new Mermis.

[Pewterschmidt]

3 hours ago, Sam said:

It was brutal, but we will bounce back. Lauko should get a point for that fight. Man, that was a good scrap!

Each game Laukzy does another thing that gets him noticed.  This time it was pounding Emerson into submission.  Laukz was a great value add addition to this group.  Kid checks alot of bottom six boxes

[hockey_fan_87]

I don't want to make to much out of one bad game, but the terrible play of the special teams is very concerning.  The PK is going backwards, and it is almost embarrassingly bad.  The #1 PP, missing two key forwards is expected to struggle, but they were terrible last night.  I thought the second unit looked better.  Boldy is taking stupid penalties, all from reaching instead of skating.  Merrill has looked completely outmatched.  We would be better off playing a prospect, who would learn from his mistakes.

[Imyourhuckleberry]

57 minutes ago, Citizen Strife said:

Dermott taken off waivers.  Probably the new Mermis.

Quite a bit better than Mermis though. Mermis is 30 years old and his only season above 10 NHL games was last year, where his numbers were poor.

Dermott turns 28 soon, but has played 50+ games in an NHL season 5 times already. He's not going to blow anyone away, given he was a waiver, but he's a respectable 7th NHL defenseman who might not look too overmatched pressed into 3rd pairing minutes--he played a lot for Arizona last season.

[MrCheatachu]

Just saw that Midsy went straight to LTIR. 

LTIR is 10 games AND 24 calendar days, so the soonest he'd be able to come back looks like January 7th.

Maybe reading into the tea leaves too much, but Ekker went on IR a week ago (December 5) being 'week-to-week' and since LTIR is retroactive, I would assume this means they think he'd be back before December 31...

No bueno

[Protec]

Not so bad with a nice bounceback game against Philly. How bout the Fleury save on Konecny? That was sick bro! 😃

For real the Wild are deep and can recover from a bad game. They're top five in the NHL no matter how you spin it. 

[Mateo3xm]

On 12/13/2024 at 2:40 PM, hockey_fan_87 said:

I don't want to make to much out of one bad game, but the terrible play of the special teams is very concerning.  The PK is going backwards, and it is almost embarrassingly bad.  The #1 PP, missing two key forwards is expected to struggle, but they were terrible last night.  I thought the second unit looked better.  Boldy is taking stupid penalties, all from reaching instead of skating.  Merrill has looked completely outmatched.  We would be better off playing a prospect, who would learn from his mistakes.

That’s to be expected with all the players out. 

Edited December 16, 2024 by Mateo3xm

[raithis]

1 hour ago, Mateo3xm said:

That’s to be expected with all the players out. 

Exactly.  Can't give the PP unit a pass just because they are missing players and then say the PK is going backwards when Brodin, Ek, etc have been out.  Thankfully Brodin is back now.  That helps, but we are still a lot of players and most get PK time.

[Protec]

The Vegas loss was lousy cause MN had a ton of good chances and didn't get a bounce or two while Vegas did. 

Minnesota has shown a lot of resilience IMO. They're gonna be fine.