Article: The Wild Need More From Their Goaltending Duo

[Robert Brent]

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[Thatoneguy]

The wild need their depth players to.put the puck in the back of the net once in a while more than anything. Hard for a goalie when they have to shut out the opponent every game to win.

[Citizen Strife]

Gus and Fleury are doing better than last year, when they were barely over backup level quality.  The defensive scheme is helping the team win, but the weird PK foibles and scoring woes still leave a lot of holes for the team to fix before they compete.

[Imyourhuckleberry]

38 minutes ago, Thatoneguy said:

The wild need their depth players to.put the puck in the back of the net once in a while more than anything. Hard for a goalie when they have to shut out the opponent every game to win.

Not only that, they need their current top line players to put the puck in the back of the net far more frequently than they have been lately.

In the last 6 games, neither Boldy nor Rossi have tallied a goal. They need goal production from those 2 in order to have a shot at winning consistently.

[FredJohnson]

DOOM!!!

[Citizen Strife]

[SkolWild73]

I agree they need their goaltending to be better, especially the soft goals, but although Boldy and Rossi have played well for the most part during this run without Kap, they do need to start putting the puck in the net, or at worst, setting others up. Last game they had ten shots on goal between then, so hopefully a few start lighting the lamp.

[SkolWild73]

Cool stat I saw while watching the game tonight was the even strength points scored by players 23 and under this year.  Rossi was 2nd with 41 and Boldy was 5th with 38 in the league.

[Citizen Strife]

So...how about that goaltending?

[Thatoneguy]

1 hour ago, Citizen Strife said:

So...how about that goaltending?

Gus should have got a hat trick on top of his performance last night. 

[mnfaninnc]

Robert is right on here. Goose needs to be better. In his defense, however, so does our defense. Early on, the Wild weren't concerned with perimeter shots. It seems now that instead of staying packed in and blocking shots, the Wild D has moved more outside and have let guys inside of their packed area. 

This should get tightened up, and it will make the goalie's job a lot easier.

Now, on to the softies. These have to be eliminated. The Wild can't score right now and the goalies need to do 2 things. 

1. Stop everything they're supposed to stop
2. Freeze the play much more.

Yes, we suck in the faceoff circle, but freezing down plays interrupts rhythm of opponents and that is something needed right now. 

[IllicitFive]

There seems to be quite a few articles and comments trying to pin point the specific problem or solution. I believe this is more a culmination of circumstances. Much like how getting someone like B Tkachuk or E Petterson would strengthen the line up by pushing good players to roles on the 2nd 3rd and 4th lines the inverse has been true with injuries. Losing Kap has pushed someone into line one role and forced to back fill. Same with Ek, Brodin currently, and all of the injuries they have had this year. Have you number 1 or 2 center being filled in by someone like Hartman or Freddy.

Current line 1 is Zuccy, Rossi, Boldy. 2 is Johansson Freddy and Nyquist. Have Kap back with Rossi/Ek and Zuccy, Line 2 with the other center, boldy and Nyquist. Replace shore with Freddy, maybe NOJO gets to sit in the box. On defense they can maybe push out Merril? Having more offense, maybe even 2 lines who can score would help push the game and take pressure off the defense and goalies. Having Brodin back would help as he is a top 3 defender at worst. 

To be clear, I am not saying "if they were healthy, cup run here we come", but more that losing a top 3 NHL player would hurt most any team, losing EK and Brodin would not be easy for most anyone either. Its a team sport, losing offense stresses defense and goaltending. Losing defense stresses the offense. One thing leads to another.

[Beswell13]

This article is beyond ridiculous. The goaltending has to be better? Gus is still in the top 5 in the league for save percentage. In his last four games he has a .933 save percentage and a 1.75 goals against average. The Wild have a 1.5 goals for average in those games. Despite the Wild only scoring 1.5 goals per game, Gus has a 3-1 record. That's pretty amazing.  Kaprizov has missed 27 games and is still the leading goal scorer on the team. This isn't a goaltending problem, and the author of the article needs to stick to writing about things he has a slight clue on 

[Up North Guy]

On 3/12/2025 at 3:57 PM, Beswell13 said:

This article is beyond ridiculous. The goaltending has to be better? Gus is still in the top 5 in the league for save percentage. In his last four games he has a .933 save percentage and a 1.75 goals against average. The Wild have a 1.5 goals for average in those games. Despite the Wild only scoring 1.5 goals per game, Gus has a 3-1 record. That's pretty amazing.  Kaprizov has missed 27 games and is still the leading goal scorer on the team. This isn't a goaltending problem, and the author of the article needs to stick to writing about things he has a slight clue on 

i agree but also recognize that Gus has had issues this year. I think they are once again being diminished but they have been there. Personally I think Flower has had a better year than I expected.

[RedLake]

Can Gus do it back to back. Rangers should blow us outta da water tonight unless gussy says differently.