By Thomas Williams -
We don’t even know how to say it differently anymore — the Minnesota Wild stink right now. Whether it is poor defense one night, terrible goaltending another, or just not being able to get enough scoring chances a whole different night; things are not going right for the Wild and they have wholeheartedly earned their 1-3-1 start to the season.
And with this stuttering start, even a typically stubborn head coach like Dean Evason, who prides himself on finding the right combinations of players and sticking with them through everything, is finding himself changing up the lineup.
On Monday’s practice, the day before they face the Montreal Canadiens, he did a complete overhaul of the lineup with three brand new forward lines and two new defense pairings.
Brand New Wild Lineup:
Kirill Kaprizov — Frederick Gaudreau — Mats Zuccarello
Matt Boldy — Marco Rossi — Marcus Foligno
Brandon Duhaime — Joel Eriksson Ek — Ryan Hartman
Tyson Jost — Sam Steel — Connor Dewar/Mason Shaw
Jake Middleton — Jared Spurgeon
Jonas Brodin — Calen Addison
Jon Merrill — Matt Dumba
We have to organize our thoughts in point form, sorry.
We’ll have to see if this works, but at least Evason is open to changing it up and tinkering to find the right match. There has not been a game from a forward line or pairing that we like and then the coach has changed it on us. All the moves have been completely justifiable, so there’s at least that comfort.
It is going to be an interesting game, no doubt.
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