By Tony Abbott -
The Minnesota Wild can't pretend that they have secondary scoring anymore. They might have been able to claim that when Joel Eriksson Ek was healthy. But over the 1-5-0 streak in their past six games, the evidence is in: They've scored nine goals in that stretch. Seven of them were either scored by Kirill Kaprizov, someone on Kaprizov's line, or the power play, which primarily features... you guessed it, Kaprizov.
It's not particularly surprising. The Wild had secondary scoring issues last season, and they still have $15 million nuked off their salary cap from the final year of the Zach Parise/Ryan Suter buyouts. There weren't many scenarios in which Minnesota wouldn't be a team that lives and dies with its top line, power play, and superstar.
Even so, this is pretty extreme. Here are the Wild's expected goals totals from the last three games when Kaprizov has been off the ice:
December 12 vs Edmonton: 1.45
December 14 vs Philadelphia: 0.77
December 15 vs Vegas: 0.89
December 18 vs Florida: 0.49
December 20 vs Utah: 1.12
December 21 @ Winnipeg: 0.70
Sure, Kaprizov gets the bulk of the power play time, which gives him more offensive opportunities... but the rest of the team should be able to chip in more than 0.90 expected goals per game.
It doesn't take a lot to figure out why, either. Without Eriksson Ek in the lineup, the second line is currently Matt Boldy and Marcus Johansson (whose play, generously, can be described as "volatile") and Freddy Gaudreau, who is having a nice bounce-back year but isn't a second-line forward.
Now that Mats Zuccarello is back in the lineup, Boldy has had to carry the second line, and he hasn't responded to the role like you'd hope. Instead of elevating his teammates, he has one goal and an assist in his past five games.
And folks... that's your second line. Ryan Hartman is your best third-liner, and he's nowhere near 100% healthy. It's hard to blame him for playing through what's ailing him, either, because the Wild are already icing an entire fourth line of AHL call-ups.
Enough is enough. This isn't working, and the Wild have a potential solution in Des Moines in Liam Öhgren.
The Wild thought enough of Öhgren to put him on the team out of camp. However, after eight games of playing fewer than 10 minutes per night, he got sent to the AHL. The reason why they sent him down is simple: He wasn't making an impact in a fourth-line role, and John Hynes couldn't find room for him in an elevated role.
That's not the case anymore. According to Evolving-Hockey's Goals Above Replacement metric, Minnesota has only eight forwards (seven healthy) with a positive offensive impact this season. Hartman's been too hurt to be on the positive side of the ledger, and Johansson's offensive impact is worse than everyone but Marat Khusnutdinov. With all due respect to call-ups Devin Shore and Ben Jones, they're not quite cutting it, either.
The Wild have a need for an influx of offense, and that's what Öhgren was supposed to be for them. Why wait?
Especially given that Öhgren has responded to his demotion exactly the way teams want their prospects to do. His 10 goals in 16 games lead the team, and his 15 points are second. He's riding a high shooting percentage (22.2%) but also shooting nearly 3.0 times per game, showing he can create his own shot.
At this point, how can anyone on the second line or below march into Hynes' office and feel aggrieved at Öhgren taking their spot? Kaprizov (7), Marco Rossi (5), Gaudreau, Boldy, and Yakov Trenin (2 each) are the only forwards with multiple goals in December. If any player is upset at losing playing time, the obvious solution would be to score.
That sounds harsh, but the secondary scoring has been absent to the point where it demands a shake-up. There are no veterans walking in through that door. The Wild had zero cap space to begin with, and they're now into LTIR money, which makes them unable to accrue cap space.
There is only one card for Guerin to play, and that's to bring in Öhgren to handle second-line and second power play duty. Even considering his slow start in the NHL, there are fewer excuses to pump the brakes with their prospect with every loss.
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