Iowa Wild Weekly Report: January 5th

After

Iowa didn't answer back on the scoreboard until the third, with an even strength goal by Mitchell from Hagel and Dumba. Arvidsson countered with an unassisted breakaway goal. But Iowa displayed resiliency, when Schroeder scored a power play goal with assists to Blum and Keranen with less than four minutes to play in regulation. This game against the Admirals would not need a shootout because Schroeder scored again on the power play, this time from Syvret and Dumba.

Next, the Wild headed east for a pair of games in New York State. The first stop was Friday night versus the Rochester Americans. This game featured a goaltending matchup that was a repeat of the

John Curry started in goal for the Wild for their final game of the week against the Utica Comets. Once again, the first period was scoreless. In the second period the Wild got another goal from Schroeder, his 10th of the season, from Hagel. The rest of the period was scoreless. Three minutes into the third period, Mitchell scored and even strength goal from Blum and Schroeder, which gave Schroeder his 7th multi-point with the Iowa Wild.

This week featured two wins with only two goal scorers. Mitchell and Schroeder scored all 5 of the Wild's goals. Torchetti commented after the game in Utica that he expected Schroeder to bring his best game because the Comets were his old team, but he also said "I thought three of the lines showed up out of four tonight, so that's a little better. [Friday] night we had two [lines]."

Iowa has not displayed much scoring depth, and with Graovac up with Minnesota, Iowa has even fewer players who regularly score goals. After the goals scored this week, Schroeder has now reached double digits in goals scored, and the only other player with more than Schroeder is Graovac with 12 goals. Keranen has been great in the assist column, and he leads the team in scoring with 25 points. While Iowa does seem to be improving under Coach Torchetti, they just don't have the depth in their roster to out-score bad goaltending, which they've been getting on a lot of nights from Gustafsson.