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By Justin Wiggins -
Just like relationships, some losses in sports are just harder to move on from than others. It’s why, over a week later, we are still here dissecting the Minnesota Wild's most recent first-round collapse.
You can try to sugarcoat it, as many have done all week, but the truth is staring this team in the face.
They haven’t learned how to close out a series.
I won’t dive into a soliloquy about the past five years. If you have the stomach for it, just read for yourself.
It’s been eight days since the Vegas Golden Knights eliminated the Wild from the playoffs. But I still can’t wrap my head around the coaching staff's missed opportunity to set a new standard for future Wild teams.
They should have benched Gustav Nyquist.
Not for the reasons you might think. Well, maybe that. Nyquist was nearly invisible all series, except for the time the spotlight of the entire hockey world was firmly placed upon him following Game 5.
You know the story. Ryan Hartman scored with just over a minute remaining in the third period of Game 5. However, after review, the league waived the goal because Nyquist was a few inches offside.
Nyquist’s teammates came to his defense, attempting to remind the media and fans that Nyquist’s error was an error everyone commits throughout a season. Multiple times, too.
“It happens 50 times a game,” said Hartman. “Just happened to be it was on a goal.”
Although Nyquist’s teammates aren’t entirely wrong, head coach John Hynes missed an opportunity to set a new standard for future Minnesota Wild teams entering the playoffs.
Plain and simple, it was a completely avoidable mental mistake. “Mental mistake” is the key term here. Nyquist inexplicably made very little attempt to ensure he was onside before entering the zone at such a pivotal moment of the game and series.
The time was ripe for Hynes and the Wild to make an example out of Nyquist’s error by sitting him for Game 6.
Often, a few bounces decide a tightly contested playoff series. The need for attention to detail ramps up in the playoffs, never more so than in the final minutes of a period, let alone a game.
Sitting Nyquist would have sent a message to the returning players that “close” is not the same as winning. Placing Nyquist in the press box would have sent shock waves through the dressing room.
There is no margin for mental errors in the pursuit of Lord Stanley.
Nyquist was the perfect scapegoat for the coaching staff. Since they traded for Nyquist immediately before the deadline, he has been a shell of the player who nearly produced at a point-per-game clip last season. His skating had fallen off, and his inability to drive offense was maddening.
On top of his poor play, Nyquist will likely not be a part of the Wild's future. His continued poor play through the first five games of the series made that abundantly clear. He’ll undoubtedly walk out of Minnesota when free agency begins on July 1.
So why protect him? Why go to such lengths to protect a player who was not making any sort of impact on the ice on the Wild’s second line? Why protect a player with no chance of remaining on your team?
Replacing his spot in the lineup with, say, Liam Ohgren couldn’t have possibly been a step down in production, right? It’s hard to imagine any of the Wild’s reserve forwards providing less to the lineup than what Nyquist showed.
But it was less about what the Wild could have gained in Game 6 and potentially a Game 7. It's about what the Wild could have gained in the next handful of years as they aim to truly compete for a Stanley Cup.
Sitting Nyquist would have put every player on notice: Winning the Stanley Cup requires an extra level of physical effort and the attention to detail needed to win in April, May, and, hopefully, June.
Instead, they gave Nyquist a pass. The teaching moment for Hynes was right there, gift-wrapped. The right player, contract situation, and moment.
And yet he let it slip right through his fingers.
I guess the Wild will need to wait another calendar year for their core to learn what it takes to win in the playoffs. But you don’t always learn that lesson through victory. Sometimes, agonizing defeat can be just as valuable a learning tool.
But to the Wild’s staff, that moment, inexplicably, was not now.
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