By Sean Flick -
The Minnesota Wild have played 58 games, have 24 games remaining, and are 4 points behind the Nashville Predators for the final playoff spot. Still, they continue to consistently leave folks wondering, What is the identity of this team? It’s nice that they’ve gone 7-1-1 since the All-Star break. However, their last three games on the road didn’t help me find this team’s identity.
In the Winnipeg Jets game, I saw a team that appeared to be lollygagging. They allowed the Jets to go up 2-0, including a power play. Jacob Middleton also coughed up a turnover right in front of Marc-Andre Fleury, who kept Winnipeg’s lead at 2-0 by making the save. The Wild had too many turnovers, and it seemed like they were going through the motions.
Minnesota and Winnipeg each had six penalties, and they both scored twice with the man advantage. However, if you take those goals out of the final score, the Jets would have won 4-1. Winnipeg’s backup goalie, Laurent Brossoit, didn’t have to work too hard, squaring himself to the puck all 39 times the Wild shot. Unfortunately for Fleury, the guys in front of him weren’t boxing opponents out. The Jets screened him on most shots, which led to a couple of goals he could’ve stopped had he seen the puck coming at him.
But the Wild looked like an entirely different team three days later against the Edmonton Oilers, a highly capable offensive team. Minnesota was swarming Edmonton’s puck carriers all night. The Oilers requested a review of the Wild’s first goal, which got overturned on an offsides call. It was the result of an over-anxious Kirill Kaprizov. Although, I suppose if you don’t try to push a rush into the offensive zone, you’ll never know if you’ll get called.
Minnesota’s first official goal was the reason that I feel hockey is a beautiful game. It started with Brock Faber playing great defense. He played the puck up the boards in front of the Edmonton wing to Joel Eriksson Ek, who was anticipating it and made the smart pass to Jake Middleton at the top of the defensive zone. Middleton then tflippedthe puck through the neutral zone to an open Matt Boldy at the top of the right face-off circle.
Boldy turned to the center of the zone and ripped a wrister past Edmonton goalie Calvin Pickard. Total. Team. Effort.
Even Filip Gustavsson was at his best. He was seeing the puck all game, partially because a bunch of Edmonton’s players weren’t in front of the net, blocking his vision. Aside from the two power-play goals he gave up, the Oilers hit him in the logo on his sweater most of the night. It indicated that he was square to the puck -- on 43 shots, no less. The Wild didn’t have happy feet, flying around the ice aimlessly. They were playing their game and not panicking while staying within their system.
The next night? More of the same. After Vince Dunn started the scoring off with a left post clanker that went in, the Wild scored five unanswered goals in Seattle. They scored on two of their six power plays. However, Minnesota put the Seattle Kraken on the man advantage five times, which I’m sure John Hynes took exception to. But it’s always a positive sign when the Wild get four assists from Mats Zuccarello. On one of them, Zuccarello and Kaprizov appeared to play catch behind Seattle’s net until Kirill saw he could sneak it past goaltender Joey Daccord.
It was impressive. Kaprizov’s second goal chased Daccord. Philipp Grubauer replaced Daccord, and it was 5-1 after the second period. It would have stayed that way if Jordan Eberle had not scored a fluke of a goal.
Of Minnesota’s final 24 games, they have six games they should win: Two against the Anaheim Ducks, three against the San Jose Sharks, and one against the Chicago Blackhawks. The rest are 50/50 or worse odds, teams fighting for playoff positioning. Can the Wild maintain their 75% point winning percentage after the All-Star break? Considering they are on a 53% point winning percentage for the season? That’s a tall order. Could they do it and maintain it until the playoffs? Sure. (Thank you, Captain Obvious.)
However, considering that we don’t know what team will show up from one night until the next? We’ll see.
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