Zuccarello: ‘We play defense like we’re a fucking junior team’

The Minnesota Wild’s 2022-23 season was supposed to start differently. It was going to be the year that the Wild might take all of this sustained regular season success and put it into a playoff series win. It was going to be the year that we saw the new core led by Matt Boldy, Marco Rossi, Calen Addison, and their young friends, take full control of the team and lift the existing key players to new heights. On paper, everything looked right. Good legendary goaltender, the same blue line with a new added spark, and the same forward lines that gave Minnesota its best season in franchise history last year with a couple new and exciting additions.

Well, it hasn’t gone to that optimistic plan.

Through the first two games, the Wild have given up 14 goals to the Los Angeles Kings and the New York Rangers. Two good hockey teams that should be making the playoffs this year, but Minnesota has been caught on its back foot, giving up the first few goals of the game almost immediately and then just trying to push back enough to make it a reasonable game.

Especially on Saturday against the Kings, where they suffer a 3-0 deficit in the first 12 minutes of the game, fight back to make it 3-2, but then it is 4-2 by the end of the first period. Then Joel Eriksson Ek gives us hope and makes it 4-3, Kings score 5-3, Kaprizov scores 5-4, Kings score 6-4. Then, just to make it even more painful, the Wild tie it 6-6 in the third period with Sam Steel’s first goal in Minnesota, but then just seconds later, the Kings score the game-winning goal to take it 7-6. Just heartbreaking and playing with so many emotions.

This inability to hold on to any momentum or sustained offense, letting the opposition just take control of the game and score at whim, has left some Wild players extremely frustrated. Especially winger Mats Zuccarello.

“You can’t expect to win games when you let in 14 goals in two games. Sometimes we play defense like we’re a fucking junior team. It’s the whole team. We’ve got to sharpen up,” Zuccarello said after the loss on Saturday.

That puts it extremely plainly.

We can try to reason with that fact. The Wild have been either tied or had the advantage in all categories but goals scored through the first two games — shot attempts, expected goals, scoring chances, etc. — and don’t look awful. The goals have just seemingly happened out of nowhere and Minnesota suddenly has the league’s second worst save percentage to start the season.

The only option is to try and be patient and see what potential moves in the lineup head coach Dean Evason makes. And, oh, they are hosting the reigning Stanley Cup champions, the Colorado Avalanche, on Monday. Perfect, just perfect.