Wild Sneak Out Shootout Win Over Avalanche

Wow, the Rantanen thing was kept pretty quiet to outsiders, really, only the team and he knows what happened. I am guessing that Rantanen did not want to play as structured as the Hurricanes do. 

Gutsy win last night. Again, the Wild tend to be hard to watch at this point, and Heinzy has got to double down on low event hockey and stay within the structure. Watching last night was a bit frustrating as it's allergy season and apparently the Wild have an allergy to the middle of the ice in the offensive zone. Everything is perimeter except for turnovers. 

Boldy and Rossi appeared on the scoresheet with Zuccarello. Boldy's SO move was really, really good. Actually, so was Zuccarello's which set up Boldy's move. Goose played really, really well and never saw the puck that got past him. He was so screened when the puck went into the crowd, who knew where it was coming out. 

Colorado has a lot of speed built into their lineup. However, it seemed like they were also getting bounced around a lot by a lineup that isn't the largest in the league. I am intrigued about a Colorado/Dallas 1st round matchup. One team will go home feeling like complete failures! 

I do not believe the Wild are catching Colorado. LaPanta was even talking about Colorado's record after the Blackwood trade being 4th in the league. The Wild were never going to hold them back with the injuries they've had. But, in the grand scheme of things, Vancouver lost last night, so they are now 9 points behind us along with St. Louis. 

The hard report to receive last night was at the beginning of the game. Kaprizov, Ek, Brodin were part of the injury chart, and NONE of them have started skating yet. Now, the information that Shooter received from the medical department indicated all 3 of these guys were supposed to be back before the end of the regular season. I would consider that back before the end of March to be valid. Any later, and the Wild should have gone big fish hunting and held them out for conditioning for a couple of weeks.

What happens if these 3 are not back by then? We've already zeroed in on our medical staff needing some scrutiny, but does this put a laser focus on that aspect of the organization? Guerin acted based upon their opinion. Does he have any repercussions in this?

Points are points, even if won by slowing the game to a crawl to survive.

Was a boring, sandpaper type game, but I think that is how the Wild need to play for now, especially against a team like the avs. Reminded me of some early 2000's Jacques Lemaire style hockey. The Avs are sooooo fast, if you let them get going it will be a long night. With the current scoring struggles they will need to defensively clamp down and limit any and all chances. The team needs to just try to stay competitive and in the playoff hunt and hopefully Brodin, Kap, and Ek will return and then we see what will happen in the playoffs. But as Citizen said, points are points, they don't ask how, they ask how many.

1 hour ago, mnfaninnc said:

Wow, the Rantanen thing was kept pretty quiet to outsiders, really, only the team and he knows what happened. I am guessing that Rantanen did not want to play as structured as the Hurricanes do. 

The agent did a great job of communicating it. I don't always trust the agent, but the way he explained it sounded rather believable.

Carolina might regret trading Necas & Drury for the eventual return of Stankoven and a couple 1st round picks, but their GM probably should have been certain Rantanen wanted to play there before making the trade for him given his pending FA status.

35 minutes ago, IllicitFive said:

Was a boring, sandpaper type game, but I think that is how the Wild need to play for now, especially against a team like the avs.

I thought it was pretty entertaining.  Low scoring but lot's of action.  Given the way Avs had our ears pinned back thru first 8-10 minutes I thought they were going to hang a snow man on the boys.

I'm going to give most of the credit to Hynzy.  Bro is low-key putting on a coaching clinic this season given all the adversity (injuries, cap hell, no help from bill in terms of new blood).

5 minutes ago, Pewterschmidt said:

I thought it was pretty entertaining.  Low scoring but lot's of action.  Given the way Avs had our ears pinned back thru first 8-10 minutes I thought they were going to hang a snow man on the boys.

I'm going to give most of the credit to Hynzy.  Bro is low-key putting on a coaching clinic this season given all the adversity (injuries, cap hell, no help from bill in terms of new blood).

I will give you that, just not your typical "explosive exciting high scoring affair" but watching how frustrated Avs players would get being pushed to the outside or being poke checked was a fun time.  Hynzy is indeed giving a master class on working with what you have. For all of the hand wringing and complaining about the hiring I think its turned out pretty well so far.

Stat sheet doesn't have Boldy with any hits, but I'll tip my cap to him this game.  He looked like he was playing a physical game, and Zuccarello's goal was 100% due to Boldy's pursuit and compete.  Between being rewarded for working his ass off with the apple, and the nifty shoot-out move, I'm hoping this kick starts a Boldy hot streak that this team desperately needs.

The whole team was playing physical, and the compete was there.  I know Colorado was on the tail end of the back to back, but the board battles were being won and the zone entries were difficult.

And they kept the compete level up through the end of the game.  The last shift MoJo was hustling his ass off to not let Makar get to open ice.

A much needed 2 points for the team, and I hope they can keep riding this momentum.  They were able to shutdown a very good looking Colorado team.