Parise Scores #300 and #301 As Wild Lose 6-3 to the Islanders

So who is it going to be?  Daryl, Michonne, Carl, Abraham, Glenn, Sasha, Maggie, Eugene, Rosita?  Who is going to face the wrath of Negan and his baseball bat of doom ‘Lucille’?  There is both anticipation and a more subtle feeling of annoyance as trailers for the new season of The Walking Dead.  For Minnesota Wild fans, it was sort of the same feeling on Saturday night as the team seemed destined to go to overtime against the New Jersey Devils.  Who would the team deploy in 3-on-3?   Mikko Koivu, Mikael Granlund and Ryan Suter, the same group of 3 players that the team had deployed unsuccessfully last season in overtime and the result was almost as swift as ‘Lucille’ bashing the life out of one of the beloved characters of the most popular show on cable television.  Ouch.

So how will the Minnesota Wild follow up that poor performance?  Dare I say the way the team performed was very much like last year in how they took their foot off the gas and allowed themselves to be distracted by the struggles of a star teammate.  Now in less than 24 hours after that loss, the Wild have to regroup to play an ornery New York Islanders squad on ice even their own players admit isn’t up to NHL standards.  It doesn’t sound like an ideal situation to redeem themselves but the Wild have their work cut out for them.  Will the Wild exercise their own ‘Lucille’ on the Islanders or will they put forth another brutal road effort?

1st Period Thoughts:  Minnesota was showing far more hustle to start the game than they have in their previous 3 where the Wild are normally outshot by a significant margin.  The Wild were moving their feet and working the puck deep and forcing the Islanders to defend their zone and were taking any chance to send shots on Thomas Griess.  The Wild also made some adjustments to their lines as Zach Parise now joined the Koivu and Granlund unit.  This line’s objective was painfully obvious, help Parise get his 300th goal as they repeatedly set up the veteran winger for shooting opportunities.  Parise had a few ok chances but the Islanders soon learned to cheat towards Parise and let Minnesota force passes to their alternate captain as he tried to reach his milestone.  This sort of combined to take away some of the momentum the team had been able to create.  The other Wild lines were ok, taking some opportunities to go on the attack Mathew Dumba found Eric Staal on a long stretch pass that nearly sprung the Thunder Bay-native for a breakaway but instead he drew a hooking call on Dennis Seidenberg.  On the power play the Wild returned to its vain attempt to set up Parise for a goal as they put him in the prime shooting position on the half wall.  It was obvious that the rest of the members of the power play unit were mostly supposed to feed Parise pucks that he could send on goal.  Griess didn’t get tested much on the power play and momentum shifted in favor of the Islanders.  Luckily for Minnesota, Kuemper looked pretty sharp as he made saves through traffic as they tried to use their big shooting defenseman like Nick Leddy, Johnny Boychuk and Travis Hamonic.  Parise is clearly feeling some pressure to contribute and he’d take a foolish interference penalty that gave the Islanders a power play.  On the man advantage the Wild penalty kill was aggressive and challenging the zone entries rather effectively and Minnesota was able to get the early kill.  Shots were even at 11 and while I was glad the Wild were shooting the puck more, there were only a few quality scoring chances so far.  Minnesota will have to find a way to create more shooting opportunities from in close.  I really wish this team would stop worrying about someone’s individual accolade and go back to playing winning hockey and letting that moment arrive in its own good time.

2nd Period Thoughts:  The 2nd started sort of similar to the previous period.  The Wild spent the opening minutes with the obvious objective of setting up Parise for #300.  A great example, Parise helps dig out a puck along the boards to Koivu who is in a good position to shoot but instead of pulling the trigger he waits for Parise on a backdoor pass that failed to connect.  Shortly after that failed chance, Mathew Dumba moved the puck up to Parise who skated in and fired a shot off the rush that beat Griess.  1-0 Wild on Parise’s 300th career NHL goal.  Unfortunately the Wild seemed to have a bit of a hangover after Parise’s tally and the Islanders would waste little time answering back.  First it was John Tavares took a Josh Bailey pass and then ripped a shot by Keumper.  Tied up at 1-1, the Islanders would strike again just 34 seconds later as Calvin de Haan scored on a wrist shot taken from the left wall that seemed to surprise Kuemper completely.  2-1 New York.  With Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau clearly annoyed by this yogurt soft goal, the Islanders would score again as Johnny Boychuk stepped into a slap shot that blew by Kuemper.  3-1 Islanders and you wondered how bad this was going to get.  Yet the Wild persisted and it was Zach Parise leading the way and playing with lots of determination as he was creating all kinds of scoring chances.  His persistence would be rewarded as he followed up a shot and jammed away at the goal pad.  The officials would review the play and much to everyone’s surprise, the replay showed the puck going completely over the goal line and just like that the Wild had cut the Islanders’ lead to one, 3-2.  Minnesota seemed to find its legs again and it had some other great chances as Mikko Koivu was robbed on a blast from the slot by Griess who also had to be solid on a bid by Nino Niederreiter from in close.  It was good to see the Wild attacking in waves but you had to wonder where that team effort was the previous half of the game.

3rd Period Thoughts:  With the Wild down by a goal and with Minnesota having some momentum after a solid finish to the 2nd you had to be hopeful.  Well it wouldn’t last as the Islanders smartly decided to not just sit back and let Minnesota tie the game but instead went on the attack.  The Islanders were taking their chances to send shots on Kuemper.  Minnesota struggled mightily to create chances against this pressure, and it was New York that would strike first as a fanned shot by Jonas Brodin at the point turned into a 3-on-2 the other way and it was Alan Quine taking his time and sniping a shot off the post and in.  4-2 Islanders.  The Islanders would add another goal just 2 minutes later as Tavares set up Thomas Hickey for a blast through a little bit of traffic that Kuemper just stared at as it blasted by him.  5-2 Islanders.  Minnesota’s focus and concentration seemed to go off the rails at this point as frustrations would start to boil over.  Nikolai Kulemin would slew foot Charlie Coyle and instead of just taking the penalty, Coyle would go after Kulemin and tackle him earning him a roughing minor and we’d end up with 4-on-4 hockey.  Even though the Wild had over 10 minutes to work with, shooting the puck seemed to be a secondary priority for Minnesota who seemed to go through the motions.  Coyle would get into another scrap as Travis Hamonic tackled the Wild winger and both would be given game misconducts for it.  Minnesota would earn a power play out of the ordeal as Hamonic got an additional roughing minor.  On the power play the Wild moved the puck very well and were sending quality shots on goal.  Although it probably didn’t hurt that the Islanders felt pretty comfortable with their 3-goal lead at this point in the game.  Minnesota would light the lamp after a minute as Staal’s shot was stopped by Greiss but Niederreiter would jam it home, 5-3 Islanders.  New York would add an empty net goal and thankfully this game came to an end.  6-3 Islanders.

Darcy Kuemper has struggled to prove that he is a viable backup option, which would allow the Wild to reduce some of the workload on Devan Dubnyk.  He didn’t do anything to diminish those questions after another rough start where he gave up some questionable goals that killed any chance the Wild had at winning this game.  Kuemper had 27 saves in the loss.  It would be one thing if the Wild were giving the Islanders tons of prime scoring chances but in many cases Kuemper had plenty of time to square up to the shooter, he just wasn’t getting the job done.  The only silver lining was the fact the Wild again were perfect on the penalty kill, forcing the Islanders to go 0-for-1.

Offensively, I know much will be made of Parise getting his 300th goal but the team tried way too hard to make this happen.  The team was passing up on scoring chances in order to set up Parise and I felt it became kind of a sideshow.  In the meantime, it seemed as though everyone else was afraid to shoot the puck or take their chances to do so.  Chris Stewart and Teemu Pulkkinen and the 4th line did not bring much of anything.  While Parise played well, the rest of the team seemed to be coasting far too often.

This road trip is not doing much to make Bruce Boudreau feel comfortable.  I am not predicting any kind of early termination or resignation from the veteran bench boss, but this team seems to care more about individual accomplishments than the team goals / objectives.  I can’t imagine Boudreau has to be happy about that.  The Wild need to salvage at least 2-3 points to consider this road trip kind of a wash otherwise its evidence that not much has changed in regards to the culture of the team.

Wild Notes:

~ The Wild roster was as follows this early evening: Mikko Koivu, Mikael Granlund, Zach Parise, Eric Staal, Charlie Coyle, Nino Niederreiter, Zac Dalpe, Chris Stewart, Jason Pominville, Joel Eriksson Ek, Teemu Pulkkinen, Jason Zucker, Ryan Suter, Mathew Dumba, Jonas Brodin, Christian Folin, Marco Scandella and Nate Prosser.  Devan Dubnyk backed up Darcy Kuemper.  Jared Spurgeon and Erik Haula were the scratches.

~ The 3 Stars of the Game were: 1st Star John Tavares, 2nd Star Ryan Strome, 3rd Star Zach Parise

~ Attendance was 11,583 at Barclay’s Center.

Iowa Wild Report:

Iowa 2, Charlotte 1

Wild Prospect Report:

D – Louie Belpedio (Miami, NCHC) ~ the stocky defenseman had a big night on Saturday, scoring twice and 6 shots on goal in the Redhawks’ 5-0 win over Maine.  Belpedio has 3 goals, 6 points, 10 PIM’s and is a -2 in 5 games.

LW – Brandon Duhaime (Providence, H-East) ~ the freshman had a good weekend notching his first goal on Friday now registered his first assist (along with 6 shots on goal) as the Friars rolled to a 6-3 win over St. Lawrence.  Duhaime has a goal and an assist, 6 PIM’s and is a -1 in 5 games.

RW – Jordan Greenway (Boston U., H-East) ~ the power forward is off to a fast start for the Terriers as he had a goal (the game winner) and assist in Boston’s 3-0 win over Quinnipiac.  Greenway has 3 goals, 6 points, 8 PIM’s and is +3 in 5 games.

G – Ales Stezka (Chicago, USHL) ~ the goaltender’s red hot start continued as he had 27 saves in the Steel’s 4-2 win over Omaha on Saturday night.  The Liberec, Czech Republic-native is 4-0, .50GAA and an .982%SP with 3 shutouts.