When something bad happens at work you experience one of two different outcomes. You either get an individual meeting where management attempts to figure out what went wrong and then tries to provide correction, or you get the ‘team meeting’ where everyone is brought in and you get a dressing down by the management who explain how unacceptable the situation is and what they’re going to do to make sure that doesn’t happen again. I am sure on some level that is what greeted the Minnesota Wild the day after their embarrassing 5-4 loss to Vancouver on Tuesday night. The Wild squandered a 2-0 lead and found a way to lose to one of the weaker teams in the Pacific Division.
The Flames are playing better and with a dogged, defensive style of play have managed to surprise their opponents. Minnesota knows this all too well as they were beaten 1-0 on home ice by the upstart Flames. Calgary managed to get the Wild off its game by trying to thug it up, so will Minnesota fall into that trap again and prompt another frustrated reply by Bruce Boudreau or will they stamp out the Flames?
1st Period Thoughts: The game started out a bit shaky with the Wild being bottled up in their own end by the Flames who seemed to be playing with a bit of a chip on their collective shoulder. Minnesota and Devan Dubnyk would weather the storm as they would strike first with a goal as the 4th line got the Wild on the board as Chris Stewart tipped in a point shot by Jared Spurgeon to put his club up 1-0. Good sign for the Wild that kept them hungry right? Nope, more like a cue to fall asleep at the wheel. The Flames would start to pour it on, working pucks deep and the Wild didn’t seem to know what to do. Blind area passes by Mathew Dumba, Marco Scandella and Nate Prosser kept the Wild scrambling around its own zone as the Flames started to circle closer and closer to the Minnesota crease. Calgary would tie the game up as they took advantage of a bad line change and the Wild seemed to be confused as who to cover and it was Jyrki Jokipakka hammering a shot from the point that Dubnyk stopped but his rebound would go right to Kris Versteeg who chipped a shot by the Minnesota goalie. Dumba just sort of covered no one and should’ve been able to prevent Versteeg’s goal but instead he sneaks in and scores. Then soon after that the Wild would get tagged with a holding penalty as Erik Haula went to the box. The Flames went to work on the power play and the Wild penalty kill which has been very passive as of late would crash the net as Matt Tkachuk‘s shot was knocked down by Dubnyk who sprawled trying to cover it up but he would lose track of it and the puck sat in the blue paint where Mikael Backlund tapped it home to make it 2-1. Lots of Wild players were just standing around and you feared the rout was soon at hand. From dumb penalties as Mikko Koivu would get tagged for roughing after a late hit to Tkachuk it was clear the Wild were caught up in the wrong part of the game. Minnesota just couldn’t focus enough to make any kind of meaningful push offensively late in the period beyond a few weak shots from the perimeter that were no real challenge to Chad Johnson. The Wild seemed to pout as the left the ice, and were not sparking much optimism they had the mental fortitude for a comeback. Ugly effort.
2nd Period Thoughts: The 2nd period was a morass of lethargic play, bad passing and a general lack of fire in the Minnesota Wild. The Flames were certainly in the Wild’s mind who seemed to be paranoid any slight liberty Calgary took had to be met with vigorous response. There were scrums after nearly ever whistle, but Calgary was just hoping to keep Minnesota occupied with tomfoolery than really trying to get into any serious physical altercation. Minnesota looked exhausted and Calgary was winning most of the races for loose pucks and the Wild were content to cross the red line, dumping the puck into the offensive zone and going for a change. Calgary was playing conservatively, not trying to get caught pinching too far up ice to give Minnesota a chance to counter attack. The Erik Haula, Nino Niederreiter, Jason Pominville line was plagued by a serious of gaffes with the puck and the result was they gave Calgary a near power play as they fruitlessly tried to lift the puck out of the zone. Thankfully Dubnyk was awake and was able to make a few saves to keep his club within one of tying the game. The Wild’s fatigue seems strange when you consider they had at least two full days to rest up for tonight’s game. If Minnesota would forget about the rough-stuff and just play hockey and let the score be their message they’d be fine, but instead it looks like they’d rather drop another game to Calgary just to prove a point about their toughness. Whatever.
3rd Period Thoughts: The 3rd period was like the last round of a bad heavyweight boxing match. Two lumbering foes, with only a token amount of energy to throw a few flailing haymakers that often missed well wide of their intended target. The Wild appeared to lack the desire to really try to outwork the Flames for the puck in their own end, until about the 7-minute mark when Mikael Granlund and Jason Zucker really went to work on the forecheck, dumping the puck deep and then battling to try to create a scoring chance. Soon Jared Spurgeon would join the attack while Mikko Koivu inexplicably sat floating around the top of the faceoff circles. Eventually Zucker worked the puck into the slot where Koivu gathered it and beat Johnson with a hard wrist shot. 2-2 game. Are the Wild going to realize what they need to do to get the go-ahead goal? Nope, along with Calgary both clubs seemed content to play for overtime by playing it safe and only attempting the long home run pass every now and then. Yet it was not without its dramatic moments. A bad play of the puck by Devan Dubnyk turned into a crazy minute where the Wild zone turned into a shooting gallery as the tired Wild skaters lacked the energy to get in front of Flames shots and Dubnyk had to make a few desperation saves to keep his team in the game. Only a boneheaded interference penalty by Matt Tkachuk saved them. Even as the Wild got a power play they had little urgency to score and seemed more concerned with burning time off the clock as they struggled to get set up in the offensive zone. Slow, predictable passing made it mindnumbingly easy to defend and the game would go to overtime. However, just 2 seconds before regulation ended, Jason Zucker would high stick Mark Giordano in the face giving the Flames a 4-on-3 power play to start OT. It was another foolish penalty in a game that had a number of them.
Overtime Thoughts: With the Wild 4-on-3, they would opt to keep Koivu, Brodin and Spurgeon on the ice. This gave them ok mobility but Koivu didn’t have the wheels to stay with either player yet fortunately for Minnesota the Flames couldn’t seem to hit the Wild net at all. Shot after shot for the Flames was off target, and this killed valuable time Calgary had with the man advantage. Dubnyk would come up with a few saves in the closing moments of the power play but Minnesota would escape. Unfortuntely that seemed to be about the only energy the Wild had in overtime. The only shot they registered was a very weak wrist shot by Eric Staal that would’ve been an easy save for even a bad Mite goalie and the game would go to a shootout.
Shootout Summary: The Wild changed things up a bit in the shootout going to Nino Niederreiter with their first shooter and he’d take a direct approach where he attempted a little shoulder shake before firing a wrist shot that went right into the chest protector of Chad Johnson for an easy save. Calgary’s first shooter was Kris Versteeg and the former Blackhawk took a page out of the Wild’s book by going forehand to backhand to shelf over a surprised Devan Dubnyk. Minnesota’s next shooter was Jason Pominville and the veteran took a straight ahead approach and beat Johnson with a wrist shot tying the shootout at 1-1. The Flames’ next shooter was Sean Monahan, who sort of wove a little as he approached Dubnyk moving him back into his goal before lifting a forehand shot by him, 2-1 Calgary. That meant Charlie Coyle had to score to keep the Wild alive. Coyle would take a wide right approach where he tried to go backhand and then reach back to the forehand side but couldn’t work it back fast enough before it was stopped by Johnson and the Flames would win 3-2.
Devan Dubnyk played well enough to give the Wild a chance, stopping 29 shots in the loss. Although I thought his movement in his crease wasn’t quite as sharp nor was he as calm. When Dubnyk was really playing lights out, the economy of his movement laterally was very evident, and tonight there was evident he was guessing a bit and overcompensating because of it. Still, he was making the intial stop. The Calgary goals were coming on the 2nd and 3rd chance opportunities because of yogurt soft play in front of him. Nate Prosser, Marco Scandella and Mathew Dumba were somewhere between poor and pure trash. Dumba was an accident waiting to happen on nearly every shift and the risks he were taking had little chance of resulting in any kind of positive reward for the Wild; just stupid decisions with and without the puck over and over again. On just about any other team he would’ve been benched by now and I have a feeling Wild Head Coach Bruce Boudreau is getting closer to such an action.
Offensively the Wild got almost nothing beyond its 3rd and 4th lines tonight. The Staal-Coyle-Parise line was a complete non-factor and Boudreau mentioned them in his post-game comments saying, “They weren’t very good. They’ve got to get going on their own. We can prod them, but in the end, it’s up to them.” That almost implies they’re simply not interested in giving more effort which is pretty damning. One player who continues to underwhelm is alternate captain Zach Parise who managed just one shot on goal this evening. Boudreau told the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Michael Russo that he is going to talk to trainers to see if Parise is healthy. He didn’t like how he skated tonight, said he looked sluggish/methodical. Ouch, but I agree with him. Parise was the slowest player on the ice in a good portion of his shifts, skating with a labored / fatigued type of stride.
The Wild had two full days off prior to tonight’s game against the Flames and they still looked like a tired club. Boudreau chose not to bag skate this team after its disappointing loss to Vancouver and instead focused on skillwork and special teams. Yet the truth is the Wild were outworked, outhustled by the Flames. Toss in the number of atrocious turnovers, many of them of the unforced variety leaves you wondering just what they did over those last few days at practicing as they prepared to play Calgary tonight. Either way, its growing tiresome watching this well-rested team look so lethargic against opponents they should feel confident playing against. The team should be ashamed but like Boudreau said its up to them to figure it out.
Wild Notes:
~ The Minnesota Wild roster was as follows: Mikko Koivu, Mikael Granlund, Jason Zucker, Eric Staal, Charlie Coyle, Zach Parise, Erik Haula, Nino Niederreiter, Tyler Graovac, Kurtis Gabriel, Chris Stewart, Ryan Suter, Jared Spurgeon, Jonas Brodin, Nate Prosser, Mathew Dumba and Marco Scandella. Darcy Kuemper backed up Devan Dubnky. Zack Mitchell and Gustav Olofsson were the scratches.
~ The 3 Stars of the Game were: 1st Star Mikael Backlund, 2nd Star Mikko Koivu, 3rd Star Matthew Tkachuk
~ Attendance was 18,390 at Scotiabank Saddledome.
Wild Prospect Report:
C – Dmitri Sokolov (Sudbury, OHL) ~ the Russian sniper had a big night on Wednesday as he scored twice in the Wolves’ 3-2 win over Hamilton. He also had 9 shots on goal. Sokolov has 16 goals, 21 points, 2 PIM’s and is a -13 in 23 games.
D – Braydyn Chizen (Kelowna, WHL) ~ the lanky defenseman from St. Albert, Alberta chipped in an assist in Kelowna’s 4-1 win over the Tri-City Americans Wednesday night. Chizen has a goal, 4 points, 26 PIM’s and is a +2 in 23 games.
LW – Kirill Kaprizov (Salavat Yulaev Ufa, KHL) ~ the skilled winger ties his point total (27pts in 53 games) from a season ago by registering a goal in Salavat Yulaev’s 3-0 win over Dinamo Riga. Kaprizov has 13 goals, 27 points, 62 PIM’s and is a +7 in 34 games.
Minnesota High School Hockey Rankings:
I will try to post once each week the current Top 10 rankings for both boys and girls high school hockey courtesy of Let’s Play Hockey. You can see their list (which includes youth hockey rankings) at this link here. Here is their list as of December 1st, 2016.
Girls – Class A
1. Blake
2. Breck
3. St. Paul United
4. Warroad
5. Thief River Falls
6. Northfield
7. New Prague
8. Proctor / Hermantown
9. Hibbing / Chisholm
10. Alexandria
Girls – Class AA
1. Edina
2. Maple Grove
3. Eden Prairie
4. Hill-Murray
5. Blaine
6. Elk River / Zimmerman
7. Centennial
8. Cretin-Derham Hall
9. Minnetonka
10. Wayzata
Boys – Class A
1. Hermantown
2. Delano / Rockford
3. St. Paul Academy
4. Breck
5. St. Cloud Cathedral
6. Mahtomedi
7. Greenway
8. Orono
9. East Grand Forks
10. Alexandria
Boys – Class AA
1. Eden Prairie
2. Stillwater Area
3. Grand Rapids
4. Elk River / Zimmerman
5. Holy Family Catholic
6. St. Thomas Academy
7. Edina
8. Minnetonka
9. Centennial
10. Duluth East
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