Charlie Coyle plays catch-up in first post-trade visit to the ‘X’

St. Paul — When it comes to Boston slang, “wicked” is a word that might come to mind. But there’s a different “W” word that former Minnesota Wild and current Boston Bruins forward Charlie Coyle kept repeating the past couple of days: Weird.

“It’s just a weird thing,” Coyle said of his first game back at Xcel Energy Center since being traded in February. “The trade happened so fast, and you don’t get to say ‘bye’ to everyone. I had to just get up and go.

“So just to see everyone and catch up a little bit, it’s obviously a weird thing… playing against your old friends, teammates.”

(MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

Coyle made his first return to Minnesota to face the Wild as an opponent Thursday night. With a playoff spot already locked up for the Bruins (49-23-9) sitting with 107 points in second place in the Atlantic Division, they came in and shut out the Wild (37-35-9) by a 3-0 margin. It was the seventh shutout of the season on home ice for the Wild.

Though Coyle didn’t factor in to any of the scoring, he registered two shots on goal in the game and got the video-tribute treatment along with a warm ovation from Wild fans during the first period.

Coyle was traded to Boston on Feb. 20 for youngster Ryan Donato. Both are Massachusetts natives and have worked out together during summers, said Coyle, who added that Donato is “a great kid” with a lot of skill.

Simply looking at the small sample size of points during the rest of the 2018-19 season, the Wild came out ahead on the trade. Donato came into Minnesota firing on all cylinders with points in his first five games in a Wild sweater, including an overtime winner for a 2-1 victory over St. Louis in his Xcel Energy Center debut Feb. 24. Donato has 4 goals and 16 points with the Wild in 21 games (10-15—25 for the season).

Contrast that to Coyle’s slower start in Boston, skating pointless in his first seven games with the Bruins. However, he scored a nifty shootout goal in his Bruins debut, a 2-1 shootout loss to St. Louis. He has just 2 goals and 4 assists in 20 games with his new team (12-22—34 for the season). For the most part, he’s starting to find his groove with the playoff-bound Bruins, Coyle said.

“It’s a hard thing to play consistent every single night and do the same thing,” Coyle said. “Points will come. I don’t think you focus on points too much as long as the team’s winning.

“I just want to play my role, do my part.”

Wild coach Bruce Boudreau referred to Coyle’s on-ice performance as being “consistently inconsistent sometimes, offensively.”

“He’s a guy that you always wanted a little bit more from him,” Boudreau said. “You always thought there was more in him.”

Hockey minds know there’s a business aspect to running teams and making trades. No doubt there are all kinds of factors. It’s abundantly clear how much his teammates and Boudreau wanted to keep him around Minnesota.

“Charlie’s one of the best kids you’ll ever meet in your life,” Boudreau said. “He was perfect as far as personality.

“A solid person and a great player to have on your team.”

Said goaltender Alex Stalock: “He brought a lot to this room, a lot to this organization.”

Coyle appreciated the kind words but was also quick to throw credit toward the Wild organization.

“You’re in such a good environment,” Coyle said. “They kind of set the standard right away. I just follow suit.”

Coyle skated with a variety of teammates in Minnesota this season, including Zach Parise, Eric Staal, pal Jason Zucker and Jordan Greenway, another close friend.

(MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

“We had a pretty good relationship, so being able to play against him will be fun,” Greenway said after Thursday’s morning skate.

The two still talk and help each other with their games, Greenway said, adding that it was special being able to go out for dinner and hang out with his former teammate. Greenaway also declared he wasn’t “going to take it easy on him” once the game started.

“I’m going to give it to him,” Greenway said. “I told him that last night.

“He’s scared. He backed down a little bit.”

Coyle played in his 499th career NHL game Thursday. He has 93 goals and 248 points, playing six-plus seasons in Minnesota before the trade. After playing three straight ironman seasons of all 82 regular-season games, injury woes found Coyle last season. He played just 66 games, scoring 11 goals and 37 points.

He was part of the string of six straight playoff appearances for the Wild, with 15 points in 44 postseason games for the Wild. Now he finds himself in the playoffs for a seventh consecutive season, even though his old friends are out.

“It’s a weird thing,” Coyle said. “You start your year with them, and you always plan on finishing the year, you don’t plan on getting traded. You want to make sure you do what you can to help your team and get to the playoffs, and all of a sudden, you get taken from that.

“You always hope the best for (the Wild). I want them to succeed.” 

The post Strange Days Indeed appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Niederreiter finds his niche again

To say Nino Niederreiter has gone through rough patches this season and last could be considered an understatement. He suffered a high ankle sprain in the third game of last season in Chicago, which seemed to linger and pretty much derailed his fifth campaign with the Minnesota Wild.

Then this year, back with a healthy start, he struggled to get on the scoresheet. Niederreiter was held scoreless for the first 14 games and added only six assists before his first goal on Nov. 8 in Los Angeles. The relief on his face when that red light flashed was quite evident.

“Just to see what he was going through at the beginning of the year, it’s tough,” said teammate and recent linemate, Zach Parise. “We’ve all been through it. It’s not fun.

“But now that just seems like a memory.”

That’s because Niederreiter finally found the scoring touch. He scored four goals in three consecutive games starting Dec. 7 in Edmonton and then contributed in a couple Wild offensive explosions in 7-1 and 5-1 victories against Montreal and Florida. He went from three goals on the season to seven in less than a week, plus he has 11 assists for 18 points before the Dec. 18 contest against San Jose.

The three-game goal streak was his longest since he had a career-best six-game goal streak last November. His two goals against Florida marked his 14th multi-goal game.

The recent success coincided with the success of his linemates, left-wing Parise, center Charlie Coyle and Niederreiter on the right wing. The roster got jumbled up a bit when an injury kept center Mikko Koivu out of the lineup for a few games.

Obviously, no one likes to be shorthanded in the personnel department, but Niederreiter seemed to relish the opportunity.

“It’s definitely a chance for us to step up and do good work,” Niederreiter said.

Against Montreal, each one of the trio scored a goal, at least one of them contributed to five-of-seven goals and their line combined for six points. It was a game where their line was clicking right from the first puck drop.

El Niño’s shots are finding the net with more frequency in recent games (MHM Photo by Rick Olson)

It was a dominant 7-1 win for the Wild to extend their winning streak over Montreal to eight games. And in a way, there was something to prove for the Wild, having just lost 7-2 in Edmonton a few days prior. They knew exactly what they had to do as a line, including bouncing back after the tough loss, according to Niederreiter.

“For us, everyone knew we needed a good start, and I think that’s what we had,” Niederreiter said. “Everyone was creating a lot of chances.”

He scored the first two Wild goals in the game against Florida, when their line combined for five points. Niederreiter was asked after the game why the line was clicking so well and he said it was a good question; he wasn’t sure. Though he did say there was another reason his game, in particular, looked so good lately: He’s been on the right wing.

“Probably staying on one side for quite some time, that definitely helped my game a lot,” Niederreiter said.

Both Parise and Coyle agree – and their opinion is probably a shared one – it’s great to see Niederreiter light the lamp lately.

“Nino’s a goal scorer,” Coyle said. “And he knows it, we know it.”

Coyle said he sees Niederreiter doing the little things like using his big body, winning the puck battles along the boards and doing things in the Wild’s own end to get the puck out. Those details are paying off, according to Coyle, who was also injured in that game last year in Chicago, leaving his season injury-plagued as well.

For Parise, he said Niederreiter is a guy that has to get to the net. With the goal drought early in the season, maybe Niederreiter just wasn’t getting to the spots he needed to in order to score.

“I think sometimes when it’s not going well for whatever reason, scorers drift away from the net,” Parise said. “And I think he started to do that a little bit.

“You look at the goals he’s got, the deflections and the stuff in front of the net, I think that’s where he does a really good job. I think he’s moved on from the start that he had.”

Maybe it can be a good point to really kick Niederreiter’s season into high gear after last year’s injury-riddled and disappointing campaign. After playing all 82 regular-season games the past two years (and 80 and 81 games before that), Niederreiter skated in just 63 in 2017-18, scoring 18 goals and 32 points. He still has some work to do this season if he’d like to become a 20-goal scorer for the fourth time in his career, but playing with Parise and Coyle the way things have gone lately is a good start to challenging his career-best 25 goals and 57 points his put up in 2016-17.

And wouldn’t fans just love to see more of this relaxed play from Niederreiter? Like the kind guy who scored three goals and three assists in the 2014 playoffs and scored the opening-round clinching goal in overtime against Colorado to advance.

“It’s great to see him doing well and producing and smiling and having fun playing again,” Parise said. “Because he can be a really effective player, and we need him to be an effective player.” 

The post Nino Steps Up appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

The Wild need to see the aggressive side of their forward.

It wasn’t an ideal start to the season for Wild forward Charlie Coyle.

After breaking his fibula in the third game of the season, he was sidelined for 16 games and was able to return game action just five weeks later. Upon his return from injury, he was able to generate some offense with 13 assists in his first 30 games but netted just four goals. Coyle, also rarely shot the puck, as he registered just 44 shots during that span.

However, the classic cliche of “good things happen when you shoot puck” started to apply to Coyle’s game. Entering play on Feb. 15, Coyle has four goals in his last seven games while firing 16 pucks on net.

After Minnesota’s 5-2 loss to Washington, Coyle logged 18:59 of ice time, which was the most of any forward.

“I mean he worked hard. I don’t know if he had any shots on goal or anything but I mean Charlie works hard every night,” said Bruce Boudreau after the Wild’s 5-2 loss to the Capitals. “There’s no ifs ands or buts. It’s just always you think that he could start shooting the puck a bit more, he could get more offensive points.”

Boudreau’s not wrong either. In 41 games this season, Coyle has scored in seven of them and in six of those games he’s fired at least three shots on net. 

This is nothing new for anyone that’s watched Coyle over the last six years. Fans have seen glimpses of a bulldog mentality and nose for the net that leaves you wanting more. Yet, it’s almost as if he possess a switch, sometimes it’s on and sometimes it’s off.

Where has he been effective?

Coyle has earned the bulk of his points this season in even-strength situations – as 20 of 23 points have come five-on-five. He’s seen time on power play units, but probably hasn’t been a mainstay because of his inconsistent nature of shooting the puck.

The former college hockey standout at Boston University has floated between both the wing and center position during his career. Although he may look like prototypical center at 6′ 3″ and 220 pounds, Coyle’s always had trouble winning faceoffs, having won just 46 percent of his draws in his career. But the former first-round pick has been excellent in the circle this season, winning  53 percent of his faceoffs, which is actually the best percentage on the team.

Now winning faceoffs and scoring are two very different things – but his improvement in something he’s historically struggled with provides hope one day he can turn his offensive game around too.

What do analytics say?

New age hockey analytic statistics like Corsi and Fenwick have not been kind to Coyle this season. If you’re not familiar with Corsi, it basically measures the number of shot attempts said player gets at even strength while he is on the ice and it’s divided by the number of shot attempts the opposition gets while he is on the ice. Think of it like plus-minus but for shot attempts.

It’s not a perfect statistic, but since the NHL doesn’t have puck possession figures, this is the closest thing to it. Coyle’s Corsi percentage is 47.2 – typically you’d like to be above 50 – which is five points lower than his career average and seven points lower than his career-high figure of 54.4 from last season. In other words, when Coyle’s on the ice this year, opposing team are getting more shots on net.

Now that’s not all on Coyle, as the Wild as a team are averaging just 28 shots per game which is the fourth-lowest total in the NHL. If anything it’s another tell-tale sign that Coyle – and the rest of the team – needs to fire more rubber on net.

Could they move on?

Currently Coyle is in the third year of a five-year contract and has a cap hit of $3.2 million this season. Unlike most of the veterans on the Wild, he doesn’t have a no-move clause which means he could be moved to any team. His name has even been floated around the trade market, according to Michael Russo of The Athletic.

When you consider his friendly cap hit, the fact he’s just a season removed from a career-year and still in his mid 20’s, you can understand why another team would be interested in his services. Now would the Wild be willing to give him up? That remains to be seen.

But for Coyle’s sake, his head coaches sake and for the fans of State of Hockey, Coyle needs to be more aggressive on the ice for the Wild to succeed.

The post What’s up with Charlie Coyle? appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Fine season sets up Wild for run at ‘best thing in sports’

St. Paul – For the Minnesota Wild, all eyes and hearts are looking ahead.

For good reason.

As Erik Haula stated heading into the Wild’s opening NHL playoff series against the St. Louis Blues: “There’s a little bit of a rivalry there.”

Well, yes.

Minnesota knocked St. Louis out of the playoffs two years ago, and since then former Wild coach Mike Yeo has taken the Blues’ helm while the Wild have inched closer and closer to a position among the NHL’s elite teams.

Of course, both teams go into the first-round series with 0-0 records in the playoffs, but the Wild took giant steps this season to earn home ice through at least the first round, not to mention that if they advance to the Western Conference finals and the Chicago Blackhawks do not, Minnesota will also have home ice then.

After averaging more than 19,000 a game at the Xcel Energy Center this season, the Wild are excited to both open at home and possibly get the extra night at home if a series goes seven games.

“It’s pretty cool to play here,” forward Charlie Coyle said after practice this week. “The atmosphere is up a couple of notches. The fans really bring a lot of energy and we feed off of that.

“It gets so loud, some times you can’t even hear the whistle out there.”

It’s a benefit of what has arguably been the Wild’s No. 1 season in their 16 years.

The 49 wins and 106 points were franchise records.

Five players scored 50 or more points, led by 69 from Mikael Granlund and 65 from Eric Staal. Captain Mikko Koivu produced 58 points, his best total since he had 62 in 2010-11. Goalie Devan Dubnyk won a personal and franchise-record 40 games, while Charlie Coyle, Jason Zucker and Jason Pominville each chipped in 47 points or more.

In addition, Ryan Suter and Jason Zucker tied for the league lead in plus-minus at plus-34 while Jared Spurgeon was a plus-33.

Those heady numbers evaporate in a cloud of disappointment if Minnesota exits the playoffs early, of course, but through 82 games this has certainly been a season to remember.

“We’ve done some good things,” forward Zach Parise said. “We’ve played well for the majority of the season and we feel like we’ve got a really good team.”

Parise was quick to add, however, that the Blues offer a major test. St. Louis, which won three of five games against Minnesota this season, finished with a flourish to end up sixth in the West with 99 points, seven behind the Wild.

“For the most part, we were consistent throughout the year,” Koivu said. “We’re proud of what we did, but also we recognize that we’ve got to get another gear.”

That’s because, according to coach Bruce Boudreau, the Blues are an opponent without a weakness.

Additionally, Boudreau pointed out, the NHL playoffs offer a different standard in both importance and quality of play.

“It ramps up pretty good,” he said. “I mean, there’s no taking shifts off; there’s no coasting.”

Boudreau noted that training camp steps things up for players who have been working out at a different pace over the summer, and the regular season delivers a second big step up.

And the Stanley Cup playoffs?

“It gets ramped up more than one and a-half times what the regular season was,” he explained. “It’s an exciting time. Players do things they wouldn’t normally do. They don’t worry about anything other than winning.

“And that’s what makes going for this trophy the best thing in sports.”

The post Ramping Up for the Cup appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Wild trying to pull out of a March slide

A Wild team that often looked unbeatable through the early days of February has gone sledding in March.

Look out below…

On Feb. 18, Minnesota led the Chicago Blackhawks by nine points, but after the New York Rangers dumped the Wild 3-2 in front of 19,337 on Sunday at the Xcel Energy Center, the Hawks led Minnesota by five.

Holy cow.

“Thank God we get to play again tomorrow,” Wild center Erik Haula said.

Here’s the tally: Going into their game against the Jets Sunday in Winnipeg, the Wild had lost four in a row and had won just two of their previous nine.

And, as Haula and center Eric Staal both said after the loss to New York, no one can get things back on track except the people wearing Wild sweaters.

“This is a tough league,” Staal said. “They’re not easy games every night. We have to continue to play as a team. This is a tough stretch for us right now, but no one’s going to help us out but us.”

Coach Bruce Boudreau said over and over after the game that all his boys can do is simplify. Some are trying to do too much, to make a big play when one isn’t probable, rather than sticking to basics.

Then, too often, things fall apart.

“When things aren’t going good for you, that’s what happens,” Boudreau said. “You get no puck luck, you get no bounces.”

Trying hard to make the right play too often goes awry, he added, and Saturday was an example.

“There were so many turnovers out there it’s ridiculous.”

Boudreau’s team went 35-12-5 through its first 52 games, but since then the Wild are 8-9-1.

“What worked will work again,” he said Saturday. “For 40 games, you’re making those little mistakes, they’re not scoring goals — they’re bouncing off the goalie or hitting the post or shooting wide. Now the mistake you make from the faceoff on down is going in the net.

“It’s going to be a battle of mental toughness. When you get out of it you’re going to be a better team and better players for it, because you’re going through it right now for the last two and a-half weeks.”

The Wild took a first period lead on Staal’s 24th goal, but former Gopher Brady Skjei tied it late in the period. It was 1-1 in the second period when Haula set up Charlie Coyle in front of a wide-open net and Coyle knocked the puck into the back wall.

“It was right there,” Coyle said. “I don’t know if it bounced or what.”

That led to second-period Rangers goals from Oscar Lindberg and Jimmy Vesey, enough of a cushion to overcome a third-period tally by Matt Dumba of the Wild.

“I think for the most part we were playing with pretty good jump,” Haula said. “We had a lot of chances. When things aren’t going your way… I don’t know, when it rains it pours, I guess.”

As Haula pointed out, however, another game loomed less than 24 hours later and with that and a few more ahead.

Said Staal: “We’ve just got to get back to simplifying our game, get back to the way we found so much success early in the year.”

The post Tough Sledding appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

St. Paul – The Wild’s playoff hopes could have grown very dim Saturday.

Coming off road losses to Ottawa and New Jersey, Minnesota entered a matinee game against the Carolina Hurricanes needing a jolt of positivity.

Then Carolina tied the score 2-2 with 6:51 remaining in the third period to force overtime, and Hurricanes forward Elias Lindholm sprung himself free with a spin-o-rama move in the final seconds of overtime.

Devan Dubnyk made the save on Lindholm, however, and after shootout goals by Charlie Coyle and Zach Parise plus two shootout saves by Dubnyk, the Wild escaped the sold-out Xcel Energy Center with a 3-2 victory in front of 19,044.

The 100th consecutive sell-out crowd for a Wild home game erupted in cheers at the conclusion, expelling an afternoon’s worth of held breaths from a dramatic 65-plus minutes of play.

Nothing was more dramatic than Lindholm’s late move.

“That’s overtime,” Wild interim coach John Torchetti said. “You can’t script it. Dubs, he kept his composure and held his post.”

Dubnyk said he was aware the clock was ticking down and simply tried to shut out everything but the play in front of him.

“You just try to keep in focus and bear down as much as you can,” he said.

The two points inched Minnesota within a point of Colorado for eighth place in the Western Conference after 72 games.

“Getting one point’s not good enough for us.” Dubnyk said. “So, a lot of emotions there.”

Minnesota got goals from David Jones and Jason Zucker to twice take one-goal leads in this one, but both times Carolina came back to tie.

It was that kind of a tight game.

“Every play’s a big play,” Torchetti said. “Everyone knows it. It’s good for our team to play those types of games.”

Torchetti benched forward Thomas Vanek for this game, then was forced to play without injured forward Ryan Carter through much of the late going. Jones stepped up, and Zucker scored his first goal since Feb. 17.

“It’s always nice to get a goal,” Zucker said, “but more than that, it was nice to help the team get a win tonight. It was two very needed points.”

After four losses in their previous five games, the Wild desperately needed success on Saturday.

“We stuck with it,” Coyle said. “In our previous games we would have been frustrated in our game when things weren’t working, but we stayed within our structure. That’s what’s going to get us scoring chances and goals.”

Torchetti called it a game of “good team structure” that went well because his team was often on the winning side of puck battles. That allows Torchetti to relax a bit and not worry about peripheral matters.

“I feel good,” he said. “I feel confident. Tonight’s a playoff-type game – tight checking, making the right play at the right time, making good changes, being smart.”

And getting two points that very likely might prove significant at season’s end.

The post Wild Weather the Storm appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

St. Paul – Remember how optimistic fans of the Minnesota Wild were at the beginning of the season?

Two coaches and 68 games down the road, things have changed.

Sputtering seems to sum up the way the Wild too often play. That cost Mike Yeo his job as coach on Feb. 13, and many of the same traits are again visible under interim coach John Torchetti.

Torchetti’s not happy about it. He said Thursday that he plans to show some video to his players very soon and tell them, “This is not how we play.”

The perfect example of “not how we play” occurred Thursday night, when the lowly Edmonton Oilers walked into the Xcel Energy Center and walked out with a 2-1 victory in front of 19,058.

The Oilers got an early goal from Lauri Korpikosky and a late goal from Connor McDavid to win for the second time in their past four games.

The result left Minnesota with a 31-27-10 record, which puts the Wild 19th in the 30-team NHL and ninth in the Western Conference. They dropped to ninth when Colorado won Wednesday night, but with two games in hand, they had a pretty good chance to quickly reclaim eighth. After losing to Edmonton, which ranks 13th in the West, the Wild remain two points back with one game in hand.

This was a game the Wild were favored to win, but they overpassed the puck, couldn’t make clean entries into the Oilers’ zone and struggled to beat Oilers goalie Cam Talbot.

“We can’t let these go to waste,” forward Charlie Coyle said.

The Wild are not populated by all-stars, although Zach Parise typically belongs in that category. Other than growth spurts from Coyle and occasionally from Nino Niederreiter and Erik Haula, Minnesota’s younger players have yet to emerge. The defense has been spotty and the goaltending average.

That adds up to nothing more than an average team, although one that maintains a hope to finish among the top eight in the conference and advance to the playoffs for the fourth year in a row.

Their time is running out.

“Games just keep ticking away,” goaltender Darcy Kuemper said. “We don’t want to let points slip away.”

Defenseman Ryan Suter put it this way: “We’ve put ourselves in a tough position here.”

Definitely.

“We tried to play a little too fancy,” defenseman Jared Spurgeon observed, adding that “this time of year, you have to win your games. If you’re going to go into the playoffs, you want to go in hot.”

Minnesota has 14 games remaining, time enough perhaps to do exactly that. But Torchetti, who has an 8-5 record, is becoming impatient with some of his team’s lapses.

Turnovers were glaring Thursday night, when Minnesota made 11 and Edmonton four.

“We can’t be learning lessons like that now,” Torchetti said. “We’ve got to be committed as a team all the way through. We should be playing playoff hockey now. That’s what it’s all about, and we’ve got to make sure we’re committed to it.”

Torchetti ran down a laundry list of areas he wants to see improved. At the top, he said, is achieving 70 shot attempts a game. Parise had six attempts Thursday night including the one that beat Talbot, but the rest of the Wild combined for just 54.

The post A Tough Position appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Devils stick a fork in Wild’s offense as Minnesota teams go 0-for-Sunday

St. Paul – The seventh consecutive home crowd of more than 19,000 settled into the Xcel Energy Seats Sunday night possibly looking for the antidote to a thoroughly depressing day in Minnesota pro sports.

It was not to be.

The New Jersey Devils, losers in their previous three games and beset by injuries, scored two third-period goals to defeat the Wild 2-1 and leave the Sunday expectations of Minnesota fans frozen solid.

Earlier, the Vikings lost to Seattle and the Timberwolves lost to Dallas in Minneapolis, but the Wild opened against an undermanned Devils team riding a St. Paul record of 14-5-2 this season as well as record of 4-1-2 in their previous seven games.

Even though Devils’ leading scorer Michael Cammalleri and key center Patrik Elias were among those sidelined by injury, the Wild were able to muster just seven shots on goal over the first two periods as New Jersey’s defense turned the game into a total snoozer.

Zach Parise, who scored the Wild’s only goal and his first against his former team, looked a bit ticked off when it was over.

“Ugly, uneventful game,” Parise said. “For whatever reason here we’re not playing with any pace, we’re not controlling the puck well, we’re not moving it well. We’ve just been flat.

“I mean, seven shots after two periods, in your own rink against a team – no disrespect to them, but they’ve got a lot of guys injured and a lot of minor league players are playing for ’em – that’s not good enough.”

No disrespect to the Wild, but for a long time they appeared almost uninterested.

“We didn’t get to our game,” forward Charlie Coyle observed. “We’re too good a team to come out flat like that. We can’t afford to have games like that.”

The result left the Wild, who defeated the Stars by the same score 24 hours earlier in Dallas, with 52 points in 42 games and trailing Dallas, Chicago and St. Louis.

“We want to catch Chicago. We want to catch St. Louis,” Parise said. “You can’t come out and play like that.”

Wild goaltender Darcy Kuemper stopped 15 of 17 shots in his first game since suffering a concussion more than two weeks ago, then noted that neither team put on an offensive show.

“I’m sure it was a boring game to watch,” he said.

The Wild finally got the crowd of 19,028 on their feet with 11 shots on net in the third period, giving them a grand total of 18.

The result and the way it happened stung, Parise said, especially after the win at Dallas.

“It’s not pretty,” he said.

Wild coach Mike Yeo admitted he wanted more but was not about to criticize his guys.

“For the most part our game has been pretty good lately,” he said.

Then he went on a rant about the fact that Minnesota received just one power play Sunday night.

“The one thing that’s really driving me nuts,” Yeo said. “We’re a really good hockey team; I can’t understand why we get one power play a game right now. It makes no sense to me.

“Night after night – it doesn’t matter who we play against; it doesn’t matter who’s officiating – it’s a constant. I’m trying to find the reasons and I can’t understand why. It’d be nice to draw more than one power play a game and we just can’t seem to do it.”

It would also have been nice to give Minnesota’s fans a home victory Sunday, but like the Vikings and Timberwolves, the Wild couldn’t do it.

The post Home loss caps a tough day appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Minnesota learns lessons in overtime loss to Flyers

St. Paul – It was a strange evening for the Minnesota Wild Thursday at the Xcel Energy Center.

Jason Zucker made one of those spectacular breakaway plays that people go home buzzing about in the second period of the Wild-Philadelphia Flyers game.

Earlier, Marco Scandella crashed heavily into the boards and hobbled off, heading for the Minnesota dressing room. But Scandella, who scored the Wild’s first goal against the Flyers, came back so quickly he did not miss a shift.

To top it off, Zach Parise displayed some magic with an unassisted tying goal in the third period for the Wild, much to the pleasure of 19,125 ticket buyers.

However, a decent start and a strong finish for the Wild were sandwiched around enough ineffective play to allow the Philadelphia Flyers to escape the X with a 4-3 victory in overtime.

“We didn’t get a win, so that’s never a good feeling,” Zucker said.

Philadelphia scored twice within 52 seconds midway through the second period and got a decisive goal from Michael Del Zotto 4:23 into the five-minute overtime to leave Wild players shaking their heads about a possible point lost.

“We fought back, and that’s great to get the point at that point,” forward Charlie Coyle said, “but we can’t afford to play games like that, have those lapses.”

Coach Mike Yeo called a rare early timeout midway through the second period after the Flyers took a 3-1 lead on goals by Del Zotto and Ryan White less than a minute apart to confront what he was seeing.

The end result is that he came away from this defeat feeling positive.

“Actually, I’m pretty happy with the guys,” he said.

Minnesota is in the midst of perhaps its toughest stretch of the season, and Yeo said the players probably learned a few things Thursday.

Yes, they have played five games in eight days, and yes, they have four more in the next seven days. But they did rally on Zucker’s dazzling breakaway goal and Parise’s relentless second-effort marker.

Prior to that, when Philadelphia seemed to take charge in the second period, his boys “looked tired,” Yeo explained. So he called them over to remind them about something.

They listened.

“I think it showed in the second half of the game that it’s all mental,” Yeo explained. “Once we addressed it, the guys started to feed off each other’s energy. It takes a lot of character to come back with the schedule that we’ve had. We easily could be sitting here with two points. We got one point, but I think more important, we understand going forward just how important it is to make sure you concentrate on the preparation and understand that it is all mental.”

Yeo came away pleased because his boys not only rallied, but seemed to control overtime until a poor line change left them short a man in the final minute of the extra session.

The finish left Minnesota 1-7 in overtimes this season, which naturally stings.

“We had the chances,” Parise said. “That’s been the theme, where we get three or four good looks and we don’t score.

“You’re going to give up chances. That’s what three on three is. We’ve been on the losing end of it too much. Way too much, I guess. We haven’t scored when we’ve had those chances.”

Nevertheless, all things considered, Yeo feels OK heading into the remainder of his team’s tough upcoming schedule.

“I think this was a good lesson for us,” he said, “and now we use it going forward.”

The post Wild make a point with late rally appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

“Simple move” baffles Wings, helps lift Wild over Detroit

St. Paul — Charlie Coyle downplayed his highlight-worthy goal in Monday’s Wild game versus the Detroit Red Wings. Well, after he joked about the move he made.

“Yeah, that was (Pavel) Datsyuk’s,” Coyle said, with a chuckle. “No, no.

“It’s just something that happened. Just a simple move, I guess. It just went in.”

And it was a beauty.

Coyle broke into the zone and grabbed a passed from Nino Niederreiter in the first period. He stick handled the puck around defender Brendan Smith in the slot. All that was left was to put the puck past Detroit netminder Petr Mrazek for a 1-0 Wild lead at 8:18 of the first period.

That lead held up for most of the game until a late flourish made it an eventual 3-1 victory for the Wild (19-10-6). They finish the homestand 2-2-0.

“We can’t classify it a good one but certainly a win tonight,” Coach Mike Yeo said. “Saw a lot more pace to our game tonight.”

For Coyle, he said it was a good team effort.

“We were solid,” he said. “Too bad some more didn’t go in for us.”

He and his teammates tried, though, outshooting Detroit 35-29. About halfway through the game in the second, Coyle executed a pokecheck right in front of the Red Wings net. It was a play that led to more offensive zone time and a scoring chance off Niederreiter’s stick.

Mikko Koivu, who added goals No. 9 and 10 (empty net) late in the third period, said the increased chances were a good sign.

“For sure it’s frustrating when you’re not scoring, but at the same time … usually that gets players going,” Koivu said.

The first-period tally was Coyle’s ninth of the season and third in the last five games. He has five points in the last six games and 18 for the season. He’s three points shy of the 100-mark for his career.

Coyle is ending the month of December better than he started it, going nine games without a goal before scoring Dec. 21 against Dallas and the following night against Montreal. He’s tied with Jason Zucker for third on the team in goals scored.

Niederreiter got the assist on Coyle’s goal and finished the night with four shots on goal, giving him six points in the last seven games.

Talking about the Coyle-Niederreiter pair, Yeo said it was unfortunate that they were on the ice for Detroit’s goal, off Datsyuk’s stick with less than two minutes left in the third.

Still, Yeo said Coyle and Niederreiter keep going and “keep bringing more.”

“Obviously we need them to produce,” Yeo said. “We need them to be contributors to us both offensively and defensively, and they’ve been doing that.”

‘Duby stepped up’

Darcy Kuemper was supposed to get the start in goal for the injured Devan Dubnyk, but Kuemper was scratched with an upper body injury. Dubnyk started and got the win Monday, while Niklas Backstrom was the back-up goalie.

Dubnyk received six stitches in his right arm after leaving Sunday’s practice. He found out Monday morning that he was getting the nod in net. He took a couple good shots off the blocker Monday morning that stung, but as soon as you get into a game, you don’t think about it, he said.

“It felt a lot better tonight than I expected it to,” Dubnyk said.

Teammate Coyle called him “a gamer,” as he came back to play after his injury.

“That’s Dubs,” Coyle said. “That’s what we expect from him. Comes up huge no matter what’s going on with him.”

Routine saves aren’t routine with a team like Detroit, according to Yeo, but he said Dubnyk played well.

“Duby stepped up,” Yeo said. “That’s a team that’s always going to challenge you. They throw pucks at the net from everywhere.”

The post Coyle comes through appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.