Gustavsson’s tone was understandable.

He was coming off a disappointing season, he had almost undoubtedly been shopped by general manager Bill Guerin during the offseason, and now he seemed to be the odd man out for playing time in a crease that included a future Hall of Famer (Marc-Andre Fleury) and one of franchise’s key young pieces (Jesper Wallstedt).

There wasn’t much to smile about it and Gustavsson knew it. He also knew he had the ability to change that gloomy outlook.

So far, that’s what Gustavsson has done.

Wild defenseman Brock Faber congratulates Filip Gustavsson during a preseason game at Xcel Energy Center. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

Gustavsson’s 23-save effort in the Wild’s 3-1 victory on Saturday in Columbus — he lost the shutout when the Blue Jackets scored with only 1 minute, 25 seconds remaining — gave him a 3-0-1 record in the team’s first five games. Gustavsson’s 1.49 goals-against average and .950 save percentage places him sixth among NHL goaltenders in both categories.

Gustavsson is making both the difficult and, probably more importantly, the routine saves that he didn’t a year ago. Coach John Hynes has vaulted him to the top of the goalie depth chart. Fleury, who has said this will be his final season, has started one game and Wallstedt is back with the Iowa Wild of the American Hockey League after beginning the season in Minnesota.

“(Gustavsson) looks really solid in there,” Hynes told reporters. “He’s seeing the puck through traffic. His rebound control is strong, and that’s what you need from him.”

That’s what the Wild didn’t get a year ago after the Wild rewarded him with a three-year, $11.25 million contract following his first season in Minnesota.

Gustavsson had been acquired from Ottawa for fellow goalie Cam Talbot in July 2022. The Wild got more than they expected as Gustavsson’s 2.10 goals-against average and .931 save percentage put him second in the league in both categories.

But Guerin had to be questioning his decision to reward Gustavsson last season. His 3.06 goals-against average put him 37th among all goalies and his .899 save percentage was 34th.

The decision to bring back Fleury for a final season on a one-year, $2.5 million contract created the expectation that he would pair with the 21-year-old Wallstedt this season and help ease the rookie’s full-time transition to the NHL.

Gustavsson showing he’s the top choice in net
If that was the plan in the spring, it changed in the summer when Gustavsson remained in Minnesota. The 26-year-old Gustavsson found himself in a situation no goalie wants, and that’s the potential of being the third guy.

It’s still very early, but Gustavsson gets the credit for quickly ending that logjam by becoming the main guy.

The fact that Gustavsson added the first goalie goal in Wild history in a 4-1 victory last Tuesday in St. Louis only adds to the story. The goal came with the Wild on the power play near the end of the game and the Blues having pulled their goaltender. Fleury had told Gustavsson during a timeout that with a two-goal lead, if he got the puck he should attempt to shoot it the length of the ice.

Gustavsson did exactly that and became only the 15th goalie in NHL history to score a goal and only the 10th to do it into an empty net. There have been 18 goalie goals in the league’s history, but Martin Brodeur did it three times and Ron Hextall twice. Gustavsson also is only the third goalie to score on a power play.

As much fun that might have been, the Wild continue to start Gustavsson because he is now stopping pucks both 5-on-5 and for a penalty kill that was among the worst in the NHL last season.This isn’t all about goaltending either. In their first full season under Hynes, the Wild are doing more to help their goalie, even with captain Jared Spurgeon out of the lineup.

Not surprisingly, that has put Gustavsson in a far better mood than he was a month ago.

“I think we as a team have played really good defensive hockey, and we trust each other back there,” Gustavsson told reporters in Columbus. “Everyone’s doing their part of the job, and when you trust each other, it makes you comfortable and then you play your best.”

Gustavsson is doing exactly that, and for that reason he has exchanged a once tenuous hold on a roster spot for a nearly nightly spot between the pipes.

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The post No Gloomy Gus appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

The Matt Boldy performance that stood out the most last season wasn’t his two-goal, three-point performances in wins at Calgary and Columbus. It wasn’t the 18 goals and 48 points he posted after the New Year. It wasn’t the success he found playing on the Wild’s top line with Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek.

Rather, it was one with zero positive moments: His complete no-show in a 2-1 victory on Feb. 7 in Chicago.

The Wild had just returned from their bye week, but Boldy remained on vacation. It was the type of performance Boldy can’t have and the Wild can’t afford. An off night? Sure. But this checked-out version of the winger had to be considered an embarrassment by a team that had seen enough positives to sign him to a seven-year, $49 million contract in January 2023.

It was suggested on a Wild-related podcast — you might be familiar with “Judd’s Hockey Show” on SKOR North — that Boldy should have spent the next game watching from the press box. A reminder that deciding not to show up for a game wouldn’t be tolerated.

Wild coach John Hynes, who had taken over for Dean Evason in late November after a 5-10-4 start, had other ideas. He put Boldy back on the ice two nights later and was rewarded with a goal and an assist in a 3-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Matt Boldy creates a scoring chance against Seattle goaltender Joey Daccord on Oct. 12. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

This was the version of Boldy the Wild expect to see on a nightly basis and one they have seen far more of since that game at United Center.

Boldy, who has a goal and an assist on the Wild’s top power-play unit, made his prettiest pass of the season on Ryan Hartman’s goal Saturday in the third period. He took a pass from Johansson behind the net, drew defenseman Will Borgen toward him, then made a no-look pass from his backhand into the slot, past the Kraken’s Shane Wright and right onto Hartman’s stick for a snap shot that beat goalie Joey Daccord.

Matt Boldy came oh-so-close to scoring the overtime winner against Seattle goaltender Joey Daccord on Oct. 12. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

“I just want to win,” Boldy said after Thursday’s game. “I think everyone in this locker room wants to win. We’re so close. We all get along so well. (We’re) competitive and we didn’t have the year we expected last year, so all of us in here just want to win games and have a successful year.”

The more Boldy contributes as he did in the first two games, the more likely that is to happen.

Hynes and general manager Bill Guerin have both talked about their expectations for Boldy, and Hynes is eventually planning to play him on a penalty kill that was among the NHL’s worst last season and has given up two goals on five chances this season.

Boldy had a career-high 31 goals in 81 games in 2022-23 and last season had 29 goals and a career-high 69 points in 75 games. He has the talent to score 40 or more goals and some expect that to happen in his fourth NHL season.

That isn’t always easy because Boldy needs to play a physical style that includes taking punishment and winning puck battles. The fact he has the ability to make highly skilled plays once the puck is on his stick is what makes him such a threat.

“He’s got everything,” Johansson said. “He’s got the work ethic and the skill and the compete.He’s just got everything. He’s the goal scorer, he’s a passer. … There’s no ceiling for that guy. He can be as good as he wants.”

That starts with the realization that what happened last February in Chicago can never happen again.

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The post Be Boldy appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

1. It was a night to celebrate round-number milestones.

Once the puck dropped between Seattle and Minnesota, multiple players checked off round-number milestones. Wild forward Joel Eriksson Ek played in his 500th NHL game, though he was limited to 11 shifts and 11:44 of ice time (more on that later). Wild winger Marcus Foligno laced up his skates for game No. 800. Both were recognized at the first TV timeout with graphics on the videoboard and applause from the crowd.

Marc-Andre Fleury started in net for the Wild, marking his 21st season in the NHL. According to Minnesota Wild PR, Fleury is tied for second all-time in seasons played by a goaltender. Only Martin Brodeur played more (22 seasons).

The first goal for each team on Saturday marked milestones, too. Mats Zuccarello scored his 200th NHL goal, and Seattle’s Jordan Eberle scored No. 300; he later scored No. 301.

2. Matt Boldy has no-look-pass skills.

Matt Boldy scored a career-high 69 points last season, a year after he put up a career-high 31 goals in 2022-23. Boldy’s production can be streaky at times, but when he’s on, he’s one of the most skilled and talented forwards on the Wild’s roster.

The 23-year-old dazzled with a beautiful no-look pass in the third period against Seattle in what the Wild hoped would stand as the game-winning goal. With Ryan Hartman coming into the slot, Boldy was behind the net with the puck. He fed the puck behind his back out front to Hartman for the quick goal.

In a similar flashy fashion, Boldy also scored the first goal of the 2024-25 Wild season late in the first period against Columbus on Thursday night. He turned and fired the puck from the circles for a blind shot. Boldy, who missed all the preseason games with an injury, skates on the second line with Johansson and Eriksson Ek.

After the season opener, Johansson spoke highly of Boldy’s talents.

“I think he’s got everything,” Johansson said. “He’s got the work ethic and skill. The compete. He’s just got everything. He’s a goal scorer, he’s a passer. Like I said, there’s no ceiling for that guy. He can be as good as he wants.”

3. The middle of the second period included an elbow to the face (no penalty) and a questionable tripping penalty which led to a power-play goal for Seattle.

The Wild had a 2-1 lead early in the second period. But close to the midway point in the contest, things shifted and turned into a back-and-forth affair. First, Eriksson Ek was blatantly elbowed in the face along the glass by Adam Larsson. No whistle, no penalty. Seconds later, defenseman Jonas Brodin and Brandon Tanev got tangled up near the benches. Brodin went down on what appeared to be a trip by Tanev. Instead, officials called Brodin for a tripping penalty. The Wild – and their fans – were not pleased.

Marcus Foligno drives the net against Seattle Kraken goaltender Joey Daccord on Oct. 12. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

The irate vibes continued when the Kraken tied the game 2-2 on the ensuing power play. A long shot from Andre Burakovsky deflected in off of Eberle’s leg for a backdoor goal. Officials looked at the video to see if he kicked the puck into the net but determined it was a good goal.

From there, the hits started flying, too, as physical play turned up a notch. Johansson was hit at center ice and hobbled toward the bench and down the tunnel. But he returned soon after and played the rest of the game. Meanwhile, Foligno and Yakov Trenin started cracking hits on the Kraken. Foligno finished with a game-high seven hits, while Trenin registered three.

“Unfortunately, that swing in the game right there allowed them to get back into it,” said Wild coach John Hynes, of Seattle tying the game. “I liked the way that we responded back from that. I thought when things got a little bit physical, I really liked our response to that.”

Eriksson Ek left the ice and returned briefly in the third period wearing a full face shield. But he essentially missed the rest of the game. Sunday ahead of the team’s game in Winnipeg, the Wild announced that Eriksson Ek didn’t travel with the team and sustained a broken nose in Saturday’s game. He’s expected to be back for Tuesday’s game in St. Louis.

4. Kirill Kaprizov registers his first multi-point game of the season.

On opening night when the Wild’s top line was relatively quiet, Kirill Kaprizov recorded an assist on the team’s third goal. But Saturday? Kaprizov had a three-point night – and nearly made it four points if his buzzer-beater attempt at the end of the first period had gotten to the net a tad sooner.

Kirill Kaprizov had a three-point night against Seattle. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

To start, Kaprizov had a perfect feed from behind the net out front to his buddy Zuccarello streaking to the slot. That made it 1-0 Wild. With 14 seconds to play in the first period, with the same score, Kaprizov drew a tripping penalty behind the Kraken net. With only a few seconds on the power play before intermission, Kaprizov took a shot that found the back of the net as time expired. It looked like Kaprizov knew that the puck was only a second late. Video replays confirmed that the puck didn’t cross the goal line until after the period ended.

A buzz-kill instead of a buzzer-beater. But the Wild scored on that same power play anyway, early in the second period with Kaprizov getting an assist on Boldy’s second goal of the season. Kaprizov’s first goal of the season gave the Wild a 3-2 lead early in the third period when he tipped in a Marco Rossi long-range shot in front of the net.
Kaprizov scored at least three points in 11 games last season on his way to 46 goals and 96 points.

5. Wild couldn’t hold three leads.

The Wild held a 2-0 lead 66 seconds into the second period. But from there, Seattle always had a response, and it usually didn’t take long. Just 40 seconds after that Boldy power-play goal for the two-goal lead, the Kraken crashed the net and jammed away at the puck in the crease until it snuck by Fleury. Eberle got credit for the 300th goal of his NHL career.

Seattle tied the game three times to eventually force overtime and a shootout. Kaprizov gave the Wild a 3-2 lead early in the third period, but the Kraken again answered quickly with a goal from Tye Kartye one minute, six seconds later. Boldy’s no-look pass to Hartman put the Wild ahead again, a lead they held onto for a few minutes before the Kraken buried a puck on a delayed penalty to tie the game 4-4 with 3:26 remaining in regulation.

The Wild had their chances in overtime, too. Boldy just missed a shot in tight near the goal. Rossi went to the net and was denied. In the shootout, Zuccarello scored first, but Kaprizov hit the pipe and Boldy fired the puck over the top of the net, which sealed the victory for Seattle, who went 2-for-2 in the shootout with Oliver Bjorkstrand and Eberle scoring.

The Wild never trailed in Saturday’s game against the Kraken, until the final shootout goal scored by Eberle, the third time on the night when he put the puck in the net.

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The latter applies to all NHL teams – including the Minnesota Wild – opening their seasons this week. Yes, hockey season has arrived. Don’t let Minnesota’s forecasted high temperatures in the 80-degree range fool you. The Minnesota Wild will open their season Thursday night with a game against the Columbus Blue Jackets at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

The Wild come off a season that ended without a playoff berth for the first time in five years. They finished with a 39-34-9 record and 87 points, only good enough for sixth place in the Central Division. Their abysmal 5-10-4 start got then-coach Dean Evason fired and replaced with John Hynes.

Last October, the Wild went 3-4-2 and were 7-10-4 by the end of November. With Thanksgiving as an unofficial benchmark for playoff teams, a below .500 record didn’t put the Wild in a good spot.

But it’s time to turn the page to the 2024-25 campaign. It’s a new season, a fresh start. The first-day-of-school vibes. This will mark the first full season for Hynes behind the bench with the Wild.

Wild players gather and celebrate during a preseason game Oct. 1 against the Chicago Blackhawks. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

Minnesota will undoubtedly look to get off to a good start, and they’ll have to get there mostly on the road. In what always seems to be some kind of schedule quirk, the Wild starts with a pair of home games against Columbus and Seattle before hitting the road for the rest of October. The Wild have seven consecutive road games from Oct. 13-29. They return home Nov. 1 to host the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Looking at the roster, it’s a lot of familiar faces. Wild fans don’t have a lot of new jersey numbers or names to memorize. Kirill Kaprizov is still the stud and star of the team. He led the team in goals (46) and points (96) last season. Just a few tallies shy of reaching a 50 goals, 50 assists season. That should be an attainable bar for this season.

Joel Eriksson Ek comes off a career-high 30-goal season. With a grain of salt, he was tied for the team lead in three preseason games with eight points. Winger Mats Zuccarello also returns to the squad; he recorded a team-high six assists in three preseason games. Zuccarello led the Wild with 51 assists last season, reaching that mark for the second time in his career.

Health and injuries are always a story somehow. Matt Boldy has dealt with injury in the preseason but should be ready for the regular season. He finished last season a goal shy of the 30-goal mark and notched 40 assists for 69 points. When Boldy is on, he’s on, and his offensive play is quite impressive. Consistency should be the name of the game for Boldy as he starts his fourth season in the NHL. He’s improved his point totals each year so far, and his goals and points often come in bunches.

On the blue line, there’s Brock Faber, fresh off signing his big, eight-year, $68 million contract extension this summer. No, he didn’t win the Calder, but he was spectacular for the Wild last season. He seemed to fit in seamlessly as a rookie in many ways. He led NHL rookies with his 24:58 time-on-ice average per game and 150 blocked shots. He scored eight goals and 39 assists. He helped run the power play. He even played the end of the season with broken ribs.

Captain Jared Spurgeon is also back after an injury-riddled season last year limited him to only 16 games. Three goaltenders have roster spots: The veteran Marc-Andrew Fleury, Filip Gustavsson and Jesper Wallstedt.

Thursday’s opener marks a homecoming, of sorts, for Evason. He returns to Xcel Energy Center as a head coach, but this time as the head coach of Columbus. Evason went 147-77-27 in 251 games as the Wild’s head coach from 2020-23 in parts of five seasons.

Another familiar face? Niklas Backstrom. The former Wild goaltender is now a goalie coach with Columbus. Backstrom played 409 career games with the Wild from 2006-15, going 194-142-50 and holding the Wild franchise record in games played and wins.

Wild fans waved their LED rally towels during last season’s home opener against the Florida Panthers. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

Tidbits:
For the fans: All fans attending the season opener will receive a light-up LED rally towel. The Wild also gave out the rally towels at last year’s home opener.

For the fans, part II: The Wild has invited fans to the Green Carpet Player Arrival and Pregame Party from 3:30-6:30 p.m. at the next-door RiverCentre ahead of Thursday’s game. Fans will get to watch players arrive and walk the green carpet.

Foligno: Assuming Marcus Foligno suits up for these first two games, he’ll reach 800 career NHL games played.

Eriksson Ek: A similar note for Joel Eriksson Ek. He’s two games away from 500 career NHL games.

The post It’s Hockey Season appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

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Minnesota taking a no-excuses approach to depleted lineup

St. Paul – Experts tell us that injuries should not cripple a pro sports team.

Wild players and coach Bruce Boudreau — wincing a bit after dropping a 5-4 overtime decision to Columbus in Minnesota’s home opener Saturday — are trying valiantly to agree.

“We’re not looking for excuses,” captain Mikko Koivu said after the Wild lost a two-goal third-period lead and the game.

A fuming Boudreau attempted to shrug off the injuries that forced his team to call up four players from Iowa against the Jackets, noting that the youngsters were not the reason his team continued a trend of late-game opposition surges that he labeled “embarrassing.”

His face red, Boudreau pointed out: “All four games we’ve played so far, we’ve been tied or ahead in the third period, and we’ve only got one win to show for it.”

The Wild went with just three lines for most of the third period of Game 4, a game for which they were missing impact players Zach Parise, Mikael Granlund, Nino Niederreiter, Charlie Coyle and Marcus Foligno.

Yikes.

Those absences brought the number of man-games lost because of injury by Minnesota to 10 through four games. Four of those were by Parise and three by Granlund, both offensive leaders. The number was five through three games, but Niederreiter, Coyle and Foligno went down in a 5-2 win at Chicago and the number of man-games lost doubled against Columbus.

Well… maybe you could call it a stroke of luck that the Wild left the Xcel Energy Center Saturday anticipating an unusual five days off before the next puck drop at Winnipeg on Friday.

That may give the Wild time to integrate some or all of the newcomers — Luke Kunin, Landon Ferraro, Christoph Bertschy and Zack Mitchell were called up from Iowa to play against Columbus.

But shuffling more than a quarter of the lineup is no easy task and might be even harder at such an early stage of the season. In addition, even though the bizarre NHL schedule hands a unique stretch of extra time off to the Wild this week, Coyle and Niederreiter will nevertheless be sidelined for a long stretch, and possibly Granlund, too. Foligno and Parise might be ready for the game in Winnipeg, or they night not.

If they don’t play, someone else will.

“With a lot of new faces, it’s just about familiarity and getting comfortable with not thinking and just playing,” center Eric Staal said.

Losing 10 man-games to injuries in four games seems stunning; it’s a pace for 205 over the season. Last season, Minnesota lost 199 man-games and ranked 17th in the league, but 82 of those were because of a torn triceps suffered by fringe player Victor Bartley during training camp. Subtracting his 82 leaves 117, a number which would have ranked 28th out of 30 teams.

And the names behind this year’s 10 are significant.

Compare last season’s health to the horendous numbers of 429 man-games lost to injury or illness by the Wild in 2010-11 and 395 in 2011-12, and it’s no wonder they were able to hang around the top of the overall league standings for much of last season.

New season, new narrative.

“We’ll deal with it,” Staal said. “A lot of teams do. We’ve got to play. We’ve got guys coming up that are going to fill some important roles.”

Tyler Ennis, who scored two power-play goals against the Blue Jackets, said the Wild just have to bear down.

“We’ve got a lot of banged-up guys, but everybody says it: It’s next man up,” Ennis said.

Kunin, a wing sent to Iowa to rack up ice time and learn the pro game in his first season since leaving the University of Wisconsin, made his NHL debut sooner than expected with one missed shot, one hit and some decent play in 13:53 of ice time.

“You never want guys to get hurt,” he said, “but that’s what the circumstance was and I was just happy to get the opportunity.”

“It’s one of the ways you can get back into the league or kind of get your chance,” noted winger Ferraro, who scored his first NHL goal since March 1, 2016. “You don’t like to see especially some of the injuries that they have here, but someone’s got to come in and play and you’ve just got to do your best.”

Guys going in and out of the lineup because of ailments is a painful fact of life in pro sports. So far, the Wild are handling the situation fairly well, posting a 1-1-2 record through four games. But no one questions the simple fact that they will be a considerably better team with Parise, Granlund, Niederreiter, Coyle and Foligno in the lineup.

The post Wild are feeling the pain appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

It all starts at the top and, in the state of hockey, nothing compares to the ride that the Minnesota Wild saw in 2016.   Since their inception in 2000, the Wild have had five  head coaches, and in 2016 we saw three different faces behind the bench and podium.

The year was one for streaks, beginning with a slide for the ages, as the Wild lost 13 of their first 14 games.  On Feb. 13, after their  eighth loss in a row at home, to Boston,  owner Craig Leipold and GM Chuck Fletcher pulled the trigger, firing coach Mike Yeo after four-plus seasons at the helm and  named John Torchetti the interim coach.

The former Iowa head coach, who helped solidify the AHL franchise with sound structure and solid teaching, was asked to come in and lead the Wild.  Torchetti would have mixed results as the team searched for an identity.

After righting the ship and getting an under-performing team to play hard, the team turned around and was able to make the playoffs, entering as the  eighth seed and facing a hot Dallas team  which had finished the year by going 12-3-2 in  its last 17 games and earning the top seed.

The Wild would put up a fight in the series, playing hard and winning  two of the first  five games, but would eventually have their season end at the X losing in  Game 6.

In  Game 6, the team came back from a horrid start, down 4-0 after  two periods, and finished with a frantic comeback.  But just like their season, the hole they dug was just to deep to crawl out of losing 5-4.

With the streaky team going 15-11-1 under Torchetti, the question remained, would that be good enough for Leipold and Fletcher to take the interim label off and keep Torchetti as the  fourth head coach of the Wild.

Once the season ended, Chuck Fletcher told the media that Torchetti would be a serious head coaching candidate but he wanted to look at other options as well.

Torchetti, along with Randy Carlyle, interviewed with Fletcher.  More names were brought up as potential candidates.  All things changed from what was suppose to be a slow process, to a fast track, when Bruce Boudreau was fired by the Anaheim Ducks after losing another  Game 7 to the Nashville Predators.

On April 29t, after leading the Ducks to four consecutive division titles, but losing a  Game 7 for the fourth consecutive year, the Ducks cut their ties with him.

With Bourdreau being available, the hiring decision was fast-tracked, as his demand as a head coach would far exceed all other candidates.  His track record showed  eight division titles in  nine years and an overall coaching record of 208 wins, 104 losses and 40 ties.  This record made him a very hot prospect.

His coaching career in the NHL began in 2007 with the Washington Capitals, where he led the Caps to  four straight  division titles, becoming the fastest coach to win 200 regular season games.  However, In the playoffs, he lost  three times in  Game 7.

The following season, after a fast start that was followed by a prolonged slump, the Capitals and  Boudreau parted ways on  Nov. 11, 2011.  His unemployment was very short lived, as just  two days later he would be hired by Anaheim where he continued his winning ways.

With the Wild in need  of a coach with a proven track record, Fletcher immediately targeted Boudreau, and, with Ottawa also in hot pursuit, time was of the essence.  Fletcher would get his man.  On May 7th, Boudreau would be unemployed for less than  two weeks, becoming the  fifth head coach of the Wild.

Boudreau is glad to be back in the town where his professional career began.  The irony of his hiring is he now coaches in a building on the same spot Boudreau  began his professional career as a player  with the Minnesota Fighting Saints.

Boudreau knew that he had talent to work with but was also facing serious challenges, as the old regime had instilled a very different system and he would need to get the team to buy in to his style.

Because breaking old habits takes time, Boudreau told the media that he thought the club would find it’s stride by December.  He was prophetic.

The Wild more than found their stride in December, winning 12 straight games after a Dc. 2 shootout loss to Calgary to set the stag for Saturday’s historic matchup with Columbus.

The Blue Jackets arrived in St. Paul with a 14-game winning streak of their own marking the first time in NHL history two teams with winning streaks of at least seven games had ever met. In fact no two teams in all of the major sports had ever squared off with each having win streaks of 12 or more games.

Both teams entered the league in 2000 and have come of age  built around solid  goaltending, with the Wild leading the league in goals against average at  2.00 and Columbus right behind at 2.06 to start the night.  Devan  Dubnyk carried a  19-6-3 record, with a  save percentage of .944  and his own 10 game winning streak into the contest.  His counterpart, Sergei Bobrovsky  was 23-5-2 with a .932 save percentage and  a 12-game streak.

Neither club has a real sniper up front, but are very balanced with  four solid lines and lead the league with  eight of the top  nine players who are greater than  plus-18 in terms of plus/minus.

A common thought from the players and coaches was the game was still game number 36 out of an 82 game season, although the Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella liked the thought of the match up saying, “I want our guys to revel in it .”

Revel in it they did, as Columbus jumped off to a lead on Cam Atkinson’s goal at the 10:05 mark of the first period.  The Blue Jackets then scored twice in 15 seconds on Jack Johnson’s goal followed by another from Atkinson, early in the second period giving them a 3-0 lead.

The Wild countered just over a minute later with a goal by Mikael Granlund that brought the crowd back to life.  This was stifled late in the period with Seth Jones scoring to give the Jackets a comfortable  three-goal lead going into the  third period.

Coach Boudreau would inspire his club between periods and just 24 seconds into the third period Jason Zucker would cut the lead in half.  “ We wanted to score a goal every  five minutes, which would win us the game,” either Boudreau or Zucker said because the quote was not attributed despite both names mentioned in this paragraph. “ After the first one, I thought we would get another in eight minutes and, if we would have got the next one, it may have been different as the crowd was so into it.”

The Wild pressed hard until the end, but the Blue Jackets have won 14 straight games for a reason, and know how to close out good teams, keeping the Wild off the board and extending their streak to 15.

After the game Boudreau expressed his  team’s need to get back to how they started the streak. “Giving up 14 goals in  four games, we have gotten away from how we play because we have changed our  mindset,  most likely because we have been scoring goals,” Boudreau said.  “We need to get back to winning games 3-2 and 2-1, that’s what is going to make us win.  If we think we are going be a team that is going to win 5-4 we are in trouble, as that is not going to happen.”

When asked how his December was and what he will remember,  Boudreau said, “Christmas was very good, New Years not so good.  When you sit back and look at the whole picture what we did was pretty good, as long as we can get back to what we were doing, we will be successful.”

The post 2016 – A Very WILD Ride appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

[See image gallery at minnesotahockeymag.com]

The post Gallery: Wild vs. Jackets appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

A trio of takeaways from Minnesota’s 3-2 win over Columbus

Winning Ugly

Following a pair of road losses to previously winless teams, Minnesota appeared poised to complete the hat trick against 0-7-0 Columbus. With new coach John Tortorella behind the Blue Jackets’ bench for the first time, having just replaced fired former Wild coach and Gopher defenseman Todd Richards, Columbus scored twice in the second half of the opening period to lead 2-1 at the break.

Minnesota coach Mike Yeo said he stressed to his team the importance of being ready for a hard game against a desperate team auditioning for a new coach and that’s exactly what the Wild got.

“Obviously the first period is not the way we drew it up,” Yeo said. “But what was important is we didn’t let that get to us, we found our game, we got to it and got a big win.”

After falling behind early, the Blue Jackets outshot Minnesota 13-6 through 20 minutes and played with a bit more jump in their step than did the Wild after another long layoff. But Minnesota revisited its early-season penchant for grinding out a win despite being outplayed for significant stretches. second period goals by Nino Niederreiter and Thomas Vanek turned out to be the difference.

“I just feel like we talked so much about how hard they were going to come out and how hard they were going to play, I don’t know if we psyched ourselves out or what,” Wild assistant captain Zach Parise said. “But it was a pretty ugly start for us.”

Coming into the game, Minnesota had played just three games in 11 days with breaks of four and three days, respectively. Yeo said the current stretch of six games in 10 nights beginning with Columbus will help breed consistency.

“There’s parts of every game that are good but we’re not playing a complete full 60 minutes,” Yeo said. “We’re not unlike 29 other teams in the league right now but we’ve had all these long breaks and we just need to get into games and we have to make sure we use these games to continue to get better.”

Dubnyk’s struggles

Wild goaltender Devan Dubnyk continues to struggle to regain the form he exhibited last season through five starts, despite his 4-1-0 record which belies his 2.81 goals against average and .896 saves percentage.  Handed an early lead, Dubnyk allowed the Blue Jackets to knot the score at 1-1 midway through the opening period on a soft goal from a sharp angle.

Dubnyk got caught out high above his crease and could not recover in time and Columbus forward Alexander Wennberg’s shot from the bottom of the left circle banked off Dubnyk’s right pad and in.

“I didn’t get a good rotation, I blew my edge twice on the push,” Dubnyk said. “Those are just things I’ve got to sharpen up on and that’ll come with getting more comfortable as we go.”

Dubnyk recovered to finish with 27 saves, including a remarkable stop with his outstretched right pad on Wennberg late in the second period after saving Cam Atkinson’s original shot from the right circle. Dubnyk said the final two periods were all about positioning for him which should help in the games ahead.

“I wanted to get back in my depth a little bit as far as where I was playing,” Dubnyk said. “I kind of got back to where I wanted to be in my net in the second and third period and it gave me a chance to feel good about my game.”

$196 million duo

The Wild’s top paid players, Ryan Suter and Parise hooked up to give Minnesota the early lead, each taking advantage of a miscue by Columbus defenseman Jack Johnson, whose first impression on Tortorella was not a good one.

Johnson carried the puck behind his own net before sending the puck up the boards where Suter picked it up in stride just inside the blue line. As Johnson drifted into the slot, his eyes fixated on Suter stickhandling into the left corner, he never saw Parise barreling toward the right post behind him.

Suter did, however, and fired a pass through the crease just as Parise arrived and he buried his league-leading sixth goal of the season behind Blue Jackets’ goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky just 5:14 into the game. Suter’s sixth assist of the year ties him for second among the league’s defensemen.

Was it a case of two long-time buddies being on the same page?

“It was more luck than anything,” Parise admitted. “I’d love to say it was chemistry or clicking but he was just throwing it in front and it hit my shin pad and it was a lucky one.”

Suter was not done assisting his close friend, coming to Parise’s aid at a critical moment midway through the third period. With Minnesota leading 3-2 and pressing to extend its lead, Parise turned the puck over to dangerous Columbus forward Nick Foligno high in the Blue Jackets’ zone.

Foligno broke through the neutral zone alone but Suter raced rink wide to chase Foligno down and ride him harmlessly into the boards to erase the threat.

“I don’t know what happened there,” Parise said of his turnover. “Yeah, he bailed me out on one there.”

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Minnesota’s brief win streak comes to a screeching halt

SAINT PAUL – The Wild’s season-on-the-brink remained exactly that Monday night, but former Wild coach Todd Richards refused to gloat even a little after his Columbus Blue Jackets dumped Minnesota 3-1.

The win was the fifth in succession for Richards over the team he coached three and four seasons ago, but the Blue Jackets are not sitting any prettier than the Wild these days.

“We’re all desperate right now based on where we’re at,” Richards said. “It was a hard-fought win. It was a great win for us in Boston (3-1 two days previous), and then to come in here and beat a really good hockey team, it’s a good feeling right now.”

A native of Crystal who coached the Wild to a 77-71-16 mark in 2009-11, Richards’ Blue Jackets have just a 20-21-3 record for 43 points and are tied for 12th in the Eastern Conference.

The Wild have 45 points in one additional game and are 12th in the West.

And their diminutive two-game winning streak came to a screeching halt in front of 19,064 at the Xcel Energy Center.

With just one game remaining – at Detroit on Tuesday night – before a break for the NHL All-Star Game, Minnesota’s playoff hopes are diminishing faster than the team’s good goalie play from a 7-2-1 stretch in late November.

These days — no offense – they just cannot seem to come up with that big goal when they need it.

“We’ve just got to bear down and it’ll turn,” defenseman Ryan Suter said. “It has to turn. The law of averages says it will.”

The Wild clanged two shots off one of the goalposts behind the Blue Jackets’ Sergei Bobrovsky and had another by Zach Parise slide through Bobrovsky’s pads and nestle into the crease for a moment before the puck was cleared.

But Parise, who scored his team-leading 17th goal for the Wild, said close doesn’t count.

“How long can we use that excuse?” he said. “We had some good chances; it’s just a matter of capitalizing on them. Yeah, we did have some posts, we had a missed penalty shot, we had a missed breakaway. We’ve got to put those in.”

Parise was victimized when the puck hopped his stick on Minnesota’s penalty shot when the score was 1-1, but except for a recent 7-0 victory over hapless Buffalo, Minnesota is fighting an uphill battle, offensively.

Yeo says that makes things tougher on players’ mentalities.

“I know that we can do a much better job as far as puck strength, hanging onto the puck, but as the year goes on it gets tougher to score goals,” he said.

As the year has gone on, everything has become tougher for the Wild.

They are not out of the playoff race, but if 94 points are needed to make the top eight in the West, Minnesota must go 23-11-3 over its final 37 games to make it.

After obtaining 45 points in the first 45 games, totaling 49 in the next 37 is not going to be easy.

Notes: Suter returned from a two-game league suspension and played 30 minutes, 11 seconds, but was a minus-2. … Mikael Granlund (wrist surgery) missed the game but could play in Detroit. … Jason Pominville assisted on Parise’s goal and leads the Wild in points with 37. … Goalie Devan Dubnyk stopped 20 of 23 shots and suffered his first loss in a Minnesota sweater.

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