Darcy Kuemper takes his game to another level

ST. PAUL – Former Minnesota Wild player Darcy Kuemper, now with the Arizona Coyotes, didn’t become one of the top goaltenders in the National Hockey League overnight.

Far from it.

“He wants to be a No. 1 goalie,” said Arizona Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet. “He’s been a back-up for eight years.”

Darcy Kuemper (Photo by Norm Hall/NHLI via Getty Images)

Yes, Kuemper’s rise to the top of the goaltending heap in the NHL came with many seasons playing second fiddle to teammates. The 2009 sixth-round Wild draft pick made 89 starts (played in 102 games) for the Wild, going 41-34-14 with a 2.60 GAA and .910 save percentage from 2012-17. Kuemper played six, 26, 31, 21 and 18 games a season across his five seasons with the Wild, playing back-up to the likes of Niklas Backstrom, Ilya Bryzgalov and Devan Dubnyk.

Kuemper played for Los Angeles, again in a back-up role, before being shipped to the Coyotes in February 2018.

Kuemper didn’t start Thursday’s game against his former team in St. Paul, a 3-2 win for the Wild, but his numbers so far have been stellar. He’s 8-5-0 with a 1.99 GAA and .931 save percentage. Going into Thursday night’s games, his GAA was the best in the Western Conference and second in the NHL behind Thomas Greiss (7-1-0 in 9 games for the New York Islanders). Kuemper’s save percentage is tied for third in the league.

His mindset is to work hard and keep improving his game, he said.

“I’ve gotten some good opportunity here to play a lot,” Kuemper said. “Have guys really committed to playing defense in front of me, so it’s just kind of a good recipe for success.”

He’s allowed just 26 goals, has a shutout against Colorado (33 saves) and only allowed 4 goals in a game once this season – in that 4-3 loss to the Wild (7-11-1) on Saturday.

“I’m sure Kemps still would like to beat us,” Wild coach Bruce Boudreau told the traveling media following Saturday’s game. “His last year, we probably weren’t as good to him as we should’ve been. He’s gone and become one of the best goalies in the league numbers-wise.”

So what’s changed? Well, things started to turn around for Kuemper last season when he saw an opportunity. Kuemper started the season in familiar territory, once again a back-up to Antti Raanta, who took the loss on Thursday. But Kuemper needed to step up after Raanta sustained a season-ending injury in late November (Raanta’s last game that season was a 4-3 Coyotes win in Minnesota.).

“I love playing, so it’s a lot of fun,” Kuemper said. “I just cherish the opportunity to be out there as much as I can.”

Suddenly vaulted into the top spot, Kuemper struggled some, losing eight-of-nine games from mid-November through December. But then something clicked. Kuemper turned the calendar to 2019 in January and he turned to a winning page on his hockey performance.

Former Wild goaltender Darcy Kuemper makes one of his 29 saves in Minnesota’s 2-1 win over the New York Rangers on March 13, 2014 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. (MHM Photo / Jeff Wegge)

That’s when Tocchet saw the change, too, in Kuemper’s mentality.

“He wanted to talk to the general manager… he (Kuemper) didn’t like his play,” Tocchet said. “He (Kuemper) says, ‘if I don’t play, we can’t win.’

“Since that day, he’s been arguably the top two, three goalies in the league. It’s a strong mentality that he found in himself. There was another level, and he found it.”

Kuemper rattled off a seven-game winning streak starting in mid-February, winning 9-out-of-10 games into March. He went 13 games in a row from March 23 to Oct. 22 allowing two goals or less in a game, setting a new Coyotes franchise record; it was also the 12th longest such stretch in NHL history. Since Jan. 6, only Sergei Bobrovsky (with Columbus last season and Florida this year) has more shutouts (eight) in the NHL than Kuemper (six).

He helped put his team into the playoff conversation before finishing fourth in the Pacific Division. Kuemper had a career year last season, going 27-20-8 in 55 games with a 2.33 GAA and .925 save percentage with a career-high five shutouts, including a 4-0, 39-save victory against the Wild on March 31. The now-29-year-old set career marks in games played, starts, wins, save percentage, shots faced and saves.

That’s something that shouldn’t be all too surprising for a perennial back-up who finally found some playing time in the No. 1 spotlight.

“The consistency of his game has been terrific,” Tocchet said.

Last year’s success has spilled over to the 2019-20 campaign. After a couple early losses, Kuemper won his next four starts and seven-of-his-next-eight games, a stretch where he allowed just 14 goals. Kuemper’s next game will be No. 200 in the NHL, which includes 182 starts. He’s a career 88-66-27 with 17 shutouts.

But after giving up those four goals to his former team on his home ice, Kuemper did not get the nod in St. Paul. In the Arizona game, it appeared as though Kuemper was chirping his former team during that game, but he brushed it off when asked about it a few days later after Thursday’s morning skate.

“There honestly wasn’t really much going on,” Kuemper said. “I don’t know how that really became a story. It just was another game.”

That’s how he saw Thursday’s re-match, too. A couple years removed, and with plenty of turnover in the Wild dressing room as well, coming back to his roots in Minnesota isn’t that big of a deal to Kuemper. Instead, it’s “just another game” with a chance for an important two points on the line.

For the second-place Coyotes (11-7-2), Kuemper isn’t the only one getting it done. Nick Schmaltz leads the way with 4 goals and 15 points. And Tocchet has the ability to rely on two solid goaltenders; Raanta is 3-2-2.

“It’s always a lot more fun when the team’s having success,” Kuemper said. “It’s still early in the season, but we’re pretty happy with our start. We know there are things we’ve got to keep working on and a lot of games ahead of us. But it’s been a good start. We’ve just got to keep building off it.” 

The post A Back Seat To No One appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

SAINT PAUL — Playing in the National Hockey League is nothing new to Alex Stalock, but strapping on his goalie pads for his hometown NHL team certainly is.

Prior to making his first start in a Minnesota Wild uniform in an arena just minutes from where he grew up, Stalock, a South St. Paul native, admitted to being both excited and nervous.

“Obviously, the team they have in this room and to be able to play behind them is pretty special,” said Stalock after skating with the team on Thursday morning. “I think anybody would lie if you’re not nervous going into every game. You want to do your best every game and I think if you don’t have nerves you don’t have the competitive juices flowing.”

Minnesota recalled the 29-year-old former University of Minnesota Duluth star was recalled from its American Hockey League affiliate in Iowa Wednesday and was immediately named the starter for Thursday’s game against the Ottawa Senators.

Stalock, who said sleeping in his own bed on Wednesday night “was a treat,” was thrilled by the chance to perform so close to home.

“Playing for the hometown team is [something] not many kids get to do from Minnesota and it’s a pretty special chance,” Stalock said.

Stalock did not disappoint in his hometown NHL debut stopping 18-of-19 shots to backstop a 5-1 Minnesota win and snap the Wild’s four-game losing streak. It marked Stalock’s first NHL victory since a Jan. 12, 2016, win for San Jose at Winnipeg.

Wild No. 1 goalie Devan Dubnyk served as Stalock’s backup while Darcy Kuemper did not dress for the game.

“I was just actually saying that to Doobs, I don’t know when my last win was in this league,” Stalock said. “It’s been a while and the guys made it easy tonight. I just made the routine saves. It was fun to be a part of again.”

Stalock led the team out of the tunnel and was given the obligatory solo lap by his teammates before they joined him on the ice.

“Yeah, I don’t know, maybe I walked out too fast,” Stalock said. “Usually, I walk pretty fast, but maybe Mikko (Koivu) was taking his time.”

Ottawa scored first at 16:20 of the first period on Mike Hoffman’s goal just as a penalty to Nino Niederreiter expired. 

“You don’t want to give up a goal, but when you give one up, it’s kind of a wake-up call, it’s time to go kind of thing, Statlock said. “From there, I settled in and stopped the shots from the outside, so it was good.”

Stalock and the Wild’s team defense shut down the Senators from that point as Minnesota score the final five goals of the game.

“We did a great job coming back, obviously, five unanswered, the way we played and eliminated their chances, other than a few power-play chances,” Stalock said.

The 6′ 0″, 187 lb. Stalock, who said he was caught off guard by the promotion, has rebounded from a slow start to seize control of the starting role for an Iowa team in the hunt for a playoff spot.

“Alex has done a great job down in Iowa, two shutouts in the last week,” Boudreau said after Thursday’s morning skate. “He was sick early in the season but, right now, he’s one of the better goalies in the American Hockey League, he’s playing every day so he’s feeling it.”

The opportunity to play consistent minutes, Stalock says, goes hand-in-hand with his improved performance.

“For a goalie, it’s crucial to play back-to-backs or games consecutively and get some confidence and roll with it,” Stalock said. “To get in there every night and, say you don’t have a good night, get back in there and get another chance to fix it, it’s been beneficial for my game and I’ve taken it and run.”

In 45 games for a much-improved Iowa team, Stalock is 20-16-7 with a 2.31 goals against average and .924 save percentage.

“We’ve got a good thing going in Iowa and we’re making a playoff push there as well,” Stalock said. “It’s been a blast down there playing this year with a good group.”

Stalock’s last NHL start came on Feb. 11, 2016 for San Jose where he played 62 career NHL games during parts of five seasons (2010-16) compiling a 24-19-7 record with a 2.37 goals against average, a .911 save percentage and four shutouts.

After a brief stop in the Maple Leafs organization following a late-season trade, Stalock signed a one-year, two-way contract with Minnesota last summer. On Feb. 2, the Wild signed Stalock to a two-year, $1.3 million extension.

Minnesota coach Bruce Boudreau said getting Stalock some NHL playing time has been in the team’s plans for a while.

“We’ve signed him, he’s gonna be with us the next two years, whether it’s here or in Iowa so we thought this was a good time to do it,” Boudreau said. “Duby looks tired and Kuemps wasn’t getting enough reps to make him sharp so, hopefully, this will work and work out for us.”

Stalock is all too familiar with the challenges faced by a backup goalie in the NHL making it easy to sympathize with Kuemper.

“Any goalie that’s penciled in as a backup in this league, they understand it,” Stalock said. “It’s tough when the guy ahead of you is playing so well and then when you go in you’re expected to be lights out to get your team a chance to win. It’s not easy and, being through it, it’s a hard position to be in.”

Drafted by San Jose in fourth round (112th overall) of 2005 NHL Entry Draft, Stalock’s NHL debut came in in a 5–3 Sharks victory over the Phoenix Coyotes on Feb. 1, 2011. Playing in relief of Antti Niemi, Stalock stopped all nine shots he faced to record his first NHL win.

Three days later, however, after being returned the the AHL’s Worcester Sharks, Stalock was stepped on by a Manchester Monarchs player, severing a nerve behind his right knee. Surgery and subsequent rehabilitation cost Stalock nearly an entire calendar year.

Prior to that, Stalock led South Saint Paul High School to the 2004 Minnesota Class A State Hockey Tournament where he was named to the All-Tournament Team.

He spent the next two seasons with the USHL’s Cedar Rapids Roughriders, leading them to 2005 Clark Cup championship in 2005. Stalock earned series MVP honors playing on a team that included future NHLers Teddy Purcell (Edmonton Oilers), Justin Abdelkader (Detroit Red Wings), and Alec Martinez (Los Angeles Kings).

Stalock then went on to play three seasons at the University of Minnesota Duluth (2006-09) where he led the Bulldogs to the WCHA playoff championship and the NCAA West Regional Final in 2009 before signing on with San Jose.

The post A Career Revived 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.

Wild’s Christmas present merrier than recent past

Saint Paul — Some Minnesota Wild players are beginning to heat up right as the three-day holiday break begins.

Wild forward Charlie Coyle scored at Xcel Energy Center for the second time in as many nights, helping out his teammates Tuesday and admittedly playing with confidence.

Jason Pominville, who took until Nov. 28 to score his first goal of the season, notched his fifth less than a month later.

It extends to the net. Making a start in place of Devan Dubnyk, goaltender Darcy Kuemper improved to 4-0-2 in his last six starts. Kuemper made 24 saves, with two big ones down the stretch as Minnesota held on Tuesday for a 2-1 victory over the Montreal Canadiens.

“There was some adversity that struck in the game,”Minnesota coach Mike Yeo said. “I think we were in a better place tonight. We were ready to handle it, and that didn’t break us.”

The holidays have not been a good time for the Wild each of the past two seasons. Winter’s coming has been matched with lengthy losing streaks during late December and early January. Minnesota entered Tuesday’s contest with the Atlantic Division-leading Montreal Canadiens on a two-game losing streak after points in nine straight.

“We played a lot of games in the last little while so a rest, we’ll take advantage of the rest for a little bit,” Zach Parise said.

If maybe this year can be better than the last, getting the win and confidence matters.

That said, Tuesday’s game is not one that will be shown on the hockey highlight reel anytime soon. Long stretches were played in the neutral zone with both goalies being able to catch up on holiday lists, a side effect of two teams playing back-to-back games (and three games in four nights for Minnesota).

Twice the Wild celebrated goals that were waved off on the ice and upheld by review. The frustration was evident, especially with Montreal’s Daniel Carr cutting the lead to one minutes after the second no-goal, where Parise believed a third effort was fruitful in giving Minnesota a 3-0 lead.

The goals that did count were able to break through the doldrums and give the 19,105 fans something to cheer, however. Pominville’s scoring touch showed in the first period by batting in Mikael Granlund’s rebound with a backhand shot. Coyle’s, meanwhile, in the third period also went to his backhand with the 23 year-old equaling his goal total of the previous 21 games.

“I had a little speed so I just tried to taking him wide,” Coyle said. “Just a little move I’ve worked on before and I’ve seen so I just tried to get it off and luckily I didn’t get (Montreal goaltender Mike Condon’s) shoulder and it went in.”

Being able to win in ugly fashion, holding onto leads – a night after blowing a 2-0 one to Dallas – is a needed skill to control over the highs and lows of an 82-game season. So will getting performances from a player like Kuemper, who had gone a week without playing.

“It was nice to get back in there and keep the good things going, the momentum going forward,” Kuemper said. “Not playing for a while since that Vancouver game was the last one, just working hard in practice and focusing on tracking the puck and keeping my eye on it and playing out rebounds. And that keeps translating in games and I’m keeping an eye on it.”

Minnesota returns Saturday to face the Pittsburgh Penguins at Xcel Energy Center. Whether or not the break comes at a bad time for some Wild players can be debated, but Coyle is looking forward to getting back to Boston before coming back to try to keep his own, and his team’s, going.

“It’s going to be nice to kind of regroup,” Coyle said. “Some guys are going home and just enjoying the holidays, but we’ll get right back at it on the 26^th. We have to come back with the same attitude. It’s not going to come for us. We have to forget about this game and come back and get to our game as soon as possible.”

The post Minnesota heads to break to holiday cheers appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Parise remains at father’s side as Minnesota falls to San Jose

SAINT PAUL — J.P. Parise was a Minnesota hockey icon before anyone ever heard of sons Zach or Jordan.

J.P.’s late-stage battle with cancer forced Zach to skip the Wild’s 4-3 overtime home loss to the San Jose Sharks Tuesday night, and everyone with the Wild concurred with Zach’s decision.

Ryan Suter, the Wild defenseman who lost his father, Bob, to a heart attack at age 57 in September, fielded a phone call from Parise before the game to hear that J.P. was fighting for his life and Zach needed to be there.

“Life is much bigger than hockey,” Suter said after Minnesota lost for the eighth time in its past 10 games and fourth time in overtime during that stretch. “He definitely made the right decision to be with his family.”

Jason Zucker, who arrived at the Xcel Energy Center before the game to discover that Parise’s No. 11 sweater was not hanging in front of his locker, filled the void on the Wild’s top line with two goals and an assist.

Zucker is now tied with Parise and Nino Niederreiter for the team lead in goals with 14.

“To be honest, I don’t really care about that,” Zucker said. “We need to win and that’s all I really care about.”

In a season that is rapidly disintegrating for the Wild, they lost to the Sharks on home ice for the first time in the past eight meetings and dropped to 18-15-5 overall for 11th place in the 14-team Western Conference.

Wild coach Mike Yeo spun things as positive as possible, insisting he was pleased with the play of his guys most of the evening and denying that, besides goaltending, three or four other players might have been “below average.”

“We were good tonight,” he stated.

Earlier, however, Yeo said this team cannot afford to have any players “be below average,” then observed that it’s “tricky” to discuss whether goalie Darcy Kuemper has fallen into that category because of “the confidence factor.”

That said, he noted, a team’s success invariably starts and ends with goaltending.

In that department, Kuemper now has a 13-12-1 record with a 2.68 goals-against mark and a .902 save percentage. He stopped 22 of 26 shots Tuesday, including one of two in overtime.

And the Wild’s season continued spiraling out of control.

It didn’t help that center Mikael Granlund is sidelined by a wrist injury and defenseman Nate Prosser missed the game because of illness.

But Parise is this team’s on-ice and off-ice leader; his absence was staggering.

“Our concern is with him,” Yeo said. “I thought our guys banded together and we played hard for him. All I can say is all our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family right now.”

Jason Pominville commented how the mood in the dressing room before the game turned glum when Zach’s situation was made known.

“It’s just tough to see something like this happening to a teammate and a friend and a big part of this team,” Pominville said. “I think a lot of guys were a little down, thinking about what was going on, but at the same time it might have pulled us together a little bit and we were able to put in a good effort.

“But these are things you never want to see anyone have to deal with. It’s just really unfortunate and we were thinking about him quite a bit.”

Zucker said he feels for Parise.

“He’s a huge leader for us, an emotional leader for us, and to see him going through what he’s going through is very tough,” Zucker said. “I can’t imagine the pain he’s going through right now.”

The Parises, of course, are immensely close and the father was way more proud of his son’s accomplishments than of anything he did in the sport.

I knew J.P. a bit from his days with the North Stars when I was a young sportswriter with the Minneapolis Tribune, but I didn’t really get to know him until he was director of the sport at the hockey factory known as Shattuck-St. Mary’s in Faribault, Minn.

I remember visiting Faribault for a Twin Cities daily newspaper to write about this freshman stud at the University of North Dakota by the name of Zach Parise who had returned to Shattuck to work out while the Fighting Sioux were on Christmas break.

J.P. made me feel at home, giving me a guided tour of the gorgeous campus and noting that there was another pretty good player currently playing there by the name of Sidney Crosby.

Zach, like his father, sat down for a lengthy interview and was gracious and humble.

His aim, he said — provided the teams overlooked his less-than-huge stature — was to make it to the National Hockey League.

Despite his 5-foot-11 height — he’s two inches taller than his father — there was never a doubt about that.

Like his dad, Zach brought nearly unmatched intensity and work ethic to pro hockey. And, also like his father, he has remained gracious and humble through an outstanding NHL career.

J.P. was always quick to say that Zach had more talent, and when I ran into him and his wife, Donna, before a game at the X two seasons ago, J.P. was proudly carrying a sign he had gotten signed by his son that read “Zach Parise Avenue.”

Although no one named any streets after J.P. Parise the hockey player, he was such a popular player and person that more than a few parents named one of their children after him.

J.P. was born 73 years ago in Smooth Rock Falls, Ontario, but became a Minnesotan as an adult. He played 152 games for the Minneapolis Bruins in the early 1960s when the Bruins were one of Boston’s farm teams, then played seven-plus seasons with the North Stars, beginning as a rookie in 1967, before stints with the New York Islanders and the Cleveland Barons and concluding with a final season as the North Stars’ captain in 1978-79.

He exhibited heart and soul as a player and as a man, traits he passed on to his youngest son, Zach.

Sometime soon, Zach Parise will return to the Minnesota lineup, wearing the same No. 11 his father wore for the North Stars, and continue delivering the kind of tenacity and intensity he has become known for.

You can count on it; it is part of the Parise legacy.

The post Heart and soul absent from Wild loss appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Could win over Leafs be deja vu all over again for Minnesota?

SAINT PAUL – For the second straight season, a struggling Minnesota Wild team opened its calendar year against a team based not far from Niagara Falls. And as was the case 12 months ago, the visitors took the fall.

Goals by Jared Spurgeon and Mikko Koivu 1:55 apart midway through the third period broke a 1-1 tie and lifted the Minnesota Wild to a 3-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs in front of a nearly bipartisan crowd of 19,168 on Friday night at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

The Wild entered 2014 losers of six straight and 13 of 18 — including a 5-4 loss to the Islanders in which Minnesota blew a 3-0 lead over the game’s final 37 minutes — to begin the New Year 20-17-5 for 45 points. After a 15-5-4 start, the calendar-closing collapse had rumors swirling that a Jan. 2 loss to the lowly Buffalo Sabres would spell the end for coach Mike Yeo.

Turn the clock forward exactly one year and the Wild came into Friday’s game against Toronto having lost 11 of 17 and began 2015 with a 17-14-4 record for 38 points, seven less than a year ago. Yet the matchup with the Maple Leafs came without the implied win-or-else ultimatum of that came with the Sabres game last January.

The Wild beat Buffalo 4-1 that day to spark a 23-10-7 finish and qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs and Minnesota is clinging to the hope that lightning will strike twice as the team’s health steadily improves.

Minnesota began Friday’s third period nursing a 1-0 lead courtesy of a Kyle Brodziak goal, but consecutive penalties to Spurgeon and Ryan Suter early on gave the Leafs a 5-on-3. Toronto was more than happy to take advantage of the advantage and tied the game on Cody Franson’s sixth of the year at the 2:37 mark.

But Spurgeon’s right circle blast from the right circle at 7:23 and Koivu’s wicked power-play one-timer from nearly the same spot at 9:18 sent the Maple Leafs to their sixth loss in eight games.

“I liked how we played after we got the lead,” Minnesota coach Mike Yeo said. “We didn’t sit back.”

The key to the win, according to Yeo, was the way Minnesota elevated its game once Franson tied things up, something the team failed to do in a 3-1 New Year’s Eve loss to Columbus.

“Tonight, the talk on the bench, leadership-wise and the way that we finished the [penalty] kill and then went back out afterwards and reclaimed the lead, that’s a big moment,” he said. “There’s been a lot of talk about killer instinct and that’s what you’re looking for.”

The Wild’s Captain, though, pointed to another important factor in the win.

“I thought our defensive effort was huge and that’s our identity too,” Koivu said. “Arguably, we’re a tough team to play against when we’re on top of our game and that’s what we need to do.”

Wild goaltender Darcy Kuemper bounced back from the loss to the Blue Jackets with 34 saves to pick up his 13th win of the year. Kuemper, who spent some time away from the game and his recent struggles over the holidays, says he’s feeling good about his game now.

“There was no technical parts that were missing from my game before,” Keumper said. “It’s just more of a mindset so I think I’m in a good place there and the team is playing really good in front of me as well.”

With Leafs netminder Jonathan Bernier (26 saves) looking strong, including a point blank stop on Thomas Vanek just under five minutes into the game,  Kuemper  sknew he had to play well to give his team a chance.

“I saw [Bernier] make a few big saves early and knew it would probably be a little tough to get a few, so I just tried to do my part,” he said.

“When he’s on top of his game it’s not difficult to tell,” Yeo said of Kuemper. “He tracks the play very well and reads the play very well.”

Koivu said patience was important with Bernier playing as well as he was and added Kuemper was a part of that.

“It’s not easy [to be patient] but I thought Kuemps was doing good too so that gives you that confidence too when you know that your goaltender’s on top of his game,” Koivu said. “So you have to be patient and believe that you’re going to get your chances.”

“We’re just playing simple and working hard,” Spurgeon added. “We talked about having a lot of energy and I think we had that tonight.”

The post Another fresh start? appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Power-play scores twice but Anaheim ducks Minnesota’s comeback bid

Just because the Wild take a period off this season, don’t turn off the TV and start crossing things off your list of Christmas chores.

This team somehow has a way of making things interesting.

A lackluster game for 23 minutes made a quick 180 Friday night at the Xcel Energy Center before the Anaheim Ducks absconded with what turned out to be a 5-4 white-knuckle victory.

Darcy Kuemper was the victim of this loss, facing 18 shots and stopping 13.

He felt fine, he said, and some of the Ducks’ goals were worthy.

“But it doesn’t matter if they’re good goals or not, you can’t be letting in five,” he said.

Coach Mike Yeo saluted his team’s comeback to take the lead with four consecutive goals, but added that, in reality, it was nevertheless a loss.

“There’s no reason any of us should feel good about that,” he said.

Wild defenseman Ryan Suter missed his second game because of the mumps, but the Ducks lost forward Corey Perry to a lower-body injury when Keith Ballard upended him with his patented hip check in the first period.

Despite that, this game had the feel of a snoozer as Anaheim constructed a 3-0 lead.

“We can’t start out flat like that,” forward Zach Parise said.

The strangest development: It was the so-far woeful power play that resuscitated Minnesota’s game.

The Wild came into this game 7 for 78 with a man advantage to rank 29th in the NHL, and they failed to click during a first-period power play to make it 7 for 79.

But Anaheim tempted fate in the second period when Ryan Getlaf flipped the puck over the glass from his own zone for a delay-of-game penalty, and 28 seconds later Ryan Kesler – he had scored twice by then – high sticked Parise.

Mikko Koivu made the Ducks pay when he sneaked a bad-angle shot through Ducks goalie Frederik Anderson with the Wild on a 5-on-3 advantage, and 11 seconds later Parise rifled in another power-play goal to make it 3-2 at the 5:10 mark of the second period.

That brought the X crowd of 19,044 to life after a sluggish first 20 minutes in which Anaheim outshot the home team 7-4 and outscored the Wild 2-0.

It was 1-0 just 91 seconds after the opening faceoff after Kesler got loose for a breakaway goal.

Ugh.

“We didn’t have the start we needed,” Yeo understated.

Minnesota finally pulled even on a shot by Jonas Brodin late in the second period, then went ahead 4-3 on Justin Fontaine’s blast at 2:07 of the third.

But Anaheim was not finished, getting a goal from Tim Jackman 80 seconds after Fontaine’s goal and another score from Matt Belesky 8:28 into the final period.

Although the big rally had whipped up the crowd, the Wild did not have another one.

“It sucks,” Parise said.

Offered Kuemper: “We battled back good and got in front; it’s tough to give that up.”

This was the third time in his past four home starts that Kuemper has been pulled; Nik Backstrom played the final half of the third period.

Yeo seemed satisfied with his team’s power play and satisfied that his team limited the Ducks to 21 total shots and, he estimated, no more than 10 decent scoring chances.

However, whether this game became entertaining or not, he was not satisfied with how it turned out.

“The bottom line is, if we score four goals we should win,” he said.

Notes: Brodin picked up some of the slack from Suter’s absence, playing 28 minutes, 29 seconds and getting a goal and an assist. … Jason Zucker led the Wild with six shots. … Ballard contributed three hits. … Thomas Vanek had no shots, one giveaway and was a minus-2. Nino Niederreiter, Marco Scandella and Jared Spurgeon were each minus-3.

The post Ducks Clip Wild appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Minnesota gets by Montreal minus Suter and power play

No Ryan Suter? No problem.

Well, not exactly.

On a night its best defenseman “called in sick”, the Minnesota Wild turned in one its best defensive efforts of the season in a 2-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens Wednesday night at Xcel Energy Center.

Minnesota limited the Canadiens to 10 shots through two periods and 19 for the game to raise its home record to 8-2-1 while Darcy Kuemper earned his 11th win of the season (11-7-0) on 18 saves while narrowly missing his fourth shutout.

Suter, who missed his first game as a member of the Wild, had played 171 straight games in a Minnesota uniform, including 18 in the Stanley Cup playoffs. He is the only player to have skated in every game with Minnesota the last two-plus seasons and has only missed 32 career games in his 10 NHL seasons.

He has led all skaters, Wild and opponent, in ice time in 134 of regular-season games he has played consecutively with Minnesota (87.6%).

Suter’s minutes are not only about volume, though, he plays the crucial minutes on both special teams and when the game is on the line. But players like Jared Spurgeon (26:09 TOI), Jonas Brodin (25:14) and Marco Scandella (25:07) filled in admirably.

“We knew [Suter’s absence] was going to be felt,” Yeo said. “I thought that we had defensemen who stepped up … I thought that they did a good job as far as managing the game; we spent a lot of time in the offensive zone.”

“Everyone knows how tough a guy to replace Ryan is with all the minutes he plays and situations he plays,” Parise said. “They did a good job retrieving the puck and getting out of our zone quickly and making the good first pass.”

The stingy defense was critical as Minnesota’s ever-struggling power play was shut out again after generating just five shots in five opportunities, including none on a five-minute major early in the third.

“I give our guys credit; we found a way to win,” Minnesota coach Mike Yeo said. “We didn’t score on a 5-on-3, we didn’t score on a five-minute major, and we still won a hockey game. To me, there’s character involved in that.”

“We won the game, it doesn’t matter,” Parise said. “Do you want us to score four power-play goals and lose? We on the game, we beat arguably the best team in the Eastern Conference and that’s the most important thing.”

Jason Pominville’s controversial second-period goal turned out to be the difference after Montreal’s Alex Galchenyuk scored with 57.6 seconds remaining.

One day after his recall from Iowa, Christian Folin set up the game winner with a simple wrist shot from the right point. The rising shot deflected off the shaft of Pominville’s vertically-raised stick and behind Montreal goaltender Carey Price for his fifth goal of the season. Price finished with 33 saves.

“It was coming almost at my head so I decided to duck and it hit my stick and went in so I’ll take it,” Pominville said of his first goal since a Nov. 8 loss to the Canadiens in Montreal. “It’s weird the way it goes; you have some good looks that you don’t score on and you get one of those where you’re just kind of shaking your head wondering why that happens”

The play was subject to a lengthy review but because it was initially ruled a goal, it stood due to lack of conclusive evidence to overturn it.

“Luckily they called it a goal on the ice,” Wild forward Zach Parise said. “I think if they hadn’t, it probably wouldn’t have counted but luckily it did and he was able to get one not even shooting, not even looking at the puck, so that’s the way it goes sometimes.”

The Wild grabbed the early lead just 19 seconds into the contest on Jason Zucker’s 10th goal of the season. Mikko Koivu won an offensive zone faceoff to Zucker whose sharp-angle shot ricocheted off the crossbar and Price’s backside before dropping behind the goal line.

Zucker’s goal is his fifth in his last seven games and sixth point (5-1–6) while the assist for Koivu is his fifth point in five games equaling his production in the season’s first 19. Minnesota is 6-2-0 this season when Zucker scores.

“When you’re playing against Carey Price, you know that goals are not going to come easily,” Yeo said. “The screens, the tips, the rebounds, you have to find a way to score some goals like that against that team.”

“It might not be a pretty goal but when you go to that area, you get pucks to that area, you get rewarded.”

Wild Notes:

Folin returns

Christian Folin returned to the lineup after scoring twice and adding two assists in eight games for the Iowa Wild. Folin, who missed five games earlier this season as one of the Wild’s many mumps victims, said the stint in Des Moines was valuable.

“I played a lot of minutes down in Iowa and I think it was really helpful to get back into game shape and get some confidence back up too,” said Folin who signed with the Wild as a free-agent last spring following a collegiate career at UMass Lowell.

The 6-foot-3, 214-pound native of Gothenburg, Sweden earned an assist in his only game with the Wild last year and was happy to finally find his way the score sheet this season on Pominville’s difference-making goal. Folin admits, however, it wasn’t by design.

“I didn’t really see too much, I just wanted it on net,” Folin said, his left eyelid stitched together thanks to a third period hit by Montreal’s Eric Tangradi which resulted in Tangradi’s ejection. “I had a guy in front of me and I just wanted to get it down there and it went in; I don’t really know how but it went in and I’ll take that as my first assist this year.”

A star-studded event

Several hockey dignitaries attended Wednesday’s game including Karyn Bye Dietz, Brian Rafalski, Jeff Sauer and Lou Vairo who will be inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Thursday night at the Minneapolis Marriott City Center. The quartet participated in a pre-game honorary puck drop.

In addition, Gary Bettman was in attendance in advance of Thursday’s Lester Patrick Trophy presentation to NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly and Philadelphia Flyers President Paul Holmgren who were also at the game. The event is in conjunction with the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame ceremony.

Beliveau, Oliver honored

Prior to the game, the Wild honored Canadiens legend Jean Beliveau and former Minnesota North Star player and coach Murray Oliver with a moment of silence and highlight packages of each on the arena’s scoreboard.

Beliveau, who passed away on Tuesday at the age of 83, won 10 Stanley Cups in 20 NHL seasons, all in Montreal, and captained the Canadiens for 10 seasons, making him the longest tenured captain in team history. Although he retired in 1971 ,Beliveau still ranks second in team history in regular-season scoring (1,219 points), third in goals (507) and second in assists. Beliveau remains Montreal’s all-time playoff point leader with 176 (79-97–176) in 162 games.

Oliver, who suffered a fatal heart attack on Sunday, Nov. 23 at the age of 77, was laid to rest on Wednesday. The five-time All-Star as a player with Detroit, Boston, Toronto and Minnesota went on become a North Star assistant from 1978-86. He also served a 36-game stint as head coach of the team in 1982-83, replacing Glen Sonmor, as Minnesota finished second in the Norris Division and eliminated the Maple Leafs in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The post Pominville goal leads Wild over Habs appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Plenty of blame to go around in shutout loss to Kings

SAINT PAUL – After going 7-1-0 through eight home games and 12-8-0 overall this season, the Wild were perhaps due to endure one of those nights.

It happened on Thanksgiving eve Wednesday night at a very quiet Xcel Energy Center.

The oft-snoozing crowd of 19,038 was able to summon a few loud boos after the first period, but even the boos were less free-flowing after two periods.

By then, this had become pretty much the definition of “blah game.”

The Wild, trailing 4-0 at that point, failed to muster a single shot on goal for the first seven minutes of the final period.

Thus, a 4-0 loss to the Los Angeles Kings was inevitable.

Los Angeles beat starting goalie Darcy Kuemper four times on 10 shots in the first 20 minutes to set the tone.

Kuemper called it “an off night,” adding, “It was one of those nights where it doesn’t really go your way.”

Even though the Kings were playing the second of back-to-back road games after losing to Nashville in overtime the night before, and even though the Kings came to town with exactly one road victory this season, they seemed to have their way from the beginning.

Mike Richards deflected in a shot 4:21 into the first period for L.A. and three goals in the final seven minutes of the period left Minnesota reeling.

“It got away from us in a hurry there,” Wild winger Zach Parise said. “We gave up what, 15 odd-man rushes in the first period. They capitalized on them and it got away from us after that.”

It did, so much so that it’s nearly difficult to remember that the Wild have played mostly terrific hockey for the first quarter of the season.

Even though Matt Cooke and Jonas Brodin are still sidelined by injury and illness, Minnesota has shown an abundant balance with13 players totaling between seven and 13 points.

But this is a team that came into Wednesday’s game with 58 goals, more than just three Western Conference NHL teams.

It’s a team that signed ex-Gopher Thomas Vanek during the offseason to supply a few goals.
Vanek, despite 11 points in 21 games, is on pace to score four goals this season.

He had four giveaways Thursday, one of which led to a goal, and just one shot on net.

The guys who have picked up the slack have been Nino Niederreiter and Jason Zucker. The two have combined for 18 goals and Wednesday, when the Wild outshot the Kings 28-22, Neiderreiter had six shots and Zucker two.

Other notables: Mikael Granlund had one shot, Mikko Koivu one and Charlie Coyle zero.

Compare those numbers to those of defenseman Keith Ballard, who was playing his 600th NHL game on his 32nd birthday.

Ballard, who has no goals and one assist in 10 games this season, contributed two shots and two hits.

Nevertheless, so little went right for the home team on this evening that coach Mike Yeo even claimed a share of the blame, admitting he should have yanked Kuemper after the Kings made it 2-0 and again when it went to 3-0.

He didn’t, and it was 4-0 before Niklas Backstrom entered to start the second period.

“The list of regrets I have right now,” Yeo said, “is very long.”

The post Wild produce a real turkey appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.