Ex-Bulldog Soucy draws rave reviews in NHL debut

St. Paul – Life without Ryan Suter officially began for the Wild Monday night in their final home game of the regular season.

Suter, Minnesota’s premier defenseman, is scheduled to undergo surgery to repair a broken fibula in his right leg and is finished for the remainder of the team’s play in 2017-18, the Wild announced Monday.

“I just feel really bad for him,” Wild coach Bruce Boudreau said. “He’s a guy that’s been pretty durable his whole life, so it’s probably pretty depressing for him. We just want him to get better.”

Suter’s absence didn’t seem to bother the Wild much Monday as they defeated the sagging Edmonton Oilers 3-0 in front of 19,189 at the Xcel Energy Center.

A Minnesota-centric blue line crew — including Elk River’s Nate Prosser, Eden Prairie’s Nick Seeler and former Minnesota-Duluth standout Carson Soucy making his NHL debut — helped the Wild zero in on a spot in the playoffs Monday.

The unfortunate news going forward is that Minnesota won’t have the benefit of playing the lackluster Oilers in postseason play, but that might be countered by Boudreau’s announcement earlier in the day that defenseman Jared Spurgeon will be back by then, if not before.

Nate Prosser and the Wild’s defensive corps made it a long night for Edmonton forwards on Monday. (MHM photo / Jonny Watkins)

Suter spearheads Minnesota’s blue line for every occasion — especially with Spurgeon sidelined since March 13 with a torn hamstring — but Jonas Brodin, Matt Dumba and Ryan Murphy joined Prosser, Seeler and Soucy for a solid performance against Edmonton.

The play of the six D-men made it a good night for goaltender Devan Dubnyk, who stopped 22 shots to post his 29th career shutout and fifth this season.

“I don’t think I saw one mistake out there,” Dubnyk said.

Boudreau, too, was smiling when it was over.

“Our defense was good tonight,” he said.

Soucy, who was playing for UMD in the Frozen Four a year ago, stepped in with a flawless performance.

“He did look poised,” Boudreau said. “I was — as we all were — very happy with his game.”

Soucy, who had three shots on goal and two hits in 15 minutes, 26 seconds of playing time, said it was a relief to step on the ice for the first time in an NHL game and he looked to the leadership of Minnesota’s current top pair: Brodin and Dumba.

“Brods and Dumba played great tonight and they’re going to take a load, which they did,” Soucy said. “I hope a couple of us others can get the minutes we can and just make it easier for them.”

Brodin, who was on the ice for more than 24 minutes, said Minnesota’s blue line contingent has work to do without Suter, but he voiced confidence that those manning the position will do fine.

“We’ll see when Spurg is back,” he said, “but yeah, right now we have the D we have and I think we played good today.”

The Wild outshot the Oilers 40-22 and controlled play throughout.

Their offense was fueled by another Minnesotan as Bloomington’s Zach Parise scored a goal in each of the first two periods to give him 12 goals and 16 points in his past 17 games.

“All around it was a pretty good game for us,” Parise said. “Our defensemen did a good job. Ryan’s a tough guy to replace, but I thought they did a good job all over the ice.”

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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.

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Vets can’t be counted on to keep success window open

I think it’s time for the Wild to start to re-think their offseason approach to trades and free agency.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think we all love free agent Devan Dubnyk and what he’s brought to the franchise and, if all goes as planned, he’ll be a cornerstone for years to come.

I’m thinking more about moves that involved the acquisition of guys like Matt Moulsen, Chris Stewart and, of course, the much-maligned Thomas Vanek. Re-treads that have found a home here in Minnesota (for periods of time) and have done little more than vacuum money out of Craig Leipold’s vault.

I say it’s time to for the Wild to start thinking younger. The fact of the matter is that the Patrick Kane, Steven Stamkos, and John Tavares’s of the world are drafted — rarely are they acquired in free agency.

But there are always deals to be found (see the Nino Niederreiter trade) and this offseason it would benefit the Wild to find one. That may mean giving up a proven asset and a potential impact player in the process, but, as in life and the NHL, sometimes you have to give a little to gain a lot.

This past week Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal speculated about the possibility of a very intriguing deal; Jared Spurgeon for Nail Yakupov (Read the column here).

First of all, no I am not a fool.

Secondly, as good as Spurgeon is, the Wild have a nice defensive core returning and can afford to part with him. Dumba, Brodin and Suter might be three of the best blue-liners in the league. Marco Scandella made great strides this year as did Christian Folin and Jordan Leopold has at least one more good season left in him. Plus there are good free agents out there who could be acquired cheaply.

Where this team lacked in 2015 was offensive playmaking and scoring.  They ranked 13th in the NHL in the regular season in goals and, regardless of whom you assign the blame for that, it affected their record. In the post season it was even more apparent.

The Wild didn’t have one goal scorer in the top 25 for the post season and as a team they ranked 8th out of 16 teams in goals scored.  To put that in perspective Chicago played just 6 more games (to date) but scored 24 more goals — a lot those came from our good friend Patrick Kane.

The bottom line is that this should be a trade the Wild should jump at (or a trade that is similar.) Now, whether Edmonton will go for it is the big question. Still, this needs to be the way the Wild are thinking this offseason.

There is a window of opportunity for the Wild to make a run in the postseason and it’s currently wide open. But the Vaneks and the Stewarts of the NHL aren’t going to help hold it open, it’ll have to  be a new young talent ready to make plays and shine for this team in the years ahead — and just rip the whole thing off its hinges.

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SAINT PAUL—In what should have been a game to remember with plenty for players to celebrate, the Minnesota Wild won’t soon forget Tuesday night for all the wrong reasons.

Minnesota blew a three goal lead at Xcel Energy Center to last-place Edmonton before ultimately falling in a shootout 4-3.  Mixed with the way things went down, the second consecutive shootout loss and first loss to the Oilers in three games this season stings in spite of the extra point.

Even in the grind of an 82 game season, a loss like Tuesday’s sticks out. It’s not just the point lost during the season’s closing stretch that is on the mind of Minnesota.

“You get the lead and you’re playing a team that’s kind of loosy-goosey and [Edmonton isn’t] as desperate as we were. It almost felt like we fell asleep with the way we were playing. It’s not good enough for the situation we’re in right now, fighting for playoff positioning,” Wild forward Jason Pominville said about his team, which is three points ahead of Dallas for the first wildcard berth. “We’ve got to be desperate and it wasn’t good enough tonight.

“Good start, but not good enough in the second half.”

Tuesday night began with plenty to celebrate at Xcel Energy Center. Forward Matt Cooke, playing in his 1000^th NHL game, was honored with a pregame ceremony and silver stick by Wild owner Craig Leipold.

Jason Pominville #29 and Zach Parise #11 of the Minnesota Wild celebrate after scoring a goal against the Edmonton Oilers during the game on March 11, 2014 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. (Photo by Bruce Kluckhohn/NHLI via Getty Images)

Zach Parise, meanwhile, playing in his 600^th career game, got Minnesota on the board 11:07 into the team’s 500^th franchise sellout with his 22^nd goal of the season.

Parise’s goal came on the power play when he tapped his own rebound past Viktor Fasth. Jared Spurgeon doubled the lead minutes later when his shot deflected off of Oilers defenseman Justin Schultz and Jason Pominville put the Wild ahead 3-0 with a second effort even strength.

Still, despite scoring three goals in a 4:16 span against the last-place Oilers, Minnesota head coach Mike Yeo wasn’t entirely happy with his team’s play during the first period, saying, “I thought that we were, to be honest with you, a little lucky to be up 3-0.”

“You can tell we weren’t on it right away,” added Yeo, whose team was out-shot 5-0 in the first 5 minutes. “I thought that we took advantage of a power play early and then got a couple quick ones, but you could tell we weren’t on top of our game.”

It didn’t change as the Wild’s quick blast on Fasth, who made 28 saves, was evened out throughout the rest of Tuesday’s game.

What should have been a spark of momentum following a comeback shootout loss to league-leading St. Louis, what should have felt like another Edmonton game, was treated like one. The outcome was taken for granted. Words like “complacency,” “no urgency” and “lack of energy” were thrown around. So were second guesses.

“Going into the third period, you’ve got to take it to them. You can’t sit back,” Minnesota defenseman Ryan Suter said. “I thought we sat back and they were throwing pucks through the net.”

Oilers defenseman Jeff Petry made it 3-1 with 3:55 remaining in the first when his pass to Ryan Nugent-Hopkins kicked off Jonas Brodin and into the net. Following no scoring in the second, an out-shot Edmonton team scored twice in the third by out-working the Wild defense.

First, Andrew Ferrence found a streaking David Perron in front of Darcy Kuemper with 8:54 remaining. Then Edmonton’s Jordan Eberle became the beneficiary of being in the right place for the right bounce and was left all alone to tie the game at 3 with 4:53 remaining in regulation.

“He quickly turned around and I recovered, but it kicked out to obviously the wrong guy to give it to there,” said Kuemper, who made 23 saves Tuesday.

Mixed among the goals was Minnesota, having 1:24 with a 5×3 advantage, only mustering one shot on net. A 1:51 4×3 power play to begin overtime netted none, frustrating the 18,650 fans in attendance.

They weren’t alone.

“The 5 on 3 sucked, but it goes way beyond that. If you’re up 3-0, you can’t give up three straight,” a dejected Parise said.

Taylor Hall completed the comeback with a shootout winner in the fourth round. By the end of Tuesday night’s stretch of three games in four nights, Cooke’s ceremony and Parise’s milestones, along with the two points each member of the top line (Parise, Pominville and Mikael Granlund) had were an afterthought. They weren’t brought up at all; not even as a silver lining. There was no celebration and no one in Iron Range Red was smiling.

The moral victory of Sunday’s shootout loss was replaced with searching for a moral this time around.

While Yeo stated he didn’t want to overreact or pay much attention to what other teams do as momentum slips away. At the end of the day the Wild, which, spiral aside, does have points in 13 of its last 16 games, are going to remember the effort against Edmonton in the two games remaining in this homestand.

As a team that made several moves at the deadline and bringing in Matt Moulson to stave off complacency, Tuesday was a reminder to do the same on the ice.

“I felt like this was a game that was there for us,” Yeo said. “We have to find a way to win those games.”

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Featured Image:
Nate Prosser skates up the ice during Minnesota’s 4-1 win over the Edmonton Oilers.
(MHM Photo/Jordan Doffing).

For a handful of players on the Minnesota Wild roster, the lyrics “I was born a child of the strong and wild,” from their anthem could not be more appropriate as they hail from the great state of hockey. Nate Prosser is one of those players and as Hockey Day in Minnesota approaches he couldn’t be a better choice to feature following the Wild’s 4-1 win over the Edmonton Oilers. The win came in front of a sold out arena of 18,037 home team fans and included Prosser’s first game-winning goal of his career, coming at 16:45 of the 2nd period, assisted by Jason Pominville. Prosser honed the skills that would lead him to the NHL – and that 2nd period goal – on the site of this weekend’s coming Hockey Day activities, “The Pit,” as it is lovingly referred to, in Elk River, MN.

Sit back and enjoy this Q&A with Nate Prosser on growing up Minnesota, High School Hockey and what being truly blessed means to him.

Q: What do you think was the best part of growing up in Minnesota as far as hockey is concerned?

A: I think the best part about growing up here for hockey is the availability of ice. “The Pit” in general is a great spot. Growing up, when we wanted to play outdoor hockey we could go there and and it was perfect. There are lights and it’s down out of the wind, it literally sits in a pit so it was kind of alike a dream setting for kids with the warming house and everything right there.

Q: Was there anything really special about Elk River specifically for you?

A: The biggest thing for me growing up in Elk River was being able to watch Paul Martin and my brother who was three years older than me. I was able to grow up watching those great players and we actually won a state tournament when I was a bantam. There have been some great teams down through there in the past ten to twenty years and I think it’s just a perfect spot to have Hockey Day with the teams that we’ve been having and the success that we’ve been having with hockey…it’s such a hockey city. We get such good fans there. The student section is down on the glass on the opposing end and the guys really got us into it. It’s just a fun city to play in.

Q: Do you have a favorite hockey memory?

A: The state tournament my sophomore year was a lot of fun at the Xcel playing Bloomington that first game and all of the road trips me and my dad and sometimes my brother would take up to Grand Rapids or Duluth or Fargo…places like that. We’d pack up the minivan and head up and play penny poker on the way up and do goofy stuff. My first high school hockey game was an experience I’ll always remember because I grew up watching and idolizing my Paul Martin when he was in high school who was such a good player and I always wanted to play for my high school team. My sophomore year our first game was against Edina and I just remember stepping on the ice that first time and it was a dream come true.

Q: Coming full circle…does it make it more special that you play in the NHL here as opposed to if you played at another NHL venue?

A: Yeah for sure. I definitely have to take a step back a lot of the time and pinch myself. I know I’m truly blessed with where I’m at and all of my family and friends are still in the local area here and I’m truly thankful to be a part of this organization. When I graduated from college I was so happy to be heading to the Xcel and being able to play in front of my friends and family…the sense of pride I had to be playing for the hometown team…words can’t even describe it.

Q: Do you think having your friends and family here makes it easier or harder to play?

A: Obviously there are pros and cons with everything, in every situation, but I think the pros definitely outweigh the cons in this situation. I’m  able to be here and be close to my family and I’m able to raise my family here. My wife is pregnant with our second child and we’re getting a big family going down here and I think it’s great to be here in Minnesota.

Q: Any plans to check out the State High School hockey tournament this year?

A: Yeah! Oh yeah!

Q: Why do you think that tournament is so popular?

A: This state just loves their high school hockey! It’s pretty incredible. I remember playing up at sectionals at the DECC in Duluth and that place would be packed full and then you come play in St. Paul and it’s packed full as well. People just love coming to watch their high school hockey and when the top eight teams get into one building, especially at the Xcel because it’s a great venue for it, everyone comes down and makes a weekend of it and just makes it a great time. I also always go to the final five because it’s just incredible as well.

Following Prosser’s big night we couldn’t help but ask him to reiterate how special it was to play in front of his friends and family. He responded with a big smile, “It’s a dream come true playing here in front of my family and friends at the Xcel. Having them here by my side and supporting me after every game is huge.”

Nate Prosser during Minnesota’s 4-1 win over the Edmonton Oilers. Photo Credit ~ Jordan Doffing.

Head coach Mike Yeo also weighed in on Prosser following the game saying, “He’s an unbelievable professional, he’s an unbelievable team guy.” He continued, “He does little things right and obviously we’re incredibly happy for him to score that goal tonight but even if he didn’t score that goal he’s going to go out and give you a great chance because of the way he plays, the way he defends and manages the puck well and he competes hard every night.”

There is no doubt Minnesotans everywhere echo Coach Yeo’s sentiments on Prosser and perhaps even smile a bit knowing the defenseman is a living representation of the spirit of hockey being instilled in kids all across the state of Minnesota.

For more information on Hockey Day in Minnesota CLICK HERE! Be sure to follow @MNhockeyMag on Twitter for all of our latest articles, updates and events as well as the author of this article @AmySnow17!

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