New month, same results for Wild

It’s pretty easy to say that the Wild were eager to turn the calendar to November. They finished a road-heavy schedule with just four wins – one on the road – and a start to the season that rivals that of their inaugural season back in 2000-01.

Unfortunately for the Wild, their first game post-Halloween was still a scary affair, even if it wasn’t all of their own doing (see: “Refs, you suck!” chant from the home fans). The Wild lost 4-3 in overtime to St. Louis on Saturday night at Xcel Energy Center, although the Wild did put the puck in the net four times. One of them just didn’t count.  

“I thought we were playing well,” said forward Luke Kunin. “Just an unfortunate couple of plays there. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the job done.”

After falling behind 2-1 through the first 20 minutes, the Wild took a 3-2 lead in the second period on goals from Kevin Fiala, his first of the season, and Mats Zuccarello, his second of the season and in as many games.

It looked like the Wild (4-9-1) added a two-goal cushion when Mikko Koivu’s shot hit the back of the net with 5 minutes, 29 seconds left in the second period. But St. Louis challenged the good-goal call and successfully had the goal overturned. Zach Parise was the one in front of the crease deemed to have kept Blues goaltender Jake Allen from doing his job.

“They said his elbow touched his (Allen’s) head, inside the blue,” Boudreau said. “But to me… he was moving into Zach.”

Wild forward Kevin Fiala scored his first goal of the season in Minnesota’s 4-3 overtime loss to the St. Louis Blues on Saturday night at Xcel Energy Center. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

Boudreau bluntly said after the game that “it wasn’t” goaltender interference. Parise said he didn’t agree with the call either, adding that he was a “good foot outside the crease.” Wild goaltender Devan Dubnyk had the most to say about the call, having been on the other side of these things a time or two. He called it a joke.

“You just never know what you’re getting,” Dubnyk said, of the goal reviews. “That’s probably the worst I’ve seen since they brought the review in.”

With just a one-goal lead to cling to, the Wild didn’t generate much the rest of the game. The Blues outshot the Wild 22-13 in the final two periods.

The Blues tied the game at three goals apiece on another questionable sequence. St. Louis’ Sammy Blais blatantly tripped Kunin, who was going for the puck in the Wild’s zone. Play went on but quickly ended when Blais went to the side of the net and scored his fifth of the season with 13:55 left to play in regulation. That earned the Wild a bench minor when Boudreau offered his protests.

In overtime, the Blues took control throughout, ending it with a Ryan O’Reilly goal with 2:27 left to give St. Louis a second victory over the Wild this week. The Blues (9-3-3) defeated the Wild 2-1 in St. Louis on Wednesday.

Losses are still losses, of course, although the Wild does earn a point in that third column for the overtime game. Of the Wild’s 14 games this season, just three have been one-goal games: A 4-3 home victory over Montreal on Oct. 20 and the last two games to the Blues.

While the Wild’s schedule is arguably one of the most unbalanced they’ve had in recent memory, it’s also showed some trends for home versus road games. Yes, the sample sizes are noticeably different. The Wild went 1-8 on the road in October and 3-1 at home before Saturday. The road struggles were real as the Wild were outscored 14-34 in those nine games, giving up four-or-more goals in seven of those nine games.

The Wild faltered in their home opener with a 7-4 showing against Pittsburgh to complete their 0-4 skid to start the season. The Wild were outscored 21-10 overall through those first four contests. Boudreau acknowledged after that game that goal scoring is not going to be this team’s forte; it’s going to be defense.

At home, the Wild seem to have responded well, or at least slightly better, even if it’s just going by the small sample size of games in St. Paul. They have a 4-3 victory over Montreal, a 3-0 shutout of Connor McDavid and the Pacific-Division leading Edmonton Oilers, plus a 5-1 win over the lowly Los Angeles Kings on home ice.  

Overall, the Wild have been outscored 33-49 this season, with a glaring margin coming in the third period, allowing 21 goals in the final 20 minutes; and they’ve allowed 19 in the second.

Both Zuccarello and Parise talked after Saturday’s game about needing to generate more chances. The Wild just don’t spend enough time in the offensive zone, according to Parise.

“You can’t rely on one iffy play to win or lose the game,” Parise said. 

The post November Pain appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Dumba’s struggles land him in Boudreau’s doghouse

After a dismal performance in a 1-0 loss to Vancouver a week ago, the Wild rebounded for a pair of wins over the Islanders and Penguins, respectively, but Minnesota coach Bruce Boudreau wasn’t fooled. 

“Self preparation hasn’t been there for a few games now,” Boudreau said.

The Wild’s lack of preparation was on full display for two-plus periods of a 2-1 loss to Winnipeg on Tuesday night when a one-goal deficit after the second was quickly doubled early in the third. Despite the Wild’s third-period push in which they outshot the Jets 12-2 and closed the gap to one, the rally came up short.

A red-faced Boudreau wasn’t impressed with the late surge.

“We were lucky to be in the position, quite frankly, we were in in the last 10 minutes of the game,” he said. “It could have been three or four to nothing going into the third period.”

Things went from bad to worse in the first minute of that final period when defenseman Matt Dumba followed up an awful second period with a game-changing turnover. His attempted no-look pass to Mikael Granlund inside the Wild’s defensive zone was picked off by Winnipeg’s Nikolaj Ehlers who quickly buried the game winner behind Minnesota goaltender Alex Stalock.

An admittedly angry Boudreau benched Dumba for the rest of the game after that 14-second shift. Boudreau acknowledged the obvious after the game, saying Dumba “just hasn’t been playing that well.”

“He’s a good player that maybe I’ve set the bar pretty high for him,” Boudreau said. “He hasn’t reached that bar. I just thought that was an inexcusable play and at some point you have to be accountable for your actions.”

To his credit, Dumba fell on the sword for his team and accepted the blame for putting his already struggling teammates in an even more precarious position.

“I know that was my fault tonight and I’ve just got to man up, own it and try to move on,” Dumba said. “It’s frustrating when you let your teammates down like that on a play I could routinely make. It’s like an interception, like a pick-6 a guy runs back to the house.”

Accountability is great, but it rings hollow unless it’s followed up by meaningful strides toward improvement and eliminating the mental mistakes Dumba continues to make.

“We can teach and show and do this but, I mean, it’s like you can lead a horse to water type thing,” Boudreau said. “He’s been in this league four years now, he’s just gotta do what he does when he’s playing good. I don’t know what else is on his mind  but … he’s just gotta come to the game better prepared.”

Kunin scores again

Wild F Nino Niederreiter returned from a six-game absence in Tuesday’s 2-1 home loss to Winnipeg. (MHM Photo / Jonny Watkins)

Rookie Luke Kunin did score his second of the season, and his career, five minutes after Dumba’s mishap. Nino Niederreiter, in his first game back since suffering a high ankle sprain Oct. 12 at Chicago, fed a behind-the-back pass to Kunin in the slot for his first point of the season.

A clearly frustrated Kunin, however, was more concerned about his team’s failure to put forth a 60-minute effort.

“We didn’t play to our strengths, we didn’t play to our game plan, I felt it was a little dead out there and too many turnovers,” Kunin said. “Just not doing the right things to win hockey games, and that’s going to cost you in this league, so we’ve just got to be better.

“We’ve got to take this and learn from it and be more prepared and ready to go on Thursday.”

The post Wild Ill-Prepared to Win appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

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.