Determined Wild stop the bleeding, top Canadiens for first home win

ST. PAUL — For the first couple weeks of the season, the Minnesota Wild had played by the same script. Give up multiple goals in a short span of time, get down on the scoreboard and get down on themselves en route to a checkmark in the loss column. Rinse and repeat.

That pattern ballooned into a 1-6-0 start which prompted a players-only meeting following a shutout loss in Montreal.

As the team returned to St. Paul for their second home game of the season on Sunday, also against the Montreal Canadiens, the Wild seemed to repeat the pattern with a 2-1 deficit in the second period thanks to goals 16 seconds apart.

But the Wild weren’t deterred.

“It was a different feel of the game for us,” said forward Jason Zucker. “It wasn’t like we were playing poorly, and it was just a matter of time until they scored. We were playing really well.

“We just stuck with it.”

The Wild started doing things they hadn’t this season, in a good way. They didn’t collapse after the quick goals. They entered the third period in a tie game. They scored four goals for the second time this season (the other was the 7-4 loss to Pittsburgh in the home opener). They even scored off the rush for a highlight-reel game-winner off Zach Parise’s stick.

All these things helped lift the Wild to a 4-3 victory over Montreal at home for their second victory of the season. Perhaps most importantly, aside from the win, was stopping the bleeding after those two quick goals against. It’s something that’s happened in nearly every game, and coach Bruce Boudreau has talked about it with his team.

 “So when they (Montreal) scored the second goal, I think determination was there that this isn’t going to happen again,” Boudreau said. “We’re not going to let it happen again. And they fought back. It was huge to get that goal at the end of the period.”

That was Marcus Foligno’s goal with 12.9 seconds left in the second period to tie the game, 2-2.

The Wild faced a second deficit when the Canadiens came out strong to start the third period in the 2-2 game. After a 5-0 shots-on-goal advantage in the first three minutes, Phillip Danault put Montreal in front again with his second goal of the game for a 3-2 lead.

The Wild didn’t let the floodgates open again. They didn’t sulk, Parise said.

“We still liked the way we were playing, and it was still a game,” Parise said. “The game wasn’t over.”

Through the first seven games, the Wild consistently scored two goals a game while giving up an average of four goals per game. For a win this time, their offense needed to keep the pressure on and score. That was part of the script that changed, too.

Though the Wild only registered 5 of their 33 shots in the final 20 minutes, they made the most of opportunities. Already with a power-play goal in the game thanks to Zucker giving the Wild a 1-0 lead, the Wild had the man advantage with 11:29 remaining in regulation. Brad Hunt blasted a slapshot from the circle into the net to tie the game up at 3 a mere 6 seconds into the power play in the third.

Boudreau said he loves seeing the emotion on the faces of his players, “especially when it’s good emotion.”

“When everybody was going over to Huntsy after he scored that goal, you could see that they were pumped up about that,” Boudreau said.

The Wild stayed focused on breaking the tie, responding with Parise’s goal a few minutes later.

Zach Parise, Mikko Koivu and Jason Zucker celebrate Parise’s winning goal. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

The play started with a clean exit from the Wild’s own zone, according to Parise, something he acknowledged they haven’t done a lot of this season, which would explain the lack of scoring chances off the rush. Zucker, skating on a line with Parise and Mikko Koivu, said he had time to make a play and either feed the puck to Hunt or try to feed it through.

Zucker fired a pass across the ice toward Parise as he enclosed on the net. Parise deflected the puck into the net for the 4-3 lead. That pass through the zone was probably the hardest, in terms of speed, that Zucker said he’s ever made.

“I still don’t know how he did it,” Zucker said, of Parise finishing the play. “I need to watch the replay, but that was impressive. I had to rip that pass to get it through.”

The relief and excitement washed all over Parise as he celebrated with his teammates on the ice.

“The way things have been going, the time of the game, a lot of losses, a lot of frustration piling up,” Parise said.

His goal ended up as the game-winner and reflected a better trend when it comes to tallying the time between goals. The Wild erased the deficit with a pair of goals in 4 minutes, 17 seconds with 7:06 to play in regulation.  

Perhaps it was some hard studying that paid off after the Wild studied video the day before, focusing on their turnovers and bad passes. The Zucker-to-Parise play certainly was the opposite of what the team has seen and done so far.

Boudreau called that pass “tremendous.”

“Tape-to-tape passes create speed,” Boudreau said. “If you can pass tape-to-tape, it has the illusion that you’re skating a lot faster because I’ve never seen a guy skate faster than a puck.”

With so much not going right for the Wild to start this season, one game is still just one game in the first couple weeks of an 82-game season. The question on the minds of many Wild fans after Sunday’s victory might be: How can the team sustain this glimmer of success they had against one opponent to earn one important, confidence-boosting win?

“We need to remember this feeling,” Zucker said. “This feels great. It’s awesome to have a win.” 

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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.”

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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.

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Featured Image:
Minnesota defenseman Keith Ballard passes the puck up the ice in the second period of the Wild’s 4-3 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Nov. 1, 2013, in St. Paul, Minn. Friday (MHM Photo / Jordan Doffing)

Keith Ballard leads a quartet of Wild wounded back to the Minnesota lineup.

A crowd of 18,207 Wild fans welcomed freshly shaven Movember faces and a collection of fresh-off-the-IR hockey players on Friday at the Xcel Energy Center where the Wild won a hard-fought game against the Montreal Canadiens 4-3. Minnesota saw the return of Keith Ballard, Jonas Brodin, Josh Harding and Charlie Coyle while the Canadiens welcomed back their seasoned tough guy and master of the mustache, George Parros.

Minnesota received solid contributions from its returnees beginning with Harding who made 28 saves in raising his record to 6-2-1 on the season including 5-0-0 at home. Brodin wore a full face shield after missing three games with a broken cheekbone and led the team with 26:54 of ice time. Coyle logged 18:23 in his return from an 11-game absence due to a knee strain and Ballard chipped in a pair of assists and was a plus-2 in his debut following a seven-game hiatus with an upper-body injury.

When an injured player returns to the lineup, pressure from external influences not only plays a role, but in some cases internal pressure can affect how a player performs as well.

“Some guys tend to beat themselves down a little bit too much and that can wear on you,” Ballard said. “You can almost talk yourself into thinking you aren’t doing anything well when actually, you are. I try to just take a step back and take a broad perspective.”

Keith Ballard picked up two assists in
Friday night’s game against
Montreal, his first since being injured.
(MHM Photo / Jordan Doffing)

Ballard is a realist when it comes to his return to the ice and spoke candidly about his first night back in the lineup, saying his performance was close to what he expected.

“I think there were some good moments, I thought there were some OK moments,” Ballard said. “It was more trying to keep myself out of trouble; make smart plays, not over-extend anything as far as shifts or what I’m trying to do with the puck or run around or anything like that.”

While Ballard felt his play was OK to good, Wild coach Mike Yeo was clearly pleased to have the former Gopher defenseman, and Baudette native, back in the lineup for multiple reasons.

“Obviously, offensively he adds a lot to us on the blue line with his ability to move along the blue line to open lanes to get shots through,” Yeo said. “But defensively he’s just such a strong skater and he relieves so much pressure.

“He’s got that first two steps that he can get himself out of trouble and have the composure to make a play from there too.”

To be a strong defenseman in the NHL is already enough of a challenge, but facing sitting out and returning just as the season begins to heat up can be a daunting task for any player.

“As the season goes on everybody gets sharper, teams get a little more crisp, so it’s tough to jump into the lineup and expect perfection,” said Ballard. “As a player it’s up to you. I try to simplify my game when I’ve been out a bit and that’s worked for me in the past and I think tonight was about where I want to be.”

While Ballard may be back and everyone felt his play was up to par, the Minnesota native pointed out injury or not, there is always room for improvement.

“I think my execution needs to be a bit sharper … you can play 30 games in a row and there will still be games you don’t execute,” he explained. “So I don’t think it’s about being out or not being out, I think I just need to sharpen up a little bit.”

As Ballard’s continues to sharpen his game it can mean only one thing for the Wild, a force on the blue line other teams will envy … if they don’t already.

**Be sure to follow @MNHockeyMag for all the latest news and information on your favorite Minnesota teams! You can also follow the author of this article @AmySnow17!**

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