No, not “booze,” although that was perhaps a pregame (and postgame) focus for many Minnesota Wild fans taking part in St. Patrick’s Day weekend festivities on West Seventh Street in downtown St. Paul.

First, fans directed boos at the scoreboard Saturday when the starting lineup for the visiting St. Louis Blues was announced, notably when former Wild defenseman Ryan Suter’s name came up. Then Wild fans – among the 800th sellout crowd at Xcel Energy Center – let the boos rain down when the Blues went up 3-0 on the Wild in the second period.

The Wild got on the board 25 seconds later, but it was an overall lackluster and sloppy effort from Minnesota as it fell 5-1. The loss dropped the Wild to 1-2-1 on this seven-game homestand and 3-6-1 in the last 10 games.

March Madness? More like March Sadness for Wild fans this season.  

“We definitely need more jam in our game, especially at this time of year,” said defenseman Jake Middleton, who scored the Wild’s lone goal Saturday. “We were just kind of waiting, I thought.”

Waiting for a hero to save them? No, Chad Kroeger. Middleton said they’re waiting for the next guy on the team to score. But it takes a team effort.

The Wild are obviously missing its superstar Kirill Kaprizov, who’s played only three games since Dec. 23 and is out for an unknown timetable with a lower-body injury that required surgery. Jonas Brodin and Joel Eriksson Ek are out injured, too.

“The guys we got in the lineup, we just got to figure out a way to bring it every night and compete,” Middleton said. “I think we have more than we had tonight.”

But in its most grueling part of the schedule late in the season, the Wild are floundering and failing to put pucks in the net. Getting a goal a game as a team isn’t going to cut it (that 1-0 victory, no doubt a solid win, March 2 in Boston aside).

Next man up?
Earlier in the season, the Wild preached the cliché of a “next-man-up mentality” when they were consistently shorthanded in the lineup because of injuries. They’ve had their fair share up and down the roster since October. For a while, the Wild weathered that storm by getting wins, points and goal production from guys not named Kaprizov.

It’s just not happening lately. In six of the last 10 games, the Wild have scored only one goal through regulation time. They’re 2-4 in those games. There’s the 1-0 victory against the Bruins and a 2-1 shootout victory against Colorado on March 11.

The Wild had to rally for a pair of third-period goals Thursday against the New York Rangers, or it would have been four consecutive games with just one goal. That Rangers prevailed 3-2 in overtime. Marcus Johnasson scored in that game, marking his first goal since Jan. 7. The Wild played strong defensively in that game, leading coach John Hynes to give his players credit in his postgame comments Thursday.

“I think we’re playing extremely hard and strong attention to detail, playing the way you really need to win this time of year there,” Hynes said, after the loss to the Rangers. “They’re highly competitive games.”

Top-line drought
But despite the playoff-type atmosphere that some of these games take on, there are other goal droughts on the team. Matt Boldy and Mats Zuccarello have played on the first line with center Marco Rossi. They’re just not producing.

Boldy hasn’t scored since just after the break in the Feb. 22 game at Detroit, a 4-3 overtime victory for the Wild. That’s zero goals in 10 games for him, and only five assists. He still leads the team this season with 21 goals and 55 points.  

Rossi’s goal drought pushed to nine games after Saturday, with only three assists in that span. He had the overtime winner in Detroit in that Feb. 22 game. The Wild had just 18 shots on goal Saturday, one each for Boldy and Rossi.

Zuccarello snapped a 10-game goalless streak with a goal Feb. 28 at Colorado. He has three goals and two assists across his last eight games.

“That’s no secret that we’re struggling to score goals as of late,” Zuccarello said. “We got to find a way to do it. They score on their chances, and we don’t.”

Zuccarello also acknowledged that losing 5-1 at home is not acceptable, adding “everyone in here knows it’s embarrassing for us to play like that, but what are we going to say? You’ve got to take it on the chin right now, and it’s not good enough.”

The Wild have consistently been a better road team this season, going just 15-15-2 at home. They’ve had some rough losses, lopsided ones, on home ice this season. A 7-1 loss to Edmonton on Dec. 12 that started a five-game homestand. A 6-1 loss to Florida later in that same home stretch. Another 6-1 loss vs. Colorado on Jan. 9.

The 5-1 loss Saturday could be added to the list, though this one comes when the Wild are playing nearly every other day throughout a busy month of March.

“It’s a competitive time of the year,” Hynes said. “Tonight, I thought there (were) some certain circumstances in the game where I think our attention to detail wasn’t where it needed to be.

“We didn’t have it tonight. … We’re in a tight race. Our team reacts, responds, works, competes all the time.”

The Wild have 79 points and are still in the first Wild Card spot for the postseason.

The Wild have another shot to right the ship, which keeps taking on water at Xcel Energy center this season, on Monday when Los Angeles visits.

“We’ve got to continue to have the belief that it’ll come,” said defenseman Zach Bogosian. “You know, we’ve had our share of looks in these past few games. Unfortunately, they’re not going in right now. But we have to continue to keep directing pucks at their net and you know eventually they’ll go in.”

The post Wild Scoring Woes appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Minnesota, already leading the St. Louis Blues 2-0 after getting two goals in the opening 2 minutes, 12 seconds, lost one of its best defensemen when Brock Faber departed halfway through the first period because of an upper-body injury. The Blues took advantage.

Pavel Buchnevich beat Wild goalie Filip Gustavsson at 13:26 of the first. St. Louis’ Jordan Kyrou, Jake Neighbours and Robert Thomas scored early in the second to chase Gustavsson and quiet the building.

A year ago, that would have been it for the Wild.

Already without superstar winger Kirill Kaprizov (lower body) and defenseman Jared Spurgeon (lower body), the loss of Faber and the four Blues goals would have been the perfect excuse to give up.

The Wild did the opposite.

Players stepped up
Joel Eriksson Ek, who missed 11 games earlier this season because of injury, scored before the second period ended. Defenseman Jake Middleton, returning from an 11-game absence, tied the score 1:16 into the third period and Matt Boldy scored off a Mats Zuccarello pass less than two minutes later to give the Wild the lead.

Marcus Johansson added an empty-net goal to end a three-minute sequence in which Johansson, Eriksson Ek, Ryan Hartman and defensemen Zach Bogosian and Jonas Brodin had to stay on the ice because of multiple icings but managed to fight their fatigue, block numerous shots and hold off the Blues for a 6-4 victory.

Their willingness to continue to battle in front of goalie Marc-Andre Fleury was one of the team’s most impressive stretches of hockey this season.

“A year ago this time, we probably didn’t have players step up the way they’ve stepped up this year,” coach John Hynes said. “That’s a credit to the players. The players are really playing hard for each other, for the team and doing what’s required to win, whether that’s blocking a shot or trying to score a goal or playing a 50-50 shift, whatever that is. The guys are committed to playing the right way for each other, and we’re finding ways to win.”

The victory over the Blues was just the latest test of the Wild’s resolve. The challenges began with a seven-game trip early in the season. in which Minnesota went 5-1-1. The Wild were 20-6-4 on Dec. 15 when they lost the first of four in a row, including a 6-1 home loss to Florida and a 5-0 defeat in Winnipeg. The Wild didn’t fold and, instead, won their next game over Chicago before starting the Christmas break.

The Wild returned without Kaprizov, who was tied for second in the NHL in goals (23) and eighth in points (50) at the time. Center Marco Rossi, Boldy and Zuccarello have played on the top line without their Russian star and the team has gone 5-1. The Wild will take a four-game winning streak into Thursday night’s game against the Colorado Avalanche at Xcel Energy Center. That includes impressive wins last week in Washington and Carolina.

The Wild (26-11-4) are at the halfway mark of their season and are two points behind the first-place Jets in the Central Division. They are an incredible 15-3-3 on the road, leaving room for improvement on an 11-8-1 mark in downtown St. Paul. Last season at this time, the Wild were in the midst of a four-game losing streak and were 17-19-5.

Headed in right direction with Hynes
The roster is largely the same, but the mindset and resilience make this a very different team. Hynes has plenty to do with that. He took over after Dean Evason was fired 19 games into last season, but didn’t get the chance to put all of his systems and philosophy into place until training camp opened in September.

It didn’t hurt that many Wild players were embarrassed by how easy they were to play against and the fact they missed the postseason.

What the Wild are doing isn’t easy. Being willing to block shots earns the appreciation of teammates, but it also takes a toll. Brodin was limping as he came into the Wild’s main locker room late Tuesday to talk to the media. He was smiling and said he was fine, but logging 33:02 of ice time isn’t a recipe to feel your best.

That is how games are won, and many Wild teams haven’t been willing to pay that price. This doesn’t mean the season is a success. There are still 41 games remaining and the intensity will grow as the season progresses.

Then you have the postseason, in which time and space disappear and sacrificing one’s body and playing through injury becomes the expectation. The Wild, who missed the playoffs for only the second time in 12 seasons last spring, haven’t advanced past the first round since the 2014-15 season.

That will be the real test for a franchise that hasn’t been to the Western Conference finals since 2003. Until the Wild wins a round, or two, there will be a healthy amount of skepticism about how different this team really is. The good news is it appears Hynes has things heading in the right direction.

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This spring marks 20 years since the Wild made their franchise-best playoff run to the Western Conference finals. Fans who watched that unexpected and remarkable journey have many great memories: Richard Park’s overtime goal in Game 6 of the first round against Colorado; Andrew Brunette’s OT goal the following night that eliminated the Avalanche; and the Wild rallying from down 3-1 against both the Avs and Canucks to win the first two series.

One of the biggest reasons for the Wild’s success was the man behind the bench. Jacques Lemaire, a part of eight Stanley Cup winning teams as a player with Montreal and a Cup winning coach with New Jersey in 1994-95, proved to be a marvelous tactician as he outcoached the inexperienced Tony Granato and the Canucks’ Marc Crawford before the Wild was swept in the conference finals by Anaheim.

Lemaire’s coaching, combined with his players’ work ethic, a commitment to playing within a certain structure, the presence of two quality goaltenders and star winger Marian Gaborik, made the improbable possible.

Sound familiar?

The NHL has opened up its game to be a far more exciting product than it was in 2003, but this Wild team has many of the same qualities. There might not be a lot of star talent up front but winger Kirill Kaprizov is among the league’s most dynamic players and there is no doubting the work ethic of those around him. There also is a structure to the system that was lacking last season. Filip Gustavsson and veteran Marc-Andre Fleury provide a solid 1-2 punch in goal, just as Manny Fernandez and Dwayne Roloson did 20 years ago.

The X-factor as the Wild gets set to start their opening round series at Dallas on Monday is coach Dean Evason.

Evason has done an excellent job in the regular season since taking over for Bruce Boudreau in February 2020. In three full seasons, Evason has guided the Wild to a 75-point and third-place finish in 2020-21 (a pandemic-impacted season was only 56 games); a 113-point and second-place finish in the Central Division in 2021-22; and a 103-point and third-place finish in the Central this season.

Former Wild coach Bruce Boudreau talks strategy with assistant coach Dean Evason in a Jan. 12, 2020 game vs. Vancouver at Xcel Energy Center. Evason would replace Boudreau 33 days later while Boudreau would eventually take over behind the Canucks’ bench. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

But that success has not carried into the playoffs for the Wild or Evason. Evason’s issues in the playoffs date far beyond his arrival in Minnesota. He was given a pass for how the 2020 season ended, considering it was halted in early March because of the pandemic and didn’t resume until the Wild took part in the playoff qualifying tournament that August in the Edmonton bubble. Minnesota won the opening game of the best-of-five series against Vancouver before dropping the next three.

The following season, the Wild lost in seven games in the opening round to the Vegas Golden Knights and last season went out in six games against the St. Louis Blues, despite having home-ice advantage. That series was concerning because while Blues coach Craig Berube was willing to make quick adjustments — including replacing goalie Ville Husso with Jordan Binnington with the Blues trailing 2-1 — Evason seemed intent on standing pat.

The Wild was on the brink of elimination by the time Evason decided to sit Fleury and start Cam Talbot in goal for Game 6. The Blues cruised to a 5-1 and outscored Minnesota 15-5 in the final three games. It would have been one thing if Talbot had been a backup all season, but he was the Wild’s primary starter before Fleury was acquired at the trade deadline and finished the regular season on a 13-0-3 run.

Minnesota goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury gloves a puck blasted off the stick of St. Louis Blues forward Vladimir Tarasenko, one of 32 for Fleury in the Wild’s 6-2 win over the Blues in Game 2 of their Stanley Cup playoff first-round series on May 4, 2022 at Xcel Energy Center. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

Evason’s failure to make changes was bewildering considering the urgency that comes in the playoffs and the necessity for a coach to make tough and sometimes unpopular decisions.

Wild general manager Bill Guerin, who welcomes tough decisions and always has high expectations, likely will be very interested to see how his coach handles this series. 

What will make this more interesting is Evason’s lack of postseason success as a head coach at any level.

He spent six seasons leading the Nashville Predators’ American Hockey League affiliate in Milwaukee and guided the Admirals to four playoff appearances. This resulted in a 1-12 record and four first-round exits. 

Evason’s time in junior hockey was only slightly more successful.

He spent six seasons in the Western Hockey League — coaching Kamloops, Vancouver and Calgary, where he was co-coach in 2004-05 — with his teams winning two first-round series and never getting past the second round.

The Wild, with or without Evason, have had about as much playoff success as their coach. Minnesota hasn’t advanced beyond the second round since Lemaire’s team overachieved in the franchise’s third season and the last time they won a first-round series was in 2015 with Mike Yeo behind the bench. The Wild have been in the playoffs in seven of the past eight seasons, if you include the qualifying round in 2020, but have gone 10-23 in losing in the opening round each time.

Wild GM Bill Guerin expresses his displeasure during Minnesota’s 5-2 loss to the Boston Bruins on March 18, 2023 at Xcel Energy Center (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

Despite likely being without top center Joel Eriksson Ek in this series because of a lower body injury, there is an expectation both internally and externally that it’s time for the Wild to end their playoff drought. This current stretch of first-round defeats began in 2016 with a 4-2 series loss to Dallas and now it can end with a victory over the franchise that was based in Minnesota before relocating 30 years ago.

For that to happen, Evason is going to have to get the best of Dallas coach Pete DeBoer, who was Vegas’ coach two years ago when the Golden Knights eliminated the Wild. Evason, like Lemaire, is going to have to push many of the right buttons and make quicker adjustments than he often does in the regular season. Line shuffling, goalie changes and sitting veterans he likes are part of the job description this time of year.

If Evason doesn’t do those things, Guerin will have to start considering whether he has the right guy coaching his team when it matters most.

The post Everything To Prove appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Marcus Foligno and his Minnesota Wild teammates once again find themselves with plenty of time to ponder what went went wrong in the postseason. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

Instead of using home-ice advantage to get past St. Louis before taking their chances against Colorado, the Wild bowed out in the opening round for the sixth time in seven years. The other time, 2018-19, Minnesota failed to qualify for the postseason.

It wasn’t shocking the Blues, who won the Stanley Cup in 2019, eliminated the Wild, but it was shocking how they did it. After taking a 2-1 lead in the series with a near perfect road performance in Game 3, the Wild got sloppy in dropping Game 4, fell apart in the third period of Game 5 at Xcel Energy Center and didn’t bother to show up in Game 6.

It was what you would have expected from the Wild team that included Mikko Koivu, Zach Parise, Ryan Suter, Jason Zucker and others. But they had all been cleared out by one-year-and-done general manager Paul Fenton and his replacement, Guerin. All season long everyone associated with the Wild, from the front office to the players, talked about how tight this group was and how much different everything felt with the locker room lawyers long gone.

This team was likeable and had leaders who seemed to care more about the final score than their ice time. That’s what made the end so hard to stomach. The Wild had spent all season thriving when adversity hit and, yet, in the opening round this roster didn’t look any different from so many that had gone before it.

And, now, as well as this group got along en route to setting franchise marks in wins (53), points (113) and goals (310) it will suffer at least one, if not more, key departures. Guerin’s decision to clear Parise (not surprising) and Suter (a shocker) out of the locker room last July by buying them out, enabled several players to have more important roles both on the ice and in the locker room. The gamble was the buyouts — which amounted to a reasonable $4.7 million in 2021-22 — now will result in three years of massive salary-cap headaches for the Wild.

The dead cap hits will be $12.7 million next season and $14.7 million each of the next two years. The NHL salary cap for 2022-23 will be $82.5 million, meaning it’s slashed to $69.8 million for the Wild. That leaves Guerin with only $8.18 million of available room as the offseason begins and that’s not enough to field an entire roster.

If Guerin faced this dilemma coming off a run to the Western Conference Finals, or better yet, the Stanley Cup, the problem wouldn’t be nearly as daunting because the success would have been so great. No matter how you spin the Wild’s regular-season success, the end was a huge flop.

Is Marc-Andre-Fleury one-and-done in Minnesota? (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

It’s fair to wonder who still will be in a Wild jersey when training camp opens in September. Guerin said at his season-ending press conference on Tuesday that he would like to re-sign veteran goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and wants Cam Talbot back as well, despite the fact Fleury starting the first five games of the postseason didn’t sit well in the Talbot household.

Nonetheless, it won’t be surprising if both stick around.

It will be a surprise if winger Kevin Fiala isn’t moved. The Wild’s second-most talented winger behind Kirill Kaprizov, Fiala had a career-high 33 goals and 85 points in 2021-22 and was brilliant late in the regular season. Fiala’s point total was the second-most in a single season for the Wild, trailing the 108 that Kaprizov produced in a magnificent second season in the NHL.

That came with Fiala playing for $5.1 million and headed into restricted free agency for a second consecutive summer. This is likely the offseason that Fiala is going to get paid on a multiyear deal and, for a while, there were many who thought Guerin should pay that price by jettisoning defenseman Matt Dumba and whoever else had to go in order to keep the Wild’s second-best goal scorer.

That was before the postseason. While Kaprizov had seven goals on 27 shots in six games, Fiala had no goals on 15 shots with three assists and a team-leading 16 penalty minutes. He also was a minus-5. Fiala has one goal in his past 13 playoff games for the Wild, dating to last season’s seven-game first-round ouster by the Vegas Golden Knights.

Fiala should be able to fetch the Wild a far more substantial return than Dumba or anyone else who would be subtracted from the payroll. Teams that have been linked to Fiala in rumors include Ottawa, New Jersey, the Islanders and Vancouver. A high draft pick or big-time prospect, or both, could put Guerin in position to have a player under team control while the Wild are battling cap issues.

“There’s uncertainty,” Guerin said on Tuesday. “I mean, we’d love to have Kevin back. I don’t know if it’s going to be possible.”

Guerin rarely lacks a plan, so he likely knows exactly what he will do when it comes to Fiala. There are other players from this feel-good regular season who are probably headed out the door as well.

The fact these moves have to be made isn’t a surprise. Everyone saw it coming. But the fact they have to be made after another disappointing first-round loss in the postseason is another story.

The post Déjà Blues appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

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Wild GM Bill Guerin’s shrewd moves have earned him The State of Hockey’s endorsement for higher office. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

The Wild have benefitted from Bill Guerin’s roster reconstruction, but the general manager did not remake this team in order to set regular-season records in wins and points. He did it so the Wild could be well positioned entering the playoffs and then have guys in place who were capable of winning when the hockey is at its best and toughest. 

Guerin knows what it takes to hoist a Stanley Cup — he won two as a player and two as an executive in Pittsburgh — and is well-acquainted with the massive price that must be paid by anyone who isn’t happy with anything but 16 wins over four series. 

That is why he bought out winger Zach Parise and defenseman Ryan Suter last summer, despite the money left on their once-lengthy contracts that were supposed to turn around the franchise. It’s why former general manager Paul Fenton began the process of cleaning out the locker room and Guerin continued it. It’s also why Guerin watched his team lose back-to-back one-sided games against Calgary less than a month before this season’s NHL trade deadline and decided the Wild needed to get bigger, tougher and better in goal.

Guerin knows that indecision, or worrying about the public popularity of a player, is a recipe to mediocrity. In sports, and especially playoff hockey, nice guys (at least on the ice) do finish last and that isn’t part of the Wild or Guerin’s plan.

But this also means this Wild team enters the playoffs with immense expectations that the Xcel Energy Center will be the place to be into June. The Wild haven’t gotten past the second round of the playoffs since making an improbable run to the Western Conference Finals in 2003. The Wild were only in their third season and no one thought they had a chance to get past the uber-talented Colorado Avalanche in the first round.

How many times will this scene be repeated in the postseason? The answer will determine how far the Wild advance in the Stanley Cup playoffs. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

A failure to get past the Blues this spring will be considered a major disappointment for both the Wild and their fan base. It’s not that St. Louis isn’t a good team. The Blues, who won the 2019 Stanley Cup, had 311 goals this season, one more than the Wild and one less than the first-place Avalanche. St. Louis’ blue line is no longer as good as it was in 2019, but everyone on their top three lines has 20 or more goals. The Wild also has plenty of offensive fire power, although it’s concerning that the Blues’ power play (27 percent, second in NHL) is superior to the Wild’s (20.5 percent, 18th).

That is going to have to change in the postseason and that will need to start with first-line winger Kirill Kaprizov and second-line winger Kevin Fiala. Both had incredible regular seasons, with Kaprizov setting franchise marks with 47 goals and 108 points and Fiala scoring 33 goals and 85 points.

But as Kaprizov learned in the Wild’s seven-game loss in the first round against Vegas last season, time and space disappear in the playoffs and driving a star player to the point of frustration is the goal. Kaprizov only had two goals and three points and was a minus-3 in the seven games, and Fiala had a goal and an assist and was a minus-6. The Blues will focus on Kaprizov, but that doesn’t give him a pass to disappear and Fiala’s line, which includes Frederick Gaudreau and rookie Matt Boldy, must thrive if they aren’t the focus of the Blues’ defensive effort.

It’s also why Guerin acquired fourth-line winger Nic Deslauriers near the deadline in order to give the Wild even more of a physical presence than they had with guys like third-line wingers Marcus Foligno and Jordan Greenway. The message to the Blues: You want to try to beat us with your skill? Bring it on. You want to make this about toughness? We can do that, too.

The Wild and Blues will be meeting in the playoffs for the third time. Minnesota won in six games in 2015 before being swept by the Chicago Blackhawks, and then lost in five games to the Blues in the first round in 2017. This season, the Wild and Blues met three times, with St. Louis winning in the Winter Classic on Jan. 1, and then recording two overtime wins in April in St. Louis. The Wild does have the advantage of home ice, given they had four more points than St. Louis.

Minnesota’s goaltending tandem of Marc-Andre Fleury (pictured) and Cam Talbot ranks among the league’s best and both should see a lot of ice time if the Wild make a deep postseason run. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

The most important thing in this series will be who gets the better goaltending. That’s why Guerin obtained veteran Marc-Andre Fleury at the deadline to pair with Cam Talbot. Talbot has been brilliant since Fleury arrived, while Fleury cooled off after a great start during his time in Minnesota. Wild coach Dean Evason surprised no one on Sunday by declining to name who will start Game 1 on Monday night at Xcel Energy Center.

No matter who that goalie is, he and the rest of his teammates will enter the postseason with the expectation that Guerin has given them everything they need to play deep into the spring. The rest is up to them.

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

This means the Wild will open the playoffs with a roster that is designed to make its longest postseason run since the 2003 team shocked everyone by advancing to the Western Conference finals.

But will it be enough?

The Wild clinched a playoff spot on Sunday with a come-from-behind 5-4 overtime victory over the San Jose Sharks. That gave the Wild a 15-2-4 record in their past 21 games and extended their home point streak to 11 games (10-0-1). The problem is that as an impressive as the Wild have been this season, their almost certain first-round playoff opponent has been unbeatable of late.

The Blues moved into second place in the Central Division ahead of the Wild with a 6-5 overtime win Saturday in St. Louis. While the Wild blew a two-goal lead against the going-nowhere Sharks on Sunday before rallying for the victory, the Blues scored a franchise record seven goals in a period in an 8-3 victory in Nashville.

St. Louis, which won the 2019 Stanley Cup with team that used a physical style to beat opponents, is now a more talented club that has won nine in a row. The Blues have averaged 5.4 goals per game in that span and are 11-0-1 in their past 12. St. Louis’ last loss in regulation was on March 26 against Carolina.

Winger Vladimir Tarasenko, who wanted out of St. Louis last offseason, is having an outstanding year and led the league this past week with seven goals, including one against the Wild, and 11 points to earn First Star of the Week honors.

A Tarasenko heater in the postseason, would mean the Wild would need the same from Kirill Kaprizov and, likely, Kevin Fiala. Kaprizov has had a spectacular second season in the NHL, setting Wild marks for goals (43) and points (93), but the soon-to-be 25-year-old (April 26) must produce more than the two goals and three points he accumulated in the Wild’s seven-game loss to Vegas last spring in the opening round.

The Wild have become bigger and tougher in recent weeks but the big, bad Blues will be a huge test of that upgrade next month. (MHM Photo / Jeff Wegge)

The Blues’ success mirrors how well they have done against the Wild. This might be the most concerning thing about a Minnesota-St. Louis matchup.  The Blues have won five in a row against the Wild, including all three meetings this season (two in overtime), are 9-0-1 in the past 10 and 13-1-2 in the past 16. The Wild and Blues have met twice in the playoffs. Minnesota ousted St. Louis in six games in the opening round in 2015 before the Blues returned the favor in five games in 2017.

The Wild will enter Tuesday’s game in Montreal trailing the Blues by one point(102-101) and with one game in hand (76-75). St. Louis will play host to Boston on Tuesday, so the Wild will retain the game in hand.

That’s important because the second-place team in the Central Division will have home-ice advantage against the third-place finisher. Right now, that would mean the Blues would open the playoffs next month against Minnesota in St. Louis. The value of home ice in the playoffs long has been debated but unless the Blues begin to cool off in their final six games, the Wild will be looking for any advantage they can get. That includes having the last change in four of the seven games.

What the Wild can’t afford is the type of drop off they had in the second period Saturday when the Blues outscored them 3-1. On Sunday, the Wild had another clunker of a second period as the Sharks outscored them 2-1 and outshot them 15-6.

“We know there’s a good chance of playing these guys (in the) first round, and we believe we can win,” Wild winger Marcus Foligno said of the Blues following Saturday’s loss. “That’s just the mentality of this year. It’s always been like that. I just think when we don’t show lackadaisical spurts, we’re the better team.”

The problem is right now the Blues are taking advantage of every lackadaisical spurt they see, and the Wild are going to need to achieve near perfection if they want to get to the second round for the fourth time in franchise history. 

The post Blues Streak Leaves Wild Chasing appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

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Members of the University of Minnesota men’s hockey team played shinny on one of the ten pond hockey rinks set up adjacent to the NHL rink. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

“It’s such a wonderful atmosphere,” Wild coach Dean Evason said after the team’s fifth-consecutive loss. “Obviously, you want to leave with a good feeling but there are so many great things that have happened here the last couple of days.”

The coldest game in NHL history went on without a hitch, complete with multiple pond hockey games, a lumberjack demonstration, simulated ice fishing and a four-song first-intermission concert by country music star, Thomas Rhett. Nearly 40,000 people braved the frigid temps 

“I was looking over my shoulder for a polar bear, that’s how cold it was out there,” Wild assistant captain Marcus Foligno said.  “To see the fans stacked to the top, bracing the cold, that’s why we have the best fans, I believe. You could hear them and the cheer when we scored, too, was kind of an echo and it was a great feeling to play in this game.”

The Blues, who bussed to Target Field and entered the stadium adorned in beach wear, may have had a psychological edge early on in a game which saw the temp at -5.7 degrees Fahrenheit at puck drop and plummet from there. 

“You do suck a little wind out there,” Foligno said. “It’s tough to breathe that deep cold air but, I mean, you’re so caught up in the thrill of the game that it was a really fun atmosphere.”

St. Louis forward Jordan Kyrou watches his shot elude Wild goaltender Cam Talbot’s glove for his second goal of the game in the second period of Minnesota’s 6-4 Winter Classic loss to the Blues at Target Field. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

The game itself was primarily a 60-minute slog of a contest dominated by the Blues, a faster, more rugged squad for much of the night. Jordan Kyrou’s four-point (2-2–4) second period helped turn a 1-1 game into a 6-2 St. Louis lead after two periods and should have brought an end to Wild starting goaltender Cam Talbot’s rough night even if he hadn’t left the game due to a lower-body injury.

Wild coach Dean Evason doesn’t see it that way, however.

“We wouldn’t have taken him out of that game,” Evason said. “He’s a battler, he’s a competitive guy, we don’t take him out of that game because he’s still going to give us a chance to come back.”

Goals by Ryan Hartman and Kevin Fiala and some too-little-too-late inspired play in the final period, after Kaapo Kahkonen was pulled for an extra attacker with more than eight minutes remaining in regulation, made it semi-interesting. The question is, where was that effort for two lackluster periods in a game with so much riding on it in terms of both playoff positioning and national perception?

“It’s embarrassing, I think, the first two periods,” Wild forward Mats Zuccarello said. “You have 40,000 people coming, freezing their asses off and we’re playing like that. … There’s no excuses. It’s cold, it’s cold for both teams, the ice is bouncy for both teams, they just outplayed us for 40 minutes.

“It’s unfortunate it happened on a great night like this when a lot of people leave their house in this cold to support us and we give them a performance like that.”

Deer “roamed” Lake Winter Classic as people fished and made s’mores over a fire pit throughout the game. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

Kirill Kaprizov came to play, potting Minnesota’s first goal just 25 seconds after Blues forward David Perron opened the scoring and chipped in two assists. But that goal, redirected off the stick of Blues defenseman Niko Mikkola, and Rem Pitlick’s shot that ramped up a stick before bouncing off the back of a completely unaware Blues goalie Jordan Binnington, was all Minnesota could muster for 40 minutes. 

“They got to their game quicker than we got to ours and we didn’t get to ours, obviously, until the end,” Evason said. “We talked to the group about our sense of urgency has to be way quicker than the last 10 minutes of a hockey game when we’re pulling goalies. 

“They advanced and then they used their skill to score goals once they got in there.” 

That’s troubling, even with Joel Eriksson Ek, Jared Spurgeon and Jonas Brodin all sidelined. The same group somehow mustered 18 of its 33 total shots in the final period to finish with a flurry but it was still mostly a no-show performance. Opinions varied on the impact of the 11-day break between games leading up to the Winter Classic with Evason allowing for the fact his team was rusty.

“Hockey players need to play hockey, not practice hockey. We practiced well, got our touches and all that kind of stuff but, you know, you’ve got that rhythm of a season … and, unfortunately, now we’ve got another four days before we get going again.

“The situation is exactly what it is and we’ve got to find a way to correct our game here real quickly.”

Zuccarello, on the other hand, refused to let himself and his teammates off the hook.

“It doesn’t matter, it’s a big game for us. We lost four in a row, we’ve got to come out with some push and urgency and we didn’t do it. I don’t care when we last played, that is not acceptable for us as a team. I think we all know it.”

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