Wild’s continued lack of success vs. Central Division foes is concerning

By / / Sports / 6 minutes of reading


WINNIPEG — Well, the good news is Kirill Kaprizov got out of Canada Life Centre in one piece for a change. That’s no easy task when the Minnesota Wild travel to Winnipeg.

The bad news is despite feeling they outplayed the Jets for good chunks of Tuesday’s game, especially in the second period, the Wild continued their season-long lack of success against the top teams in the Central Division and returned home stinging from a 6-3 defeat north of the border.

The Jets are soaring this season in large part because they’re 13-3-1 inside the division. The Wild are 5-9, including 0-7 against the top three teams in the Central — Dallas, Colorado and Winnipeg, including three losses each to the Stars and Jets.

This latest defeat kept the Wild from tying the St. Louis Blues in the standings for the second wild-card spot and snapped the Wild’s six-game point streak with a tough road back-to-back coming up in Edmonton and Seattle later this week.

“We want to be in that playoff spot, and we know we have to beat those (Central Division) teams,” said Marco Rossi, who recorded the second two-goal game of his career and tied Calder Trophy front-runner Connor Bedard for the rookie lead with 17 goals. “So I think hopefully it’s a lesson for us, and it won’t happen again. I think next time we’re gonna be 100 percent ready for it.”

It’s not like the Wild weren’t ready for the Jets. They just weren’t efficient in the offensive zone in the first two periods despite tremendous looks against backup goalie Laurent Brossoit and a 28-14 shot lead through 40 minutes.

But the first period turned after Matt Boldy’s turnover on one shift led to a series of other failed clears by the Wild and a Declan Chisholm penalty. Gabriel Vilardi scored the first of his two power-play goals, but then Marc-Andre Fleury didn’t see the release of Mason Appleton’s shot 14 seconds later for a 2-0 hole.

Brossoit just kept stoning the Wild left and right in the first two periods, plus Connor Dewar somehow misfired at an open left side of the net by managing to hit the far post with Brossoit having no idea where the puck was. Marcus Johansson, who continues to produce minimally despite being a second-line mainstay, also blew golden scoring chances.

This after the Wild came into Winnipeg riding high from a magical Monday in St. Paul, where they lit up the Vancouver Canucks for 10 goals, including seven in the third period. Joel Eriksson Ek and Kaprizov became the first set of teammates to each have six-point games since Wayne Gretzky and Tomas Sandstrom in 1993. Their six-goal outburst in a span of 5:45 was the fourth fastest by one team in NHL history.

If one thing could keep the Wild from having an emotional letdown the following night after such an exciting performance, it would be facing the team they detest the most, their rivals from Manitoba.

Kaprizov had been injured seriously in his previous two visits. On New Year’s Eve, a day after Brenden Dillon injured the Wild star with a cross-check to his lower back and Jake Middleton fought the Jets defenseman in response, Pat Maroon opened the game by fighting Adam Lowry, and Ryan Hartman high-sticked youngster Cole Perfetti in the teeth off a faceoff.

Perfetti was mic’d for the game and claimed Hartman admitted to him that he intentionally committed the act as retaliation for Dillon’s infraction on Kaprizov. Hartman denied he specifically said he did it purposely.

GO DEEPER

Exclusive: Wild’s Ryan Hartman responds to intentional high-stick claim, denies he admitted it was payback

Regardless, Hartman said earlier this week he was not afraid the Jets would come after him and didn’t care if Jets fans greeted him with a nasty reception.

But as Jets coach Rick Bowness predicted Tuesday morning, there was no spillover from the last meeting in large part because the two points were important for both teams. Winnipeg was coming off a bad loss in Calgary, and the Wild are fighting to get back into the playoff picture.

“It’s just a lot at stake for them,” Bowness said. “I think those things have been dealt with. … We wish we kind of kept it out of the media. That’s our side, but it didn’t, so you deal with it.”

The Jets didn’t go after Hartman other than a harmless slash he took from Dillon during his first shift and Lowry tripping him off a faceoff to end the first period. In fact, one could say the Jets got the last laugh because it was Hartman’s third-period penalty that led to a 3-1 deficit becoming 4-1 when Vilardi scored his second goal by redirecting a shot that was going well wide of the net.

Fans chanted, “Thank you, Hartman!”

“The focus is on how we play, not about the other stuff. That’s just noise. That’s just distractions,” Bowness said of the Hartman-Perfetti stuff.

The game lacked the usual Jets-Wild snarl, probably because Maroon and Marcus Foligno are hurt. Middleton fought Logan Stanley as a response to Middleton checking Mark Scheifele into the boards. Jake Lucchini got into a fight late with Vladislav Namestnikov.

But Hartman’s penalty was indeed costly because after the Jets took a 5-1 lead soon after Vilardi’s goal, Kaprizov and Rossi scored back-to-back to make it 5-3 before Nino Niederreiter’s empty-netter.

John Hynes lauded how the Wild played offensively. They controlled puck possession, chance generation and the expected goals game. But they have allowed 13 goals in the past two games and got a second straight game of subpar goaltending.

Expected goals in all situations was 4.4-3.61, yet Fleury gave up five. At five-on-five, the expected goals against were 1.9, and he gave up three.

“I loved the way that the guys battled ’til the end trying to get something going,” Fleury said. “I still believe we didn’t give up too much. It was two tips in the third that changed direction, the power-play goal was a nice play backdoor, couple shots I didn’t see. I don’t think we got outplayed by any means. Not too worried. Put that one behind, learn and keep going.”

The upcoming back-to-back will be tough against an Oilers team that has played well since its coaching change, then in Seattle against a team the Wild are jockeying with to make the playoffs.

If the Wild are going to win those games, especially in Edmonton, they must clean up their act defensively. And they’re going to need saves from Fleury and Filip Gustavsson.

“Obviously, it wasn’t a perfect game by any means, but I think we put enough on the table to bring home a point or two,” defenseman Brock Faber said. “It’s unfortunate, right? We got to clean up things — six and seven (goals) on the back-to-backs. We gave ourselves a chance to win, and we won the one where we got seven on us, but we gotta clean that area up. So again, not perfect, but I think it wasn’t a bad effort.”

No, it wasn’t. But it was still another loss against a Central power, and until the Wild show they can beat the Stars, Avs and Jets, they’ll be considered pretenders even if they manage to grab that final playoff spot in the West.

(Photo of Gabriel Vilardi celebrating his third-period goal: Terrence Lee / USA Today)





Source link

About The Author

Avatar of Miranda Washington
Miranda Washington is the newest member of our news writing team, and she's already making waves. In addition to being a writer, Miranda also has a passion for photography and art. She loves to travel and experience new places, both near and far, whether through her camera lens or in person.

Start typing and press enter to search

Scroll to Top