LOS ANGELES — Marcus Foligno’s frustrations boiled over.
When a Jordan Spence point shot on a second-period power play re-directed off Foligno’s stick and past Marc-Andre Fleury, it looked like the Minnesota Wild alternate captain was ready to blow. Foligno fired the puck off the boards as hard as he could.
“It was just one of those nights,” he said.
Moments later, when Fleury was given a mercy pull — this game wasn’t his fault — TV cameras showed the seemingly always positive future Hall of Famer kicking something in the tunnel hallway. He also slammed his stick against the wall as he headed to the dressing room.
The Wild and Los Angeles Kings had so many late misconduct penalties — 156 penalty minutes in all; even injured Joel Eriksson Ek (not even in the arena) was announced as receiving one. These kind of emotions were expected. This wasn’t just a hard-luck loss in mid-November.
This was a critical game with the Wild’s slim playoff hopes on the line.
“You get beat 6-0 in a game you need,” Foligno said. “It really wasn’t a game where we got physically outmatched. We felt like we couldn’t get a lot going.”
DO YOUR THING 21 🗣 pic.twitter.com/TgJpdFwLPo
— LA Kings (@LAKings) March 21, 2024
If you didn’t watch the game and just listened to the Wild players speak afterward, you would never have thought the Kings nearly put a touchdown on them. Once again, Minnesota climbed to within striking distance of a playoff spot, only to lose a key game on the road; they are three points behind Vegas for the second wild card, but the Golden Knights have two games in hand.
“Obviously it’s frustrating,” veteran wing Mats Zuccarello said. “To be honest with you, we didn’t play a bad game. It’s one of those games where you felt like every bounce, every puck goes the other way. It’s like we’re battling hard, where the feel is that you’re in the game, you’re creating chances. That’s hockey sometimes.
“I think the results lie a little bit in how the game was. But you’re the hockey experts so you probably know better than me.”
It’s true that the Wild had bad luck with some back-breaking bounces against them. One goal was a centering pass that went off the arm of a sliding Dakota Mermis. One went off Foligno’s stick. Matt Roy was wide open on a rush for his goal on the first shift of the second. But the puck only got to him because a pass from Quinton Byfield to Anze Kopitar inadvertently caromed off the skate of Brock Faber. That was the crushing blow. The game was pretty much over by then.
Matty Roy makes it 4️⃣ pic.twitter.com/aVr5KyqP7O
— LA Kings (@LAKings) March 21, 2024
But to chalk it all up to bounces, especially at this time of year, rings hollow. There were plenty of areas in which the Wild’s lack of execution, or poor decision-making, helped dig them a hole they couldn’t get out of. The penalty kill was loose and too quick in its routes. Does this game look different if Ryan Hartman chips the puck up the boards early in the first period instead of forcing a pass up the middle in his own defensive zone? A few seconds later, the turnover ended up in the back of the net (thanks to a slick Phillip Danault deflection). It was only 1-0, but the Wild spent the rest of the night chasing.
“I think we were ready to play the game,” coach John Hynes said. “And it’s not from a lack of want or those things. But I do feel certain things in the game, situations like that, we need to handle better. But that’s just part of the growing part, when we’re going down the stretch, playing meaningful games where we’re right in the hunt. We’re coming off a stretch of games where we had a lot of points to put us in this position. (Wednesday) didn’t go our way, probably for numerous reasons. But we’ve got to get the right reasons out of it with our guys and make sure we’re ready to go.”
The Wild were missing their top center in Eriksson Ek and a top defenseman in Jonas Brodin, who didn’t play due to a lower-body injury. Brodin is expected to miss some time; how much remains to be seen. As Foligno pointed out, they were “exposed” at times without Eriksson Ek and Brodin, and no doubt the struggling power play was part of that. While Eriksson Ek could return Saturday in another big game against St. Louis, the Wild may have to go without Brodin for an extended period.
There’s no time to be frustrated, or let this loss linger.
“It’s tough, but we’ve been clawing and we’re right there,” said Zach Bogosian. “We can’t lose belief. We’ve played some good hockey lately, we’ve been grinding. I don’t know how much you get done when you’re frustrated. Playing frustrated can lead to a lot of bad things. If you look at the bigger picture, what we’ve done the last few games, racking up points in consecutive games, taking positives every game at this time during the year is very crucial. What happened (Wednesday) happened, but you can’t feel bad for yourself or hang your head. We’re right there.”
The Wild should get credit for entering this game in a 6-0-2 run, which included their gutsy overtime win over Nashville, a win in Edmonton and a point on the road in Colorado. They’re not going to win every game, though they pretty much need to win the final 12 to have a chance at making the playoffs. As Filip Gustavsson put it Tuesday, this is the situation they put themselves in; the hole they’ve dug.
For every key win like those just mentioned, there are the damning back-to-back losses in Nashville and St. Louis a few weeks back. There’s the 3-10-2 record against Central Division teams not named Chicago or Arizona. It took a third-period comeback Saturday against the Blues to sneak out a point, or that would have been a dagger. It’s not like the Wild haven’t beaten good teams this season — they boast wins over Florida, Carolina, Vancouver, Vegas, Boston, the New York Rangers.
But there haven’t been enough wins down the stretch against teams they’re chasing. And they’re running out of runway. The Wild have one game in the next week (Saturday against St. Louis); the Golden Knights have four. The only other team Minnesota had a realistic chance of catching was the Kings, who have now moved ahead by seven points with a game in hand.
“I think we’ve all got to be mature about it and understand what (Saturday) means,” Bogosian said. “But also understanding we can’t take back what happened the last three hours. Can we learn from it? Sure. But having a positive outlook with 12-13 games (left), for us, it’s one game at a time. And control what we can.”
The Wild couldn’t control everything on Wednesday. And even the analytics show they probably deserved a little better, owning 3.24 expected goals in all situations compared to 2.31 for the Kings (Minnesota had a 12-7 edge in high-danger chances, too, according to Natural Stat Trick). But when Hynes was told postgame that players felt they played better than what the score showed, he said he needed more time to digest the game before really commenting deeper.
“It was obviously a tough night,” Hynes said.
(Photo: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
