New Year, New Wild! Time to start winning at home by playing the right way from the drop of the Puck!
The #MNWild began the 2nd half of the 2019-20 season with another game at home against the Winnipeg Jets, a team that has already beat them twice, a 5-2 loss in the 3rd game of the season and a 6-0 spanking 2 weeks ago at The X. So…this is a good test to make sure they come out and play a hard 60 minutes and more if they need it.
Wild Coach Bruce Boudreau made some line changes yesterday, moving F Jordan Greenway up to the 1st line alongside Eric Staal and Mats Zuccarello and moving Zach Parise back to the familiar line of Parise, Koivu & Fiala. In Greenway’s old spot on the left of Joel Eriksson Ek and Luke Kunin is now Marcus Foligno leaving the 4th line of Ryan Donato, Victor Rask and Ryan Hartman.
Well, if it’s playing hard right from the start, the Wild did that tonight. Marcus Foligno plays well no matter where he plays but his linemates made a beautiful tic-tac-toe play to put the Wild up 1-0 just 72 seconds into the game. They then outshot the Jets 13-7 and didn’t even give up a scoring chance but Winnipeg G Connor Hellebuyck kept his team within a goal by not giving up anything else in the period.
To start the 2nd period, Wild F Kevin Fiala tugged on the back of Nikolaj Ehlers breezers to get a holding penalty and put Winnipeg on the power play and they needed just 17 seconds to make the Wild pay for it and tie the game at 1.
There were multiple double-minor penalties for high-sticking on the Wild. The first one was on a follow-through of a Luke Kunin pass that caught Mark Scheifele high and it drew blood. Accidental follow-throughs are permitted but, apparently, the officials didn’t see it that way and/or it doesn’t count on a pass attempt.
Then, with a couple minutes left in the 2nd period, another high-sticking incident wasn’t called when Greenway supposedly hit Jets D Anthony Bitetto in the lip. Bitetto went down but, you tell us if it looks like he got hit.
And now the Wild are being assessed their second double minor of the game. Jordan Greenway sits now. pic.twitter.com/EARxujWsfl
— Hockey Wilderness (@hockeywildernes) January 4, 2020
The officials let the play go on until the puck was frozen by Hellebuyck. The Wild had the puck right after the incident happened but no whistle ever happened. Apparently, a linesman can call a penalty if it was missed and the officials can then review the play to find out who the penalty was on and they ended up giving Greenway a double-minor. The problem is that a linesman, according to rule 32.4, is supposed to stop play immediately when it is apparent that an injury has resulted from a high-stick. That didn’t happen. Obviously, the linesman probably doesn’t know if it’s a double-minor so maybe that’s why he let the play go on but…if the Wild had scored, the goal would’ve been disallowed because of the penalty so why would you let the game keep going?
Anyways, the Wild killed the first minor to finish the 2nd period but the Jets scored during the 2nd minor to put them up 2-1 on a Blake Wheeler one-timer off a Kyle Connor from behind the net. That was their first shot of the period.
The Wild, like they have most of the season, responded with some dominating play and offensive zone time and outshooting the Jets 15-3 the rest of the 3rd period but it took until 5:30 left for the Wild to finally tie the game on a Luke Kunin goal.
Matt Dumba took the puck up the center of the neutral zone. He saw Marcus Foligno crossing in front of him to the left side so he floated a puck ahead of him so he could skate into it, a pass into space. Foligno, before getting to the puck, looked to see if anyone was open or going to be open for a pass then made a behind the back pass to the middle to Luke Kunin. The pass was a little behind Kunin so he had to receive the pass on his backhand. He then turned the rest of the way around for a quick shot that actually goes off the paddle of Hellebuyck’s stick and up into the net. How ‘bout that?
Watch the replay again and see it go off Hellebuyck’s stick.
Kunin said later that he heard Dumba yelling to shoot the puck so he did.
The game ended up tied after regulation so the Wild had to try to get it done in Overtime for the first time this season. The Jets had the puck at the beginning of OT. Mats Zuccarello took the puck away from Blake Wheeler and Wheeler slashed and ended up knocking the stick out of Zuccarello’s hands so…the Wild went on the power play and…some more controversy
Eric Staal scored on a loose puck in front of the Winnipeg net but Zach Parise made some contact with Hellebuyck so the officials had to review the play. The call on the ice was a goal and Parise was pushed into Hellebuyck by Bitetto and D Tucker Poolman. It was called a good goal! Game Over! Good start to the 2nd half.
Nice comeback and hard work to get it done!
On to the next one, the Calgary Flames at #TheX tomorrow at 6pm on Fox Sports North!
