Learn about the Minnesota Wild & the game of hockey with some Film Study!
We’re going to take a look at Luke Kunin’s Game-Tying Goal from Saturday night’s win over the Winnipeg Jets because there are several good & interesting things about it that you may not have noticed.
This really looks like a nothing play because Mikko Koivu is going to change and it’s really 3-on-4 with Luke Kunin coming onto the ice and Marcus Foligno and Matt Dumba coming with some speed. D Jonas Brodin is trailing the play and actually goes for a change.
Where everyone is to begin the play. You can tell Marcus Foligno just received the puck from Ryan Suter.
Here’s how it looks. Dumba is coming up the middle with the puck with Mikko Koivu in front of him but he’s going for a change. Marcus Foligno is also ahead of him on his right and Luke Kunin just got on the ice. Winnipeg Jets Fs Nick Shore is on Foligno’s left, Kyle Connor is defending Koivu and Mason Appleton is backchecking behind Dumba. Minnesota Wild D Jonas Brodin is out of the picture on the left side in the Wild’s defensive zone and isn’t a part of the play so…3-on-4.
Dumba sees Foligno crossing in front of him so he’ll throw a lead pass off the left boards for him to skate into.
Dumba holds the puck but he sees Marcus Foligno crossing in front of him with speed so he throws the puck into space off the left boards so he can skate into the pass and not have to slow down. Winnipeg F Nick Shore has his back to the play and he goes for a change taking himself and his teammate coming onto the ice out of the play. Coaches call that a bad change. Jets Ds Anthony Bitetto and Carl Dahlstrom are in good position and it still looks like a harmless situation. Jets F Mason Appleton got back into the play then coasted since there was nobody to defend. Kyle Connor has Dumba defended.
Anthony Bitetto looks out of position but nobody has the puck so, it’s still not terrible.
Dahlstrom skates to the loose puck but, even though he’s ahead of Foligno, Foligno has the speed to get to the puck first and he already knows what he’s going to do with the puck because he looked at his options before he got to the puck. Kunin is now going to cut to the middle because he’ll see Bitetto watch the puck instead of defending someone. Dumba is battling Kyle Connor to get to the net. Appleton is watching. Someone get him some popcorn.
Bitetto now has 2 players to defend. It looks like he sees the puck but he turned his head and it was too late to get to Kunin.
Foligno got to the puck and made a behind the back centering pass to Kunin and you can see Bitetto has given Kunin too much space although it’s close and to give him some slack, he also has Matt Dumba driving to the net hard now, too. The other Jets D Carl Dahlstrom played it fine as he took away Foligno’s forehand. Appleton probably should get to that passing lane because he had already looked back to see there wasn’t a trailing defenseman on his side.
Kunin receives the pass on his backhand with his back to the net but he hears Dumba yelling at him to SHOOT!
The pass was behind Kunin so he had to catch behind him on his backhand but he executes a quick turnaround shot that may have surprised Jets G Connor Hellebuyck. Bitetto has too big of a gap so he isn’t in a position to do anything to defend the play. It did happen fast, though. Defense is not easy by any means and his forwards didn’t help him out at all on this play. Connor played it pretty well. We just don’t like when players coast on a backcheck especially with a 1-goal lead and under 6 minutes left in the 3rd period.
The best thing to do to learn about really any goal is to watch the replay multiple times and watch every player on defense and on offense to see what happened. What could be done differently to change the play? What happened to make the play?
Our philosophy is this. If you play offense or defense, you should understand what the other team is trying to do on offense or defense. So…if you’re backchecking, think what you would do if you were the forward. The offensive player will drive the net, trail the play or, quite simply, go to the open ice and to be available as a shooter waiting for a pass. They could also just go to the front of the net to screen and try for a tip.
We’ll try to go through some of the goals that happened in the Calgary loss on Sunday next.
Thanks for reading and…Always…
