The Minnesota Wild faced the San Jose Sharks tonight and former teammates D Brent Burns* & F Nick Bonino. The Sharks started their season very well, winning 4 in a row but went just 3-6-1 in their next 10 games before tonight’s game, including 1-3-1 in their last 5 with the win coming against the Calgary Flames one week ago by a score of 4-1. They dealt with some COVID-19 issues that had a lot of players out over the last week or so which likely contributed to the slide they’re currently on. All 7 players along with their coach were reinstated on Friday, though.
*Well, just D Jared Spurgeon was on the Wild in Burns’ last season in Minnesota in 2010-11.

One player to keep an eye on for San Jose is #76 F Jonathan Dahlén and that’s not just because he has the same last name as I do. He has 6 goals & 8 points on 28 shots in 13 games for the Sharks so far this season. Those 6 goals include 1 power-play goal & 2 game-winning goals. He lit up the HockeyAllsvenskan the last 2 seasons to the tune of 148 points on 61 goals & 87 assists over 96 games. He also showed up big time in the postseason to help Timra IK claim the Championship to gain promotion to the Swedish Hockey League with 10 goals & 22 points in 15 games.

He’s also the son of former Minnesota North Stars F Ulf Dahlén, who wore #22 as a Minnesota North Star. Those seasons with Minnesota were the best of his career, too. He was also acquired from the New York Rangers (w/a 1990 4th-round draft pick (Cal McGowan)) for Hall-of-Famer F Mike Gartner.)

They should probably put games played in here, too, huh? 13 for Dahlen, 5 for Pitlick

Here’s how the teams lined up:

Minnesota Wild

From NHL.com so they could be wrong:
97 Kirill Kaprizov – 89 Frédérick Gaudreau – 36 Mats Zuccarello
17 Marcus Foligno – 14 Joel Eriksson Ek – 22 Kevin Fiala
18 Jordan Greenway – 38 Ryan Hartman – 16 Rem Pitlick
21 Brandon Duhaime – 7 Nico Sturm – 27 Nick Bjugstad

47 Alex Goligoski – 46 Jared Spurgeon
25 Jonas Brodin – 24 Matt Dumba
4 Jon Merrill – 29 Dmitry Kulikov

33 Cam Talbot
34 Kaapo Kähkönen

San Jose Sharks

Game Recap

Well, let’s just say the San Jose Sharks came out with a purpose after struggling in their last 10 (& 5) games and, of course, they also knew they had to do that in order to beat this Wild team who is playing well & playing together and leading the Central Division right now.

It was a physical game as both teams tried to set a tone early that they weren’t going to back down. Matt Dumba tried to throw a hip check on Timo Meier just inside the Sharks zone as he was receiving a pass. He only got a piece of him but it could’ve been a big hit with Meier not knowing Dumba was coming. The Sharks defenseman who passed the puck took exception to the hit attempt and cross-checked Dumba while he was on the ice and Wild F Jordan Greenway took exception to that so they dropped the gloves and both got 5 minutes for fighting, although it wasn’t much of a fight as Greenway went down right away. They didn’t have a good view of it so it was hard to tell how it happened. Greenway was trying to set a tone physically.*

On the very next shift, the San Jose Sharks took advantage of some Wild players out of position and maybe making the wrong decisions on the backcheck &/or showing they are forwards & don’t know how to play defense on a Mario Ferraro goal. 1-0 Sharks

Matt Dumba jumped up into the rush as it looked like a good chance to make something good happen. He drove the net and Frédérick Gaudreau sent a pass towards the net and it hit the far post and came out as almost a mini-breakout pass for San Jose to make a quick transition to offense:

Dumba got on his horse to get back and the Wild actually outnumbered the Sharks:

Then, for some reason, Dumba goes after the puck-carrier but so does Jonas Brodin. Maybe Dumba thought Brodin would stay with the driving forward, Logan Couture.** Both of the defensemen going for the puck allowed Timo Meier to float/chip the puck past Brodin which then created a 2-on-1 against Minnesota F Mats Zuccarello. Kirill Kaprizov did what bad back-checkers do by starting to coast once he caught up to the play/player:

Then Zuccarello tried the defensive slide move to try to take the pass away but instead of going body first and the long way to make Couture pass the puck over him, he…well…he ended up using his stick to try to take the pass away because he slid late & ended up perpendicular instead of parallel. He had the right idea but, unfortunately, the execution was terrible:

Here’s another angle of Mats Zuccarello’s slide:

There are a lot of “ifs” in this play:

• If Kirill Kaprizov doesn’t stop skating, he could’ve prevented that goal. 
• If Brodin tells Dumba where to go/who to cover, they may have prevented the goal.
• If Zuccarello lays down the right way, they may have prevented that goal.

I would assume there will be a Film Session tomorrow for this & any of the other goals that were scored tonight. There will probably be some laughter as they play the Zuccarello slide, too. You gotta love the Sharks analyst’s take on them making Dumba pay for trying to run somebody over. I don’t think Dumba was trying to run somebody over. I think he was just trying to make a play to get his teammates going.

The Sharks then went up by 2 with a goal in the last minute of the 1st period on a rebound off a blocked shot from the right point that went right to Timo Meier. There’s not a lot you can do about these types of goals. You want shots to be blocked but it’s difficult to try to read where the puck will go off a blocked shot. 2-0 Sharks

The Wild responded with a better 2nd period. They outshot the Sharks 13-8 and got within 1 just over 5 minutes in with a great goal by F Joel Eriksson Ek who received a pass from Fiala on the right side of the zone and he made a quick move to get around Tomas Hertl’s stick then pulled it back to his forehand and made a quick shot that beat Sharks G James Reimer on the glove side. 2-1 Sharks

Just 4 minutes later, Sharks D Erik Karlsson put his team back up by 2 on a slapper from the right point as Kevin Fiala went to go get his stick then stepped away from the shot instead of blocking it. This will likely come up in a film session, too.

The Wild made another great push*** to get back in the game in the 3rd but went down by 3 goals on Tomas Hertl’s 7th of the season as he was wide open at the right side of the net for an easy one-timer goal. Wild D Jon Merrill got lost on the play for some reason.

Sharks G James Reimer stood tall and helped get his team back in the W column as they try to right the ship after Covid sent it off track for a while.

Full highlights here:

Game Notes

*Jordan Greenway is a big human. He’s listed as 6’6”, 231 lbs on his Wild player page. He’s never really shown a consistent physical element since he’s been in the NHL. It’s been more off & on and the coaching &/or front office staff have had to request that he be more physical. After the fight in the first period, Wild broadcaster Anthony LaPanta said, “This first 5:30, there’s a significant difference to Jordan Greenway’s game.”

Fans complain about this part of Jordan Greenway’s game because they think just because he’s that big, he should automatically have a physical presence in his game. The problem is if you’ve never played that type of game or role ever before, for whatever reason, it’s extremely difficult to start doing it at the best level of hockey in the world. Does that mean he can’t learn to do it? No. Of course not, but, it might take some time.

Look at Joel Eriksson Ek. When he was drafted, he was listed at 6’2”, 180 lbs but he’s been a forechecking machine since we’ve seen him with the Minnesota Wild because that’s how he plays the game. He gets under the opponent’s skin because he competes his butt off so he’s in front of the net and defending top lines & players and they get irritated every game and he just stares at them with a look of “I don’t care what you say to me. I’m going to keep battling my ass off.” It also looks like he might not understand what they’re saying like it’s a different language but, the bottom line is that is how he plays the game.

Will Jordan Greenway figure out how much help having that element will bring to his game this season with the Minnesota Wild or will he be traded (or have to take a smaller bridge contract)? Time will tell but it’s good to see him trying to do it. That’s for sure.

Give him some time, ‘Puckers! It’s not easy to bring that kind of Clutter every game!

**Is going for the puck-holder what the Minnesota Wild want their back-checkers to do? Either yes or no, someone made the wrong decision here &, in my opinion, the backchecker should take the players without the puck. Or one of the defenders should tell the closest back-checker who they want them to cover.

The cardinal sin of backchecking is to stop skating and watch the play or the puck (PuckWatchers is the common phrase) because, like the play of the first Sharks goal tonight, they’ll watch the puck go into their own net. 

What you say to Puck-Watchers!

***The Wild have had a lot of amazing comebacks but the odds are not with that continuing and it gets harder as the season goes on because the league sees what the Minnesota Wild are doing so they know what’s coming and they’ll plan for it.

The big question is can they get that comeback energy going from the start of the game, now? If they can adjust and turn it around so they have the lead more often and earlier, they won’t need to make a comeback as often. 

It is nice to know they’re capable of doing it, though.

🏒–– CP ––🏒

Next up: 

The Wild will look to redeem themselves as they welcome D Ryan Suter back to the Xcel Energy Center on Thursday night when the Minnesota Wild play the Dallas Stars for the 1st time in 648 days. That’s 20 months and 11 days. It will also be exactly 22 months since the last time the Dallas Stars played at the X on January 18th, 2020 which was Hockey Day Minnesota and a B-E-A-UTIFUL 7-0 win. We’ll hope for the same for the next game!

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AND…as always…