The Minnesota Wild were looking for redemption tonight when they faced maybe their biggest rival, the Dallas Stars, for the 1st time in 648 days or 20 months and 11 days. It will also be exactly 22 months since the last time the Dallas Stars played at the Xcel Energy Center on January 18th, 2020 which was Hockey Day Minnesota and it was also a B-E-A-UTIFUL 7-0 win for the home team. Ahh…Hockey Day!!!
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This season, there is another big reason to want to beat them and that is D Ryan Suter now being a Dallas Star. Can you imagine going from a Minnesota Wild player to a Dallas Stars player? Ughh…that’s rough but, hey, he was paid $6.67M over the next 8 years (or $833,333 per season*) to not play for the Wild, or, if you’re a MoneyBall fan:
They’re paying you $3.5M to play against them.”
Don’t feel too bad for Mr. Suter. He did sign a 4-year/$14.6M ($3.65M AAV) in the offseason so he’ll be alright but, it will be interesting to see what happened tonight. He’s also off to a pretty good start, personally, as he has 2 goals, 6 assists & a minus-2 for the season. Last season, his worst as a member of the Wild, he had just 3 goals, 16 assists and was a plus-9 so he’s already almost halfway to his total points from last season. He’s also already equaled his total from last season with 1 power-play goal.
*That’s $208,333.25 for each of the 4 games they’ll play against Dallas this season. Nice, huh?
The Dallas Stars have struggled a little this season. They were 6-6-2 coming into tonight and before their last 2 wins in their 2 previous games, they needed extra hockey in Overtime or a Shootout to win. They started the season 3-4-2 and had to have at least one of those “Players Only” meetings to get back on track. They won 3 out of their last 5 to get back to .500 so the Wild had to be aware of their recent play more than their overall record to get themselves back in the win column.
Here’s how the teams lined up:
Minnesota Wild
Dallas Stars
Minnesota native F Riley Tufte ended up being scratched about an hour before the game as Joel Kiviranta took his place.
Game Recap
The Minnesota Wild Tribute to former defenseman Ryan Suter:
Thank you, Ryan.#mnwild pic.twitter.com/pHeSSAyFmb
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) November 19, 2021
The Minnesota Wild had some push early and earned a power-play 1:19 into the game when Mats Zuccarello was cross-checked by Dallas Stars D Miro Heiskanen as Kevin Fiala was trying to feed him the puck from behind the net. The Wild had some great chances to score on the power play but couldn’t get one past Dallas Stars G Anton Khudobin.
Rem Pitlick* put the Wild ahead just inside 10 minutes into the 1st period for his 4th goal of the season. He made a nice pass to Brandon Duhaime for a one-timer that went wide so he just retrieved the puck at the right half-wall then continued to skate around the top of the zone and took a wrist shot at the top of the left faceoff circle about a foot & a half high with F Nico Sturm screening Stars G Anton Khudobin. 1-0 Wild
Pitlick actually made 2 great passes before scoring as he tried to feed Nico Sturm at the side of the net before he passed to Duhaime.
Matt Dumba took a hooking penalty to negate a Jamie Benn scoring chance but the Wild’s Penalty Kill was up to the task and killed it nicely & they went back to work at even strength.
The forecheck created the 2nd Wild goal as they were just relentless on the puck and Mats Zuccarello was instrumental in keeping the puck in the offensive zone then he tried to pass to Victor Rask below the goal line but it deflected back to him so he tried again then went the net and Rask fed him right away so he had space and the option of shooting or passing.
The Dallas Stars were mostly puck-watching instead of reading the play and anticipating and when you’re watching the puck, you’re just reacting to it which usually means you’re going to be too late to make a play so Zuccarello decided to try to pass the puck through Stars D Jani Hakanpaa to Kirill Kaprizov at the side of the net.
Stars F Tyler Seguin could maybe have moved to defend Zuccarello but he decided to just give him space so he took that space & got a nice apple for his work.
Hakanpaa was watching the puck so he wasn’t sure where Kaprizov was behind him so Zuccarello was able to send a pass through his legs for an easy tap-in goal to double the Minnesota Wild lead to 2-0 with 4:51 to go in the 1st period.
Greenway drew a power play in the offensive zone just by being physical and annoying Dallas Stars D Jani Hakampaa (Or is it Häagen-Dazs?) to the point where he cross-checked him when he didn’t even have the puck. That’s what physical play does to an opponent and especially defensemen. They don’t want to get hit even if it’s a legal hit.
Geez! Kaprizov skated into and around the Dallas zone then set up Jared Spurgeon for a scoring chance that he sent over the net. That was impressive. Is Kap getting his game back? It sure looked like it? His compete level was off the charts. 2-0 Wild
Minnesota Wild D Alex Goligoski received a pass at the left half-wall from F Ryan Hartman as he was skating into the left corner so he used his speed & kept the puck away from Tyler Seguin with his body while he skated behind the net and he tried a wraparound. It’s hard to tell if he was to score or pass but we’d lean score and the puck came off his stick to the other side of the net right to Ryan Hartman for a one-timer that was initially saved by Khudobin but the rebound came right back to Hartman and the 2nd try found the twine for his 8th goal of the season.
You can learn a lot from almost every goal. For instance, Tyler Seguin stopped skating and tried to reach the puck by swinging his stick but Goligoski protected the puck well. If Seguin keeps skating, he could check him off the puck or force him to go further into the corner or pass the puck or lose the puck. Ryan Hartman passed the puck then went to the net. What happens at the net? Goals are Scored There!!! 3-0 Wild
Greenway drew another penalty just by being tenacious so…Tenacious F? Anthony LaPanta then quoted Minnesota Wild Head Coach Dean Evason talking about Jordan Greenway:
“He is so big & so strong that if he just brings effort…
nobody can deal with him!”
Interference by Dallas Stars D Miro Heiskanen. Oops. They then show Greenway laughing on the bench. He can be a big part of this team just by doing what Ek & Hartman do. Get on the opponent quickly and often and it will pay off eventually. Physicality can take a team off their game. It can draw penalties because it just frustrates the opponent.
My favorite quote about physical play is from current Pittsburgh Penguins President of Hockey Operations, Brian Burke about checking in the National Hockey League:
Dallas came out with an expected push early in the 3rd and got a power play when Jordan Greenway hooked Jamie Benn as he went to the net and the Stars as Jacob Peterson scored when he was fed a centering pass by Tyler Seguin. Alex Goligoski was right there but the puck squeaked through and Peterson took a shot while he was falling down to get the Dallas Stars on the board. 3-1 Wild
The Marcus Foligno, Joel Eriksson Ek & Jordan Greenway line got in on the forecheck, forced a turnover and, eventually, Joel Eriksson Ek sent a pass from the right half-wall out to Alex Goligoski just left of the center of the point and he hesitated then took a shot that got past Khudobin. The hesitation was likely to wait for Marcus Foligno to screen the ‘tender. 4-1 Wild
Look at number 34, Dallas Stars F Denis Gurianov. Why is he so low to cover the front of the net if nobody is there? He should be closer to Goligoski.
Then, when Goligoski gets the puck and shoots, Gurianov goes the way of a bullfighter…Olé and tries not to get hit by the shot. That will go over well when your team just scored. No coach has ever said to make yourself thin to block shots. We haven’t followed the Stars this season. If they’re this bad, it’s going to take more than a players-only meeting to right this spaceship.
Minnesota Wild F Frédérick Gaudreau scored off a great pass by Kirill Kaprizov as he must have eyes in the back of his head (or he just has great hockey sense & vision) on this pass. So…if an assist is an apple, is a Kaprizov assist a Kapple? Should he be sponsored by Snapple? HA! 5-1 Wild
Dallas did score the next goal as Jamie Benn got to the rebound off the deflected pass shot but the Wild then scored just 29 seconds later and added a 7th goal 45 seconds after that.
Zuccarello added his 4th off a nice hesitation move to take advantage of more bad defense.
Then Victor Rask scored a goal that reminded us of the Seinfeld Magic Lugie episode as his shot went off the defender’s stick then off Khudobin’s helmet and fluttered into the net past D Miro Heiskanen’s baseball swing as he struck out trying to save that goal. He then took the puck and shot it into the half-wall. PUCK!!!
Minnesota Wild F Brandon Duhaime got into it with many Stars. On one play he was mucking it up with Joel Kiviranta then he saw Radek Faksa knock his captain down so he went to grab him and he was ready to fight as he dropped his gloves but the linesman already had him so they both went for roughing.
Later in the period, before a faceoff, Faksa & Duhaime chatted before the puck was dropped and Duhaime obviously thought they were going to drop ‘em after the puck was dropped so he dropped his but the linesman didn’t drop the puck so he got 2 minutes for Unsportsmanlike Conduct with 4:18 remaining in the 3rd period.
When Duhaime came out of the box, he was looking for Mr. Faksa and he found him with a good hit that Faksa didn’t like so they finally dropped the gloves and it was a pretty good bruhaha.
Game Notes
*Minnesota native F Rem Pitlick has looked good since getting a chance to get on the ice as he now has 4 goals and 2 assists through 7 games this season.
There are some fans who didn’t think much of Rem before these last 2 games even though he had a nice assist in his 1st game then had to miss a handful of games (3?) due to Covid-19 protocols. In the next 3 games, he had an assist & 1 shot on goal in 23:08 of ice time.
A fan/blogger/podcaster said something about not being impressed by him and thought he was kind of a career tweener.
So…how many games does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? What? Noo…wait! That’s not what I meant. How many games does it take to see what a player can contribute to a new team? 1…2…3…crunch! Th-ree!!! Obviously…that’s ridiculous. Every player is different and develops differently but fans judge them right away. He sucks. Yeah..he’s playing in the best hockey league in the world. He must suck. How ‘bout we let him play and give him quite a while before deciding how good he is?
Another fan said in the comments* of an article that picking up Rem Pitlick off waivers was Bill Guerin going back on his word that everyone has to make the team because they just gave Pitlick a spot.
*Never read the Comments! Unless they’re on your article!
So…again…apparently the team can’t pick up a player they think will help their team more than the players they already have on the roster? That makes sense.
Keep playing hard & keep Bringing The Clutter, Rem! You look fine to us!
**One thing about Ryan Suter that we noticed last season is he seemed to enjoy the game a little more. He looked like he was having more fun than in most of his seasons with the Wild so maybe he was liking what Minnesota Wild General Manager Bill Guerin was turning this team into.
Was buying Suter out still the right thing to do? It’s hard to tell right now but defensemen tend to age a little slower than forwards. Suter has an excellent stride so his skating will always be there and he knows how to play defense.
The big questions are if he’ll play 4 more seasons and if he’ll still be a very good top-pair defenseman throughout those seasons. If he retires at any time before the 2025-26 season &/or turns into more of a middle-pair defensive defenseman, it was probably the right choice.
The cap penalties if he or Parise had retired before their mega-contracts were up were crazier than the buyout costs.
Just think…if they were signed with the current Collective Bargaining Agreement rules on free-agent contracts, they would’ve only been able to sign 7-year deals so they would’ve ended after the 2018-19 season. How ‘bout that for something to think about, huh?
Stars of the Game
Kirill Kaprizov
Goal(3), 3 assists for a career-high 4-point night.
He was also a +4 & had 2 shots on goal.
Mats Zuccarello
Goal(4), 2 assists, +4, 2 shots
Alex Goligoski
Goal(1)-1st Wild Goal, 2 assists, +4, 2 shots
Honorable Mention
How ’bout Cam Talbot?
He stopped 36 of 38 shots for a .947 Save %
He’s now 9-4 with a 2.85 Goals Against Average (GAA) and a .906 Save % in 13 games this season.
We don’t talk about the goaltending enough at all. We’ll have to work on that.
🏒–– CP ––🏒
Extended Highlights
Next up:
The Wild head out on a 3-game road trip to the east coast as they’ll play the back-to-back games in Florida on Saturday against the Florida Panthers (5pm on Bally Sports North) & on Sunday against the Tampa Bay Lightning (4pm on Bally Sports North) before heading up to New Jersey to play the Devils on Wednesday (6pm on Bally Sports North).
This will be a good test for the Wild to see where stand as they face the team with the most points in the league so far this season then face the 2-time Stanley Cup Champs.
Thanks for reading!!! Bring the Clutter in the comments &/or on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn…
AND…as always…
