The Minnesota Wild extended their winning streak to 7 on Tuesday in Edmonton against the Oilers in another statement win and this time, it was with defense as they limited Connor McDavid & company to just 1 goal (& 1 assist to #97) in a 4-1 win. Read about it here if you missed the game.
With that win, the Minnesota Wild now lead the Western Conference with an 18-6-1 record and 37 points. They are also 2nd in the entire National Hockey League with only the Florida Panthers above them if you go by winning percentage. If you go by points, they are 4th with the Washington Capitals and the Toronto Maple Leafs between them & Florida, who both have 38 points but have also played more games, (Washington with 26 & Toronto with 27).
Now, they head south as they face the San Jose Sharks for the 2nd game of this 4-game road trip and they’ll be looking for some revenge as the Sharks came into St. Paul and gave the Wild their 2nd loss at home in a 4-1 game.
San Jose is currently 14-11-1 with 29 points and they sit 1 point out of a Wild Card spot. They are also 6-4-1 at home. They’re 20th in the league in offense at 2.73 goals per game both overall & at home and they’re 13th in defense allowing… 2.73 goals per game overall but they’ve allowed 3.09 goals per game at home. Hmmm…
The Wild are 8-4-1 on the road and they are 3rd in the league in offense with 3.84 goals per game overall and 3.15 on the road. They have allowed the same amount of goals as San Jose overall but they’ve allowed 2.85 goals per game on the road. That’s obviously over the whole season but…
During this 7-game winning streak, the Wild are scoring 4.14 & allowing 1.86 goals per game. They’ve scored more than & allowed less than 3 goals in all but one of those 7 wins. That’s a great recipe for winning right there!
AND…
The Minnesota Wild got back their Captain in D Jared Spurgeon, too. Matt Dumba will come out as he’s under the weather* (non-Covid.)
*If Dumba has a cough, maybe he should try Cool-A-Cough or Kulikov in Russian! I’m here all week. Haha!
The Minnesota Wild will also make another lineup change as prospect F Mason Shaw will make his NHL debut in place of F Rem Pitlick.
Mason Shaw was drafted in the 4th round in 2017 with a pick obtained in the trade the Wild made to acquire Fs Martin Hanzal & Ryan White from Arizona back on February 26th, 2017.
He’s listed at 5’9 & 182 pounds but this kid has some grit, too, as he great up a farmboy and still works on the family farm every offseason. He should fit right in with this team. He’s also had to endure three torn ACLs, including two since being selected by the Wild in 2017. So… this is a kid you shoot root for because of what he’s been through in his career.
As you can see from above, he’s having a very good season in Iowa with 6 goals & 14 points in 18 games.
Let’s see how this team comes out against a team that beat them and beat them at home.
Did they keep it going last night?
Here’s how the teams lined up:
Minnesota Wild
18 Jordan Greenway – 14 Joel Eriksson Ek – 17 Marcus Foligno
97 Kirill Kaprizov – 38 Ryan Hartman – 36 Mats Zuccarello
21 Brandon Duhaime – 49 Victor Rask – 22 Kevin Fiala
58 Mason Shaw – 7 Nico Sturm – 27 Nick Bjugstad
25 Jonas Brodin – 46 Jared Spurgeon
4 Jon Merrill – 47 Alex Goligoski
8 Jordie Benn – 29 Dmitry Kulikov
33 Cam Talbot
34 Kaapo Kähkönen
San Jose Sharks
Hey… Dahlen! How ‘bout that?
Game Recap
FIALAAAAA!!! Kevin Fiala finally scored and it comes off a rebound for an easy tap in. After so many great chances to score over the past 7 games where he made great plays, he gets a goal off a rebound where he happens to be in the right place at the right time.* 1-0 Wild
*Check the Game Notes section at the bottom of the article!
Jonas Brodin doesn’t allow wraparounds. He made another stop of a wraparound try and that might be 3 games in a row that he’s done that.
The WIld had the better of the play for most of the 1st but the Sharks got some momentum in the last few minutes of the opening period and carried that momentum into the 2nd period, too. The Wild stayed strong until they could get the ice tilted back in their direction again.
Mats Zuccarello was tripped at the left half-wall at the 6:49 mark then Joel Eriksson Ek got a power-play goal off the tip pass play from Mats Zuccarello from the right half-wall. 2-0 WILD.
Kevin Fiala fed Mason Shaw and he hit iron. OHHHH!!! So Close! It was a turnaround pass from the right half-wall from Fiala where he must’ve seen Shaw coming into the slot and he hit him on the tape.
Nick Bjugstad had a nice game and he drew a hooking penalty at the 13:33 mark because he kept moving his feet and competing hard.
The Wild weren’t getting much out of the power play then Kevin Fiala was entering the zone with speed and fed the puck to Greenway on a line rush on the Power Play that sent him in alone on the left side (Sharks G Adin Hill’s right) and he beat him with a wicked wrister that made it 3-0 WILD!!!
34 seconds into the 3rd and Joel Eriksson Ek drew another penalty. That kid just competes his ass off. It pisses opponents off because he is always right there in their face. This time, he shot the puck then drove the net for the rebound while Jacob Middleton hooked him. Kirill Kaprizov get a great chance alone in front of the night but he couldn’t get a shot off.
Shortly after the penalty was killed, San Jose Sharks F Jonathan Dahlen*** deflected in an Erik Karlsson shot from the right half-wall to get San Jose on the board and they got a ton of momentum off of it but the Wild stood tall for the next few minutes and eventually got back to their game.
***See the Game Notes section at the bottom of the article!
The Wild had a much more difficult 3rd period than they had the previous 2 as the Sharks were pushing hard to get back into it but it’s hard to imagine the Wild not expecting that.
With 10:58 left in the 3rd, Wild D Jordie Benn took a holding the stick penalty but it was as he was following Jonah Gadjovich as they went by the front of the goal crease and Benn was trying to avoid hitting his own goalie so he was falling down and it’s hard to tell but it looked like he was just trying to grab something to stop his fall and the official called him for holding the stick because that’s what he grabbed.
The Wild killed that penalty but then took another penalty a little more than 2 minutes later with 6:43 left when Jonas Brodin hooked Alexander Barabonov and it took San Jose just 9 seconds to score and get within 1 goal with 6:34 remaining in regulation.
Wild F Joel Eriksson Ek had a chance to clear the zone but he was on his backhand and he partly fanned on it so it just softly went to Erik Karlsson at the left point and he tried to just get the puck deep as Marcus Foligno was coming at him but his dump attempt went off of either Ek or Sharks F Timo Meier and bounced to Sharks F Logan Couture at the top of the left faceoff dot. He passed the puck over to Jonathan Dahlen at the left point but he moved into the slot and took a shot that is tipped by Tomas Hertl as he skates by then went off Wild G Cam Talbot and bounced up and to Talbot’s left and lands right next to Hertl’s stick. 3-2 Wild
Wild F Marcus Foligno took a high-stick. As Jonathan Dahlen was skating past him, Foligno’s skate clipped Dahlen’s skate so he lost his balance and as he did that, Dahlen’s stick came up and hit Foligno in the face and he went down to the ice but there was no call. Didn’t they see it? Play on, apparently.
On the ensuing faceoff, there may have been some interference and then the puck was shot from the point and it hit someone in front and bounced in the air, went over Talbot and Jonas Brodin knocked it out of the air and behind the net. Wow! What a play! It’s hard to tell if the puck was going in the net. It looks like it was going to just land near the net but Brodin wasn’t taking any chances & it actually bounced off his shoulder before going behind the net.
The goalie was pulled as soon as the Sharks won that faceoff so 30 seconds later when Ryan Hartman just tried to clear the zone and the puck went off of Erik Karlsson and slowly went into the Sharks zone at the top of the right faceoff dot and Big Green got on his horse to try to beat Brent Burns to the puck. As he got near it, he used his body to protect the puck but Burns swiped at it and the puck bounced up and towards the net so Greenway kept his left skate in front of the puck and took his left arm off his stick to help shield Burns from getting to his stick and Greenway actually got his left arm under Burns’ stick and lifted it up then just kept making sure the puck would go in the net!
That’s as impressive of an empty-net goal as you’re going to see because it wasn’t you’re normal empty-net goal. He had to outbattle former Wild D Brent Burns to earn his 2nd goal of the night.
That is nice to see out of the big man!
32 seconds later, Kirill Kaprizov got his stick on a pass near the blue line and skated in alone to get an empty-netter of his own.
That’s 8 In A Row!!!
FINAL SCORE
Minnesota Wild 5 | San Jose Sharks 2
Game Notes
*Kevin Fiala SCORED!!! Will he get on a roll, now?
Part of scoring is being in the right place at the right time. We all know Kevin Fiala is a goal-scorer because we’ve seen him do it and do it in goal-of-the-year type fashion where he goes through 4 opponents and absolutely snipes the puck past the ‘tender!
That’s what we’ve been seeing when he’s been getting chances this season. We’ll see if this gets him going.
He hasn’t done much in his career vs the Kings but it’s more about him & his team than the opponent.
**Defensive responsibility and not panicking when the game is on the line!
We talked about it in our Oilers Game Recap from Tuesday night. This team doesn’t panic. They bear down and execute!
It’s impressive because it’s not easy to keep weathering the pushes from these teams. Look at who they’ve shut down these past 8 games:
The reigning 2-time Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning, the Toronto Maple Leafs & the Edmonton Oilers.
They just trust each other no matter who’s on the ice and we can only assume that’s because the front office and the coaching staff have also put that trust in every player.
Mason Shaw was making his NHL Debut and he was out there during that Sharks push in the final 6:34 when it was a 1-goal game.
***It’s pretty awesome to have a player in the National Hockey League with the same last name as you. We’ll assume most fans know but that’s probably wrong because Jonathan Dahlen has never been connected to the Minnesota Wild but his dad is former Minnesota North Star F Ulf Dahlen.
I met Ulf Dahlen when I was at Target in Bloomington. It was right before the North Stars moved to Dallas.* He came up to me and asked if we had any ski masks. I was somewhat starstruck so I believe I said I didn’t think so but told him it sucked they were leaving Minnesota and here’s the kicker…
*Yes, Norm Green Still Sucks for doing that but, hey, we have the Wild, now!
I never told him we had the same last name. DOH!!!
Heck! We may have become best friends! Haha!
Anyway, he’s a pretty darn good player as you can see here!
Hockey Notes
*Anaheim Ducks & USA World Junior legend, F Trevor Zegras, pulled off a “Michigan”-type play where, from behind the net, he flipped the puck on the blade of his stick so he could carry it and he lobbed it over the net to teammate F Sonny Milano and he knocked it out of mid-air into the net for maybe the goal of the year.
Wild rinkside reporter Kevin Gorg talked about the goal to Mats Zuccarello who said, “There’s no chance. I’m not that guy.” Marcus Foligno said, “I’m not the guy to do it but we got 2 guys on this team that can do it. Kirill Kaprizov & Victor Rask could both pull that off.”
RASK? A collective “What?” probably came from most of Minnesota after hearing that but the man has some skills, especially if he can do that.
We had a kid at hockey camp this year pull off the spinorama lacrosse-style goal where you do the same thing to get it on your blade but you do while on a breakaway and spin around and throw it in the net like a lacrosse shot. That was pretty sweet! His name…Matty Ice! No…his last name isn’t Ice but maybe we should…Save Mathew’s Hands! That’s an inside joke that only a few people will understand. Haha!
**Speaking of World Juniors… It’s getting close to that time again, ‘Puckers!!! The best Under 20-year-old hockey players in the world putting on their country’s jersey and playing for gold!
It Just Doesn’t Get Any Better Than That!!!
🏒–– CP ––🏒
Next up:
The Minnesota Wild will continue their 4-game road trip when they face the Kings of L.A. on Saturday night at 9:30pm on Bally Sports North.
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AND…as always…
