The Minnesota Wild finally got back on the ice on Thursday night after Covid-19 postponed Tuesday night’s game against the Carolina Hurricanes and is threatening to do even more damage as the numbers of players testing positive &/or being placed in Covid Protocols has skyrocketed over the last 5 days or so. It’s now at about 58.

Some fans have said the league should probably shut it down. That’s a panic-like reaction, especially since the league dealt with stricter protocols for all of last season and rescheduled many games due to outbreaks throughout the shortened season.

Instead, they’ve instituted enhanced protocols into January (at least through January 7th) for all teams like they had in the 2020-21 season that includes being tested daily instead of every third day, according to sources. Also, all team personnel will be required to wear face masks at facilities, meetings will be held virtually, and everyone will be asked to limit all social interactions outside of the hotel, rink or home.

The Montreal Canadiens hosted the Philadelphia Flyers without fans as Quebec public health officials requested that no fans attend the game.

Other Puckin’ News

General manager Bill Guerin was named the General Manager for the 2022 USA Hockey Olympic team so… a gold medal & a Stanley Cup, right?

Seriously, Guerin deserves it after what he’s done with the Wild since being hired as their General Manager on August 21, 2019.

🏒–– CP ––🏒

The 2022 World Junior Hockey Championships begin in 10 days on December 26th but there will be a couple of Pre-Tournament games on Monday, December 20th (against the Czech Republic (No TV)) and Wednesday, December 22nd (against Finland). Every game except for the 1st pre-tourney game will be on the NHL Network. The schedule is below.

The Wild should be well represented this year:

🇺🇸
D Jack Peart 

🇨🇦
D Ryan O’Rourke
D Carson Lambos 

🇷🇺
F Marat Khusnutdinov 

🇨🇿
F Pavel Novak

Here’s how the Minnesota Wild and the Buffalo Sabres lined up:

Minnesota Wild

No changes from the lineup that would’ve played on Tuesday night but that lineup did include the return of one Jonas Brodin to the defense. They lost the 2 games JoBro did not play (at Los Angeles & at Vegas):

97 Kirill Kaprizov – 38 Ryan Hartman – 36 Mats Zuccarello
18 Jordan Greenway – 14 Joel Eriksson Ek – 17 Marcus Foligno
22 Kevin Fiala – 49 Victor Rask – 89 Frédérick Gaudreau
21 Brandon Duhaime – 7 Nico Sturm – 27 Nick Bjugstad 

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

33 Cam Talbot
34 Kaapo Kähkönen

Scratched: 16 Rem Pitlick, 8 Jordie Benn 

Buffalo Sabres

Game Recap

Wild F Mats Zuccarello made a great pick in the neutral zone to lead a 2-on-1 with Kirill Kaprizov, but he passed behind 97. Nobody thought he was gonna shoot that one.

Gaudreau for high-sticking at 4:25 of the 1st

Buffalo F Jeff Skinner was hit in the face by the puck after it deflected off the boards on a Marcus Foligno clearing attempt. The Sabres got a lot of zone time and a few good shots but Minnesota Wild G Cam Talbot was on his game from the start in this game. Penalty Killed.

Wild F Kirill Kaprizov struggled to the bench after the kill. Blocked shot?

Buffalo Sabres D Colin Miller tried to throw a body check on Wild F Jordan Greenway and Jordan just pushed him down as he keeps developing more and more of a physical presence this season.

GOAL: Jon Merrill at 10:11 of the 1st period

A Minnesota Wild line rush with Mats Zuccarello, Ryan Hartman and Kirill Kaprizov results in a great chance on a one-timer for Kaprizov on a nice feed from Zuccarello but he shot it wide behind the net. Hartman was there to corral the puck and he sent it back to D Dmitry Kulikov at the left point and he quickly sent it to the right point to D Jon Merril for another one-timer and this one squeaked through Buffalo G Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to his glove side for Merrill’s 3rd goal of the season. 1-0 Wild

Another chance for Buffalo came from a 3-on-2 and Cam Talbot had to make a couple saves to keep the game at 1-0 Wild. The initial shot came from Jeff Skinner so he was alright after taking a puck to the face earlier in the period. A rebound followed then another grade-A shot from in close.

The Fiala-Rask-Gaudreau line were maybe a little too aggressive trying to keep the puck in the zone and failed to create that 3-on-2.

The Wild were outshot 21-6 in the period but, hey, they scored on 1 of their 6 shots.*
*Check the Game Notes section at the bottom of the article.

GOAL: Dylan Cozens with the tip in front tied the game at 1

An immediate response from Minnesota somehow didn’t result in a goal as Luukonen was looking behind him to see if the puck was there but it did draw a power play as Joel Eriksson Ek was hit cross-check high-stick to his head. The initial call was a double-minor but they reviewed the call and then confirmed it to send the Wild to the power-play.

The Wild got a few shots off but nothing really close to a goal and their best chances missed the net.

Kevin Fiala had a shot get through Luukonen and it was trickling towards the net but Sabres D Colin Miller got to it to keep it out of the net. Fiala then got another chance but he missed the net. Spurgeon then got a shot that was saved. This was all over the span of about 80 seconds. Then…

GOAL: Kirill Kaprizov got one to squeak through for another 1-goal lead

Finally, seconds later, Kirill Kaprizov got a shot to trickle through Luukkonen’s 5-hole but this time it also trickled past the goal line. 2-1 Wild

The Wild outshot Buffalo 13-6 that period while each team scored a goal.

The Wild have been one of the better 3rd-period teams in the league so you’d expect a good push from them to get 2 points.

They had plenty of chances but you could see some players trying to do too much by themselves instead of working as a team and, basically, doing what they’ve done all season and, especially, at home by being aggressive on the fore-check and creating chances off of it but also not making prayer passes that have little chance to succeed.

Then, with just under 8 minutes to go in the 3rd period, they got trapped in their own end but they had at least 2 chances to get the puck out of the zone but they tried to make something else happen instead of just clearing the zone and regrouping for another push from Buffalo.

GOAL: Pysyk Scores to Tie the Game at 2

They also started chasing the play by reacting to what was happening instead of reading the play and anticipating. This is proved by Brandon Duhaime diving to try to get to the goal-scorer, Mark Pysyk, at the last second.

Wild D Jon Merrill should probably have put the blade of his stick in front of the puck instead of trying to figure out where Buffalo Sabres F Vinnie Hinostroza was going to pass the puck.

The game headed to Overtime and, like pretty much every OT, both teams had chances but neither could get the game-winner so this one was settled in a shootout.

SHOOTOUT

Wild F Mats Zuccarello…shot, saved

Sabres F Victor Olafsson…move, missed the net

Wild F Kevin Fiala…shot, saved, hit the shaft of the goalie stick!

Sabres F Kyle Okposo…shot, saved, also off the shaft of the stick.

Wild F Kirill Kaprizov…shot…post, no goal! OHHH!!!

Sabres F Tage Thompson…shot…score!

FINAL
Buffalo Sabres 3, Minnesota Wild 2

Game Notes

*SHOOT THE PUCK!!! 

Man, it’s frustrating when a team or an individual player doesn’t shoot or doesn’t seem to want to shoot the puck.

We like a shooting mentality. Put a lot of shots on net and you should get a lot of chances to score.

One thing that always seems crazy is when a team scores on their 5th shot of the game, an 80% save percentage, with 9:49 remaining in the 1st period and only had one shot on goal the rest of the period. Did they relax after getting that lead? Did they think it was going to be an easy win?

There are no easy wins in the NHL!

The Wild did outshoot the Sabres 26-19 the rest of the way.

**Do we call this one of those games a good team plays every now & then? A misstep? It just didn’t look like the 2021-22 Minnesota Wild. They started trying to make more plays individually instead of working together.

The fore-check wasn’t as good as it usually is. They started to react to the puck defensively instead of reading the play and reacting to their reads. The game-tying goal in the 3rd is a prime example of that.

***Flat? “The team came out flat.” “They had no energy.” “They weren’t ready.”

These are all several ways to describe a team not playing well.

Then the team is asked about it after the game, a loss like the Wild had last night. Why does it happen? Was it not respecting the opponent? Forgetting what you were doing to win 8 games in a row?

The players don’t have an answer. Jordan Greenway was asked directly about it and he searched his mind and said he didn’t know. There is nothing to explain it or it wouldn’t happen anymore because teams, coaches, personnel would see it coming and address it and they would’ve figured out how to fix it, too.

And it happens to every team, too. The Wild’s next opponent, the Florida Panthers, are now going through a bit of a slump, too. They started the season 10-0-1, 21 points in 11 games. They’re 4-5-1 in their last 10 and 8-7-3 (or 19 points in 20 games) since that 11-game start.

Buffalo started the season 5-1-1 then went 4-14-3 in their last 21 games before last night but they also beat the Winnipeg Jets, 4-2 in Winnipeg on Tuesday night and had allowed just 8 goals against in their last 4 games.

Greenway said it in his postgame comments, “That’s an NHL team. That’s a good team. They’re going to come out and try and win.”

Postgame

Wild Beat Writer from The Athletic, Michael Russo – “Sure feels like you guys almost got what you deserved, tonight. It’s just not a good game from the start to the finish.”

Minnesota Wild Head Coach Dean Evason – “We probably deserved worse, right? Yeah, we weren’t good. We weren’t good right from the start. We weren’t good in the middle. We weren’t good in the end…

All of us. We weren’t very good. Maybe we need some practice. We need some practice. Our pace was just terrible. Terrible….

We didn’t have anything tonight.”

Next up: 

Maybe the best team in the National Hockey League in the Florida Panthers who also lost last night, to the Los Angeles Kings, 4-1.

We get to see how this Minnesota Wild team will respond to a 3-game losing streak and playing against one of the best teams in the league on Saturday afternoon at 1pm on Bally Sports North.

Thanks for reading!!! Bring the Clutter in the comments &/or on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn…

AND…as always…