The Minnesota Wild were looking for some redemption after a dud of a game in Winnipeg in a 6-3 loss against the Winnipeg Jets for their 2nd loss in their last 4 games both at the hands of those Jets. It doesn’t get any easier as the Wild were facing possibly the best team in the NHL in the Florida Panthers (33-10-5 for 71 points & the best record in the Eastern Conference). They’re also 2nd in the league in Winning % at .740 behind only the Colorado Avalanche (35-9-4, 74 pts, .771 win%).
The Wild were 30-12-3 with 63 points and a .700 winning %.
Tonight is Kirill Kaprizov’s 100th game in the NHL (not counting his 7 playoff games*).
*Why don’t playoff games count?
Here’s how the teams lined up:
Game Recap
The Wild got on the board first with F Kirill Kaprizov’s 50th career goal in his 100th career game* off a great feed from D Jared Spurgeon to Kap at the right side of the net just in front of the goal line for a one-timer with 12:53 left in the first period.
*50 goals in 100 games isn’t bad, huh?
Unfortunately, the Panthers responded just shy of 3 minutes later to tie the game on a Mason Marchment wraparound attempt that surprised Wild G Cam Talbot who made the initial save but Marchment got his stick on the rebound.
2:27 later, Mason Marchment got his 2nd goal of the game off a great feed from F Anton Lundell.
The Panthers dominated the game after the Wild’s goal so they had to make some adjustments heading into the 2nd period.
Shots were tied at 9 each in the 1st period.
The Wild were better to begin the 2nd period but still gave up a goal about 8:30 minutes into the 2nd when a scoring chance was saved by both Cam Talbot and D Alex Goligoski but the Wild were in panic mode and watching the puck so nobody covered Florida F Anthony Duclair as he got open for a pass from behind the net.
The officials apparently had hit their penalty quota for the Wild as they missed a few calls including a trip of D Jonas Brodin at center ice with about 6 minutes remaining in the period but they finally made a call when F Ryan Hartman was hauled down with just under 5 minutes left in the middle frame.
They couldn’t score on that power play despite 2 shots and a couple of good chances.
For some reason, the official called F Marcus Foligno for….uhh… checking? Was it head contact? Foligno wasn’t happy about the call but the officials looked at the call and decided there was no penalty on the play.* They held the faceoff in the Wild’s zone and Wild coach Dean Evason wasn’t happy about that and it really doesn’t make sense. If the officials screwed up a call, the faceoff should be at center ice.
*WOW! How many times has that ever happened? See the Game Notes section at the bottom of the article.
The 2nd period ended with the score 3-1 and the Florida Panthers had yet to lose a game when leading after 2 periods (23-0-0). That is the exact same score when the Minnesota Wild first played the Florida Panthers this season on the 20th of November and they outscored the Panthers 3-2 in that game but still lost 5-4.
Matt Boldy took an interference penalty in the first minute of the 3rd and the Panthers scored on a D Aaron Ekblad wrist shot from the point to put their lead at 4-1 with 18:19 left in regulation.
Oh, boy! How did the Wild respond to this adversity?
A high-sticking penalty at 14:32 by Wild D Dmitry Kulikov put the Panthers on the power play again.
A scrum on a loose puck in front of the Wild net seemed to last forever but the puck never went in and it was never frozen. Another thing you don’t see very often.
A big hit on Anthony Duclair by Ryan Hartman** drew a retaliatory penalty from Carter Verhaeghe. It was all body from the live look. It took Ducliar a few moments to get back up but he looked all right.
**Check the Game Notes section at the bottom of the article.
Now, did the Wild do anything with the Power Play?
Oh, Yes It Did!!!
The Wild won the ensuing faceoff and Kirill Kaprizov made a quick pass to Mats Zuccarello all alone in front of the net and he deflected it in the net to bring the Wild within 2 with the score 4-2.
Duclair then headed back to the locker room probably due to the concussion spotter. If that’s the case, it’s strange because he wasn’t hit in the head. Did his head hit the ice when he went down? Either way, New York Rangers G Igor Shesterkin is probably angry about it!!!
The Wild then pulled their goalie and the broadcasting crew has obviously not seen enough of the Minnesota Wild’s games this season* because they were surprised the goalie was pulled so early. We all know coach Dean Evason pulls the goalie early.
*Imagine that, a national broadcast not knowing enough about the Wild.
The Panthers scored 2 empty net goals (Verhaeghe & Marchment (for the Hat Trick)) to make it 6-2 so Talbot was put back in and the Wild had their first 2-game losing streak since the calendar turned to 2022.
Final Score
Minnesota Wild 2 | 6 Florida Panthers
Goals
Minnesota: Kirill Kaprizov (23); Mats Zuccarello (16)
Florida: Mason Marchment (9,10,11-ENG); Anthony Duclair (20); Aaron Ekblad (12); Carter Verhaeghe (16-ENG)
*ENG=Empty Net Goal
Assists
Minnesota: Jared Spurgeon (15), Mats Zuccarello (34); Kirill Kaprizov (38), Eriksson Ek (12)
Florida: Unassisted; Anton Lundell (23), Sam Reinhart (29); Jonathan Huberdeau (50), Aaron Ekblad (33); Anthony Duclair (17), Jonathan Huberdeau (51); Mackenzie Weegar (25); Anton Lundell (24)
Goalies
Minnesota: Cam Talbot – 29 Saves on 33 Shots
Florida: Sergei “Bob” Bobrovsky – 24 Saves on 26 Shots
Game Notes
*A Penalty Was Called Back! Yes, you read that correctly. The officials were going to call a penalty on Marcus Foligno for we can only assume was a high hit but they apparently weren’t sure on the call (or they were looking to see if it warranted a harsher penalty) so they looked at it and saw “it was a clean hit” so they said there was no penalty on the play.
THEY SAID THERE WAS NO PENALTY ON THE PLAY!!! Is that even a thing?
That is Amazing! I don’t believe we’ve ever seen that before but they did get the call correct.
**Big Hits! Who doesn’t love big hits? Make sure you enunciate that question well when you ask it, though! Wink!
Big Hits can change momentum, especially if they are clean hits. That Ryan Hartman hit did change the momentum but the Wild just weren’t good enough tonight.
***Is there something wrong with the Wild as they didn’t look good for the 2nd consecutive game?
No. There’s nothing wrong with the Wild that they can’t fix. The last two games wasn’t the Minnesota Wild team we’ve seen for the majority of this season. For some reason, they just didn’t seem confident in their game. That is inexplicable because their game (the way they play or system) is one of the biggest reasons they’ve been so good this season.
A lot of that is their forecheck and tonight, it didn’t look like they trusted it to get the results they usually get from it. Why?
The Florida Panthers got them off their game somehow. The Florida Panthers could be the best team in the National Hockey League right now but the Minnesota Wild usually worry about their game, not who they’re playing against.
Postgame
It appears there is either no postgame press conference or ESPN+/Hulu doesn’t cover the postgame press conferences. Streaming sports? Your thoughts? We aren’t big fans of it right now.
We’ll add something later if we find it.
From Jessi Pierce on Twitter:
Dean Evason: “We were unintelligent …we weren’t worse than that team tonight, we just made worse mistakes. …It’s uncharacteristic.”
Next up:
The Wild visit the Edmonton Oilers for the 2nd time this season on Sunday at 7pm on Bally Sports North.
They beat them 4-1 on December 7th but this is the new Oilers with new head coach Jay Woodcroft. Will their team defense be better?
Thanks for reading!!! Bring the Clutter in the comments &/or on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn…
AND…as always…
