The Minnesota Wild activated F Jordan Greenway before the game which meant F Connor Dewar was the odd man out even though he’s been playing very well.

Tonight, the Minnesota Wild faced another hot team in the New York Rangers and it was a guarantee they were looking for some redemption against the Wild after they ruined the retirement ceremony of “King” Henrik Lundqvist back on January 28th with a 3-2 comeback victory coming back from being down 2-0 in the 1st period and Henrik’s buddy, Mats Zuccarello, had his fingerprints all over that comeback with a goal & an assist.

Rangers head coach Gerard Gallant probably has the 2021-22 Vezina Award winner on his roster in G Igor Shesterkin but he still decided to go with his backup goalie, Alexander Georgiev, who last started a game on January 27th. He also had only played 41 seconds in a game since then when Igor Shesterkin was forced to leave a game (in Overtime) due to concussion protocol on February 15th and he wasn’t happy about it.

Let’s see if the Wild made them pay for playing their backup goalie.

Here’s how the teams lined up:

Minnesota Wild

D Jon Merrill & Alex Goligoski flipped pairs with Merrill playing on the top pair with Captain Jared Spurgeon and Goligoski playing on the bottom pair with Dmitry Kulikov.

New York Rangers

Game Recap

Minnesota Wild head coach Dean Evason opted to start the Marcus Foligno – Joel Eriksson Ek – Jordan Greenway line started as he was obviously trying to get their forecheck going to help lead the team back to their aggressive game and that they did. It’s been one of the many things that have hurt the Wild of late but they had serious jump to begin the game on the forecheck and with their physicality.

Matt Boldy laid out Kreider early! Marcus Foligno knocked Ryan Reaves stick out of his hands with a body check but everyone was getting back to playing a physical game.

Kirill Kaprizov circled the offensive zone twice then passed it.* We think he should shoot more but we think everyone should shoot more.
*Check the Game Notes section at the bottom of the article for more on this.

D Jon Merrill had a turnover at the blue line that created a 2-on-1 but F Nico Sturm made a great play to break it up.

Good sticks are another Wild staple and they’ve had that so far in the 1st period, too.

They were getting chances but hadn’t scored halfway through the period…

Until Kirill Kaprizov intercepted a pass/dump attempt in his own zone then carried the puck through the neutral zone and into the center of the offensive zone. F Ryan Hartman had just come onto the ice and was heading up the right side. He slowed at the blue line to stay onside but also to be an option for a drop pass which he received and took a shot from a few feet in front of the top of the right faceoff circle and his sneaky shot beat went off Rangers G Alexander Georgiev’s blocker and down off the ice and into the net for a 1-0 Wild lead!

Those Ranger defensemen were giving Kaprizov & Hartman a lot of room to make a play. They’ll be told to gap up in Film Session tomorrow.

About 4 minutes later, the Wild went up 2-0 when  Ek deflected a pass into the offensive zone, sending the puck into the air and right to Jordan Greenway who caught it, dropped it on the ice then passed it to trailing forward Marcus Foligno for a one-timer but the puck wasn’t flat so it turned into a FlutterPuck and Joel Eriksson Ek showed his bunting prowess by deflecting it into the net for his 17th goal of the season.

Watch this play again and see Marcus Foligno standing at the far boards at the blue line with former Minnesota Gopher D Ryan Lindgren shading that way. Then, the puck is deflected in and every Rangers player immediately watches the puck. Is Lindgren at fault for leaving Foligno open? Yes & No. It’s a broken play but it really breaks because of poor play in the neutral zone &/or forecheck from the Rangers forwards. One is standing still. The other two react when the puck is passed up the middle which means they’re immediately late on the play. They were in a 1-2-2 formation and maybe that’s what they wanted to do there and the bounce created the opportunity. Coasting/watching is never really a good sign as a defender/backchecker.

Because F Mika Zibanejad is behind Jordan Greenway, that forces Adam Fox to try to cover Greenway which forces Ryan Lindgren to cover Ek which leaves Foligno wide open.

The first period ended with the Wild up 2-0 and the shots were even and 6 shots on goal apiece.

5 minutes into the 2nd period, the New York Rangers cut the deficit in half when F Dryden Hunt scored off a 2-on-1 that happened as a result of Wild D Matt Dumba pinching on the forecheck and both Fs Nick Bjugstad and Brandon Duhaime pursuing the puck as well instead of one of them covering for Dumba, defensively.*
*It’d be awesome if we’d be able to hear if any of those 3 talked to each other during this play.

Nick Bjugstad then drew a tripping penalty 2:23 later to give the Wild their first power play of the game and Joel Eriksson Ek had a great chance to score on a rebound but Georgiev made the save and the puck was cleared to the far blue line where Jared Spurgeon tried to dump it back it but it was deflected/blocked by Rangers F Chris Kreider and he tried to send a pass to F Mika Zibanejad but it just missed and Wild F Mats Zuccarello deflected it back into his defensive zone. When he went to retrieve it, he tried to turn to his left but as he went to put his stick down, Zibanejad lifted (read hooked) his stick and Zuccarello fell down leaving the puck for Zibanejad to deke out Cam Talbot & tie the game at 2. Somehow, the official doesn’t call a hooking penalty on the play.

Here we have the big test for the Minnesota Wild because in the past few games when things went wrong, they snowballed into more bad things. Would the Minnesota Wild get back to being the team that has a great response to adversity?

Well… 66 seconds later, after a shot from the top of the left faceoff circle from Matt Boldy was blocked in front, the puck fell by Marcus Foligno and he tried to bring it back because he knew the goalie was right behind him. It’s basically a loose puck but Matt Boldy was right there and he knew Kevin Fiala was at the right side of the net so he just sent it to him and Wild took the lead back Just… Like… That!!! 3-2 WILD!

And all of us felt like this, right?:

But…there was still a long way to go in this one as they had yet to even hit the game’s halfway point.

A little shy of 4 minutes later, the Wild executed a play off a faceoff just in front of the left side of their own blue line. Ek won the faceoff and Marcus Foligno sent the puck back to Jonas Brodin at the left half-wall then he curled and took off towards the right boards. Brodin sent the puck across the ice to his defensive partner Matt Dumba and he sent the puck to Marcus Foligno who had broken towards the middle of the offensive blue line. Foligno had turned to skate backward so he could catch the pass on his forehand and then was able to protect the puck so he could make a deke to his forehand then go to his backhand and put it past the goalie for a 2-goal Minnesota Wild lead at 4-2.

4:38 later and right after Mats Zuccarello had a scoring chance off a great tic-tac-toe play from Ryan Hartman behind the net to Kirill Kaprizov at the left corner to Zuccs in front of the net for a one-timer that Georgiev somehow saved, Rangers F Arteri Panarin send a backhand pass to Adam Fox but it rolled off his stick for Zuccarello to pick it up and turn up ice on the left side for a 3-on-2 odd-man rush with Alex Goligoski in the middle and Kevin Fiala on the right side. Fiala saw Adam Fox was set on covering Goligoski so he got on his horse to get a perfect feed from Zuccarello.** The puck took a weird bounce but Fiala was able to corral it in just enough time to roof a backhand for his 2nd goal of the game and the 20th of the season.
**Check the Game Notes section at the bottom of the article for more on this.

The Wild outshot the Rangers 11-7 in the 2nd period to take a 3-goal lead into the final 20 minutes of play.

Could the Wild shut down the Rangers in the 3rd period & get back in the win column and feel good about their game with just 13 days to go before the Trade Deadline?

They Could And They Did!

Cam Talbot made a big save with 11:26 remaining in regulation. It was still a 3-goal lead but making that save kept the Rangers from getting any momentum and it was just another sign that this team may finally be out of this 10-game slump.

Final Score & Stats
New York Rangers 2 | 5 Minnesota Wild

Goals:
MN: Hartman(23), Ek(17), Fiala(19), Foligno(19), Fiala(20)
NY: Hunt(4), Zibanejad(22)

Assists:
MN: Kaprizov(43); Foligno(11), Greenway(11); Boldy(12), Foligno(12): Dumba(17), Brodin(19); Zuccarello(40)
NY: Strome(28), Panarin(47); Unassisted (Kreider?)

Goalies:
MN: Cam Talbot – 23 Saves on 25 Shots on Goal, .920%
NY: Georgiev – 23 Saves on 28 Shots on Goal, .821% 

Game Notes

*Kirill Kaprizov

In the pregame show, former player, now broadcaster Mark Parrish said Kirill Kaprizov has been playing with a shot-first mentality. I disagree. He sometimes tries to make a move instead of just shooting the puck, too. Is that bad? Not necessarily but we’d still like him to look for his shot more often.

He’s a goal-scorer and you can’t score goals without shooting the puck.

After tonight’s game, Kirill Kaprizov has 194 shots on goal in 54 games or 3.59 per game. He has shot the puck more this season than last season so that’s a good thing.

In comparison, maybe the best goal-scorer to play the game, Alex Ovechkin, averages 4.77 shots on goal per game.

If you shoot, the goals will come…

**Mats Zuccarello

We need to talk about Zuccy because he’s been a big-time difference-maker for this team for the last two seasons.

When he was signed to a 5-year, $30M ($6M AAV*) free-agent contract in Minnesota on July 1st, 2019 by former General Manager Paul Fenton, it wasn’t received well. Fans thought it was an ignorant signing. He had only scored over 20 goals once in his 9-year career up to that point but he was known as a great teammate and he’s still evolving.
*Average Annual Value

He’s turned into a pest and, at only 5’8”, he’s been seen muckin’ it up in front of the net and sticking up for his teammates. He has great vision and we all know how well the pairing of him & Kirill Kaprizov has worked out. He currently has 57 points (17 goals, 40 assists) in 47 games. That’s just 4 points off his career-high in points in a single season.

He’s also showing more leadership which is likely a result of the culture the Wild have been building with current General Manager Bill Guerin and captain Jared Spurgeon.

He’s just a joy to watch play the game and that assist to Fiala tonight was a thing of beauty!

***The Year of Fiala! 2022!!!

Since the calendar turned to 2022, Kevin Fiala has now scored 14 goals (& 31 points) in 26 games and that includes 4 games where he didn’t score any points.

Hockey-Reference.com Kevin Fiala 2021-22 Game Logs

The Wild will definitely try to get him signed to a multi-year extension after the season. It’ll be interesting to see how they make it all work for the next 3 seasons.

Some point soon, we’re going to post a Salary Cap Preview for the Wild and show how their culture and their depth is going to help them get through the next 3 years with those buyout penalties.

Postgame

Postgame interview with Head Coach Dean Evason:

🏒–– CP ––🏒

Next up: 

Back-to-Back games on the road starting in Detroit on Thursday night at 6pm CST on ESPN+/Hulu

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AND…as always…