The Minnesota Wild looked a little different before facing the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday night since the NHL Trade Deadline passed about 5 hours earlier and the Wild made 3 trades on the day, 1 last night & 1 yesterday to get their team ready for the stretch run to the end of the regular season and take them into the battle for the Stanley Cup.

There is a pretty big one that started the day for the Wild when they acquired 3-time Stanley Cup-winning G Marc-Andre Fleury from the Chicago Blackhawks for a conditional 2nd-round draft pick in the 2022 NHL Draft. That pick will turn into a 1st-round pick if the Wild make it to the conference finals and Marc-Andre Fleury wins 4 games in each of the 1st two playoff rounds.

Since they acquired a goalie, General Manager Bill Guerin also sent G Kaapo Kähkönen to the San Jose Sharks for D Jacob Middleton, a 26-year physical defenseman.

See all the trades the Minnesota Wild made below and all the trades from every HERE:

The Vegas Golden Knights are 2-5 in their last 7 games and 5-8 in their last 13 as they are barely holding on the 2nd Wild Card playoff spot by 3 points over the Dallas Stars but Dallas has 4 games in hand. They’ve been playing without Fs Mark Stone & Max Pacioretty for the majority of the season.

The Wild should be chomping at the bit to take it to the Golden Knights after losing both games in Vegas, 3-2 in November & 6-4 in December and, of course, there is that little 7-game series they played against them back in May that might get them riled up, too.

But, it’s hard to believe they’d need any more motivation after what Minnesota Wild GM Bill Guerin did today to show how much he thinks of this team. They are going for it and that is Awesome!

Here’s how the teams lined up:

Minnesota Wild

The only change from Saturday’s game against Chicago is newly-acquired F Nicolas Deslauriers in place of F Connor Dewar who, by the way, the Wild sent down to the AHL’s Iowa Wild then recalled him so he would be eligible for the Iowa’s playoff roster:

If I didn’t mention yesterday, #mnwild assigned and recalled Connor Dewar yesterday. Makes him AHL playoff eligible, but the reason is more to have the option to give him AHL games in case he’s consistently scratched here now that the Wild are carrying 14 forwards and 8 D.

— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) March 22, 2022

Vegas Golden Knights

Game Recap

The Minnesota Wild had a ton of energy right from the drop of the puck and newly acquired physical F Nicolas Deslauriers was looking to make a statement physically as soon as possible and he found a target behind the net and threw a body check that got the crowd and his teammates going. The rest of the Wild were showing they may have gotten the confidence back in their game to make a nice run to end the season.

5:30 minutes into the game, it was Nicolas Deslauriers that put the Wild up 1-0. Wild D Jon Merrill send a shot at the net from the left point that Vegas G Logan Thompson easily stopped and deflected to the right half-wall. Deslauriers was the 1st one to the loose puck and he sent it to the left corner to teammate Tyson Jost. Jost looked like he was going to send the puck back up the boards but he waited for the defender to go for the puck to turn and send the puck to Brandon Duhaime and he immediately sent the puck to the front of the net where Deslauriers was waiting for it. The pass was right on the button, allowing Deslauriers to one-time it right through the 5-hole for a 1-0 Wild lead.

The Wild dominated the majority of the 1st period, outshooting the Copper Knights 15-6.

The Knights adjusted in the 1st intermission and outshot the Wild 13-10 in the 2nd period but didn’t score a goal. Cam Talbot was looking for his 5th consecutive win in net for the Wild and the team defense may finally be all the way back to playing like they were in the 1st 26 games of the season when they were 19-6-1 and hadn’t lost more than 2 games in a row in that span.

But…there was still a whole period to go and they were only up 1-0. That’s a lot of time and all it takes is a stupid bounce of deflection like Wild fans have seen a lot in their 21 seasons and we saw not too long ago when they were lost 5 in a row to start the 2022 calendar year and over the last month they went 5-9-1 after Valentine’s Day to the middle of March.

A out 5:40 into the 3rd period, Wild F Joel Eriksson Ek couldn’t handle a pass in the neutral zone so Vegas D Shea Theodore (#27) tried to make a pass to F Keegan Kolesar (#55) but he wasn’t ready for it so the puck came back to Wild D Matt Dumba. Kolesar tried to hit him with a body check but missed as Dumba spun & passed the puck to Ek at the left boards and the blue line. Ek took the puck into the zone and tried to drop the puck back to Dumba but didn’t get all of it so it was just sliding to the middle of the ice where both Vegas D Dylan Coghlan and F Nolan Patrick were coming to it at the same time. Coghlan poked the puck back towards the neutral zone but Matt Dumba was there to kick it from his skate to his stick at the top of the slot and he wired a shot to the upper left corner to double the Wild’s lead to 2-0!

Marcus Foligno helped this play happen in two ways. He drove to the net so Shea Theodore had to defend a pass to him and he skated in front of the goalie to provide a screen.

From a defensive standpoint, watch how all 3 of the Vegas forwards are coasting through the whole play. Mattias Janmark (#26) and Nolan Patrick (#41) took one stride in the neutral zone and coasted the rest of the way and Kolesar, after missing on trying to check Dumba, just watched from the neutral zone. Hmmm…will this be shown in a film session tomorrow? Probably.

The Knights had 2 shots in the period when the Wild doubled the lead with 14:14 to go in regulation and they only had 7 more the rest of the way and Cam Talbot allowed nothing to get past him for his 2nd shutout of the season. The Wild did add an empty-net goal when Ryan Hartman scored his 26th with 6.1 seconds left.

The Vegas Golden Knights looked like a defeated team at that point but, the road hasn’t been kind to them lately. That was their 6th straight loss away from Sin City.

FINAL SCORE

Vegas Golden Knights 0 | 3 Minnesota Wild

Goals:

MN: Nicolas Deslauriers(6-1st w/Wild), Matt Dumba(6), Ryan Hartman(26)
VGK: NONE, NYET, ZILCHO, NO GOALS FOR YOU!!! 

Assists:

MN: Brandon Duhaime(10), Tyson Jost(9); Unassisted; Marcus Foligno(14)
VGK: No Helpers, Not A One!

Goalies:

MN: Cam Talbot: 28 Saves on 28 Shots for a Shutout(2) & his 25th Win
VGK: Logan Thompson: 33 Saves on 35 Shots

Next up:

The Vancouver Canucks make their 1st appearance at the Xcel Energy Center in 778 days (since February 6th, 2020, a 4-2 win) on Thursday night at 7 pm on Bally Sports North.

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