The Minnesota Wild players told the pilot, “Take me to FLORIDA!!!” because they had to play the Florida Panthers last night. The Wild did not “pay for timeshare down in Destin,” though. Going to FLORIDA is now “one hell of a drug” since the Florida Panthers won the Stanley Cup last season.* 
*so… Cup me up, Florida? Ooh… Puck me Cup, Florida!? Huh? Thoughts? No? Ok. Nevermind! This is me trying! I didn’t know if you’d care if puck came back.

The Panthers have started this season similar to last season. In fact, if when the Wild beat them, that will make the Panthers record exactly the same as they had last season through 8 games, 4-3-1. The Wild still haven’t trailed in a game this season so let’s see if they kept that going.

2024-25 Minnesota Wild Schedule and Results
3-0-2 (W-L-OTL) (8 points)

2024-25 Florida Panthers Schedule and Results
4-2-1 (W-L-OTL) (9 points)

Alright. Enough words. “Take me to Florida” and let’s…

Drop the ClutterPuck!!!

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Here’s how the teams lined up:

Game Recap

1st Period

The Minnesota Wild had to weather a Florida storm on the ice as they had a somewhat rough first 5 minutes of the game but they got through it unscathed and found their game pretty quickly.

11+ minutes in, the Wild found themselves in the offensive zone and Mats Zuccarello got a shot off from the top of the slot. Florida G Sergei Bobrovsky made the save & deflected the puck into the corner. Wild D Jake Middleton got to the puck in the left corner & sent it around to Kirill Kaprizov on the other side of the ice. Wild F Marco Rossi got position in front of the net and he put the blade of his stick out as a target for Kaprizov to aim at for a tip and it worked like a charm to put the Wild up 1-0.

8:20 – GOAL – Minnesota – Marco Rossi (3) from Kirill Kaprizov (7) & Jake Middleton (1)

Minnesota Wild 1 | 0 Florida Panthers

22 seconds later, the Minnesota Wild won a faceoff in the defensive zone. Wild D Jonas Brodin chipped the puck off the glass and Florida D Dmitry Kulikov must not have seen it because the puck landed in front of him and he nonchalantly turns to get back in the play. Wild F Matt Boldy is on the loose puck & the other Florida D Niko Mikkola has to move over to defend him but Boldy slowed down to give himself more time & space and then chipped the puck by Mikkola then juked to get past him but he still had to get to the puck and he doesn’t get to it until it’s 2 feet above the goal line but he still has time to survey his options. Wild F Joel Eriksson Ek was in front of the net but Florida F Sam Bennett was covering him. There are two other Florida players backchecking so… oh, hey. Look! Marcus Johansson is wide-open and trailing the play… pass… one-timer… 2-0 WILD!!! 

It’s really sad how bad defensive coverage is so far this season and 99 % of it involves staring down the puck. It’s not particularly difficult to figure out how difficult it is to play good defense if you react to the play. That little piece of vulcanized rubber (the puck) moves really fast. It’s also tiny (3″ diameter, 1″ thick) so it’s easy to miss. The average size of an NHL player is 6’2″ & 200 pounds (Google it!) so a lot easier to see and defend but you still have to read the play and react to what you read. Does this mean defending at the highest level of hockey in the world is easy? No! Absolutely not! But it means these players should know better than to keep making the same mistakes over and over again. We’ll have to do a Film Session on this soon!

7:58 – Goal – Minnesota – Marcus Johansson (1) from Matt Boldy (5) & Jonas Brodin (3)

Minnesota Wild 2 | 0 Florida Panthers

The Wild were outshot 9-5 in that period and still led by 2!

2nd Period

Minnesota Wild F Joel Eriksson Ek drew a penalty when Florida Panthers F Sam Bennett took him down in front of the net and the Wild went to work on the Power Play. They eventually got the puck to F Mats Zuccarello at the middle left point for a shot with F Matt Boldy in front of the net and he got his stick on it to deflect in for his 3rd goal of the season.

It’s difficult to defend tipped shots and even more difficult for the goalie to stop them. Then add that it’s on a power play so the defense can’t play man-to-man and the best way to defend against tipped shots is to take a player’s stick away. The next best way is to block the shot. Good Puck to doing that while having one less player on the ice.

17:20 – Goal – PPG – Minnesota – Matt Boldy (3) from Mats Zuccarello (3) & Joel Eriksson Ek (1)

Minnesota Wild 3 | 0 Florida Panthers

About 8:30 later, the Wild forecheck got a little overeager and allowed Florida D Nate Schmidt to escape the pressure and flip the puck up to the offensive blue line where Florida F Matthew Tkachuck made a one-time pass to F Carter Verhaeghe for an odd-man rush. F Sam Bennett moved to the net to be a passing option and Wild D Brock Faber tried to take the pass away but Verhaeghe was able to get around his stick to send the puck to Bennett in front of the net. He was in the process of opening up for the pass which made it difficult to get his stick to it so he moved his right skate to deflect it in to get Florida on the board and the Floridian chapter of Swifties all sang in unison… FLORIDA!!!

8:41 – Goal – FLORIDA!!! – Sam Bennett (5) from Carter Verhaeghe (4) & Matt Tkachuk (3)

The Wild were trying to make a line change which helped Florida get the odd-man rush. Wild D Jon Merrill looked like he was going to cover Bennett then thought the trailing Tkachuk was a bigger threat so he put himself in no-man’s land and took himself out of the play.

Minnesota Wild 3 | 1 Florida Panthers

The Wild responded less than 3 minutes later with movement and passing but it’s also helped or started by Florida chasing the puck. This is how Wild F Kirill Kaprizov gets open to begin with and then you can see all of the Florida players being a second too late as they react to the puck until Mats Zuccarello gets a shot into an open net thanks to the patience of Kirill Kaprizov that made Florida G Sergei Bobrovsky sell out and leave the net gaping.

6:02 – Goal – Minnesota – Mats Zuccarello (4) from Kirill Kaprizov (8) & Jake Middleton (2)

Minnesota Wild 4 | 1 Florida Panthers

The Minnesota Wild added another goal on a Joel Eriksson Ek snipe that took beat Bobrovsky to the upper right corner.

3:55 – Goal – Minnesota – Joel Eriksson Ek (3) from Jake Middleton (3)

Minnesota Wild 5 | 1 Florida Panthers

That’s a Playmaker (3 assists) for Minnesota Wild D Jake Middleton, the first of his career! TARPS OFF EVERYONE…oops… not EVERYONE!!!

Shots were 12-11 in Florida’s favor in the 2nd for a total of 21-16 but the Wild led 5-1.

3rd Period

Florida pulled G Sergei Bobrovsky after the 2nd period. There was still a whole period to go and the Wild knew they would likely have to endure a pretty good push from the Panthers before this game was finished.

They endured the push and still created a bunch of chances for themselves but no goals were scored. They played solid defense and still needed a big save or two from the Gus Bus to get the victory.

Rumors were that after the game, the Florida Panthers were “in the bathroom with a bottle of wine” after this 5-1 loss because the Wild and their goals “had a hell of a time.”

“Puck me up, Florida”

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Final

Minnesota Wild 5 | 1 Florida Panthers

Goals

MN:
Marco Rossi (3); Marcus Johansson (1); Matt Boldy (3); Mats Zuccarello (4), Joel Eriksson Ek (3)
FLA:
Sam Bennett (5)

Assists

MN:
Kirill Kaprizov (7), Jake Middleton (1); Matt Boldy (5), Jonas Brodin (3); Mats Zuccarello (3), Joel Eriksson Ek (1); Kirill Kaprizov (8), Jake Middleton (2); Jake Middleton (3)
FLA:
Carter Verhaeghe (4), Matthew Tkachuk (3)

Goalies

MN:
Filip Gustavsson
24 Saves  on 25 Shots; .960 Save %; 1.40 GAA*; 4th Win
FLA:
Sergei Bobrovsky (pulled after 2nd period)
11 Saves on 16 Shots; .688 Save %; 3.47 GAA*; 2nd Loss
Spencer Knight
6 Saves on 6 Shots; 1.000 Save %, 3.04 GAA*

GAA is Goals Against Average

Shift Chart

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Next up: 

The Minnesota Wild will head to Tampa Bay to play the Lightning on Thursday at 6 pm on FanDuel Sports Network North!

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