A deeper look at Wild's power-play, penalty-kill woes that finally cost them a game

ST.

PAUL, Minn.

Maybe that was just what the doctor ordered.

As they say in pro sports, youre never as good as you think you are and youre never as bad as you think you are.

The Minnesota Wild , who started the season 8-1-2, had an opportunity to sweep a three-game homestand Tuesday night with their final opponent being a team that in the first period looked like it left its hands and legs in Nashville with Mondays 3-0 win.

Advertisement But despite playing on the second night of a back-to-back, the Los Angeles Kings walked into Xcel Energy Center and easily beat the Wild 5-1.

But why could this have been a decent wake-up call heading into a very winnable trip to San Jose, Anaheim and Chicago? Because lets be honest: Even though the Wild won the first two games of this homestand, they werent overly impressive in victories against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Toronto Maple Leafs .

Their special teams were awful, their offense was choppy, and they won because they capitalized on terrific defensive structure and great goaltending from Filip Gustavsson while also taking advantage of a tired Maple Leafs team two nights earlier.

But Tuesday night, Gustavsson was off his game, the Wilds offensive game continued to lack execution, their fourth line and third defensive pair had a tough night and they finally paid for losing the special teams battle.

If youre counting at home, the Wild actually lost the power play and penalty kill battle for a fourth straight game but finally lost because of it.

That was not our best, said Mats Zuccarello , a minus-3.

Weve been flying high a little bit some games and playing good.

And sometimes its good to get a kick in the nuts, as long as you get back up next game.

I think were all in here not happy.

When you lose 5-1 at home, thats a tough one.

But were going to lose this year, and hopefully its a one-off and then we can get back on the horse again.

But yeah, obviously we werent happy about that game.

Lets start with the penalty kill because that calamity is what finished 30th in the NHL last season, allowing goals on 74.5 percent of opposing power plays.

They vowed to fix it this season, yet here they are sitting 31st in the NHL at 62.5 percent.

They have allowed a power-play goal in five consecutive games six goals on their last 11 chances against, to be exact.

Advertisement Thats downright outrageous, and Tuesday night they allowed the tiebreaker and eventual winning goal to former Wild gamebreaker Kevin Fiala on the Kings only power play of the game.

Imagine how bad things would look right now if the Wild werent so doggone disciplined.

Theyve been short-handed an average of twice a game, the second-fewest in the NHL.

Marco Rossi has taken a penalty in three of the past four games.

He has done the walk of shame after each of those instances because the puck ended up in the back of Minnesotas net.

One game after John Hynes said itll be a process to repair the penalty kill and that hes largely satisfied with the structure but not the individual mistakes that continue to plague them, Matt Boldy got overly aggressive after Brock Faber tried to block a shot and went down low on a switch.

Its rare to see a forward skate lower than the defenseman on a penalty kill.

But when he did, Faber tried to block Fialas shot, couldnt, and the former Wild player scored his seventh goal of the season with purpose.

"The revenge tour continues!" Kevin Fiala has goals in back-to-back nights against his former teams (Nashville last night, Minnesota tonight) pic.twitter.com/9mqAEYaF5S B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) November 6, 2024 Though Hynes conceded the error, he clearly, without naming names, pinned the problem at the stick of Jonas Brodin , who along with Faber has been on the ice for six of the Wilds nine power-play goals against this season.

It was Brodin who didnt get a puck out earlier on the shift.

They rimmed the puck and it bumps back, and we had an opportunity to pop the puck right to the middle and break that puck out, Hynes said.

Now the pucks cleared.

To me it started before the goal was actually scored.

If were on five-on-five and it goes D-to-D and that Ds got some time and space and we have a guy in the middle, we pop pucks to the middle all the time.

Advertisement Should be the same thing on the penalty kill.

Instead, we rim it off the boards.

So, thats one opportunity to get the puck out of the zone.

If youre good on your stand and youre good on your shares and you have opportunities to get the puck out of the zone, thats when it has to get out of the zone because if youre going to get opportunities where we have chances to clear pucks or pop pucks out, now youre going to have to be able to defend.

...

Its little situations like that, that cause that error.

Now lets talk power play, which on this night was the bigger problem.

The Wild went 0-for-4 and are now 0-for-14 the past four games with the streak going back 15 power plays to five games ago in Philly.

The No.

2 power-play unit is without a goal in 12 games, but its the No.

1 power play that spends the majority of the time on the ice.

And Kirill Kaprizov , Zuccarello, Joel Eriksson Ek , Boldy and Faber are in one giant funk.

Theyre losing battles, skating pucks into traffic, throwing pucks away and arent even attempting shots.

On one power play in the first period, the Wild basically had a five-on-three because a Kings killer broke his stick.

Eriksson Ek promptly gave the puck to a Kings player, who thanked him with a quick clear.

In the third period with a chance to tie the score at 2-2, Boldy threw a puck out of the zone and Eriksson Ek skated the puck into traffic for a short-handed breakaway that Gustavsson at least denied.

Hynes pinned much of their issues on faceoffs, but Eriksson Ek, the center on the No.

1 unit, entered Tuesdays game winning 57.1 percent on power-play faceoffs this season and went 2-for-4 Tuesday.

They were 5-for-10 on power-play draws Tuesday, going 4-for-4 in the third period.

It was the second when they were indeed 1-for-5.

Were not winning any faceoffs so were always starting on a breakout, Hynes said.

Everybody wants to have a hard stand, so (the Kings) did a good job at standing at the line so then you gotta rim pucks in and get them back.

Now youre just eating time off the clock.

So, thats one area thats gotta certainly improve.

Were trying to make plays standing still.

Were looking for seams.

Were not delivering the puck to the net.

Were not getting top shots.

Advertisement Zuccarello concurred.

Our power play was not good.

Hasnt been good in a while, he said.

But we work on it every day.

The 10 guys that are on there take pride in the power play, and maybe we want to help our team win.

But I think its important that we dont get down on ourselves.

When you lose a little bit of confidence, the puck bounces everywhere and your passes dont go tape-to-tape and stuff like that.

In a game like this, we would have liked to score a couple of goals on the power play and help the team.

But that was not good enough on our part today.

...

We just cant let that creep into our game and get frustrated.

Its gonna come.

Its gonna take a sty goal, and then youre back in it.

The Wild held a 1-0 lead until 5:30 left in the second period.

It took a bad wholesale line change to cost Minnesota the tying goal, but the game turned after Kaprizov missed the final 12 minutes of the second period after taking a puck to the mouth.

He left with a 1-0 lead.

By the time he returned, it was 2-1 Kings.

The fourth line of Jakub Lauko , Marat Khusnutdinov and Yakov Trenin didnt play well.

Zach Bogosian , who scored the Wilds only goal, and Jon Merrill also were victimized for two goals.

Rookie Michael Milne, considered Iowas most consistent player to start the season, was called up for the trip and Hynes indicated he could make his NHL debut, perhaps as soon as Thursday in San Jose.

Id still like to see some more from certain guys, Hynes said.

I thought there was some light players tonight, so well make some decisions.

Maybe thatll be Trenin, who was signed to a four-year contract worth $3.5 million annually this offseason.

He was demoted to the fourth line three games ago and has no goals, one assist, 11 shots and 34 hits in 12 games.

Every team has clunkers.

This was one.

Maybe itll be cured against three cellar-dwellers on the road, where the Wild are 5-1-1.

Advertisement We definitely cant lose sight of how well weve played the last stretch of games, Bogosian said.

Unfortunately when you play 82 games, games like that happen.

Not something were happy about, but well turn the page pretty quick and get ready for a big road trip.

(Top photo: Brad Rempel / Imagn Images).

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