On Sunday night, February 9th against the Colorado Avalanche, Minnesota Wild F Kevin Fiala scored an Amazing goal on the Power Play. It was so good, it calls for another Minnesota Wild Film Session!
The Minnesota Wild were down 3-1 late in the 2nd period and they were on the power play. After a shot attempt failed, the Wild retrieved the puck and Fiala got it from Eric Staal on the right half-wall with an Avs forward between him and defenseman Ryan Suter & the other Avs penalty-killers in front of the net, the other forward in the slot defending Parise and the 2 defensemen on either side of the net defending Staal who was on the goal line on Fiala’s side and Spurgeon at the top of the left circle.
What Fiala had to look at with the puck on the right-half wall (closest in the picture)
Fiala had already passed it to Staal and got it back and that may have given him a little more space between him and that strong side defenseman. Fiala turned to his left as if he was going to pass it to Suter at the blue line & Avs F Matt Nieto went to take away that passing lane so Fiala made a quick move around him and that forced the strongside D to come up to him but Fiala knows he’s trying to take away the shot and he still has space to pull the puck back. He can also see Compher, who was defending Parise, is trying to take away the passing lane to Parise so he should be able to skate past him, too.
Amazing how Fiala reads the play and uses the space created by passing lanes available to him.
Fiala gets the open ice and sees an open shooting lane since Erik Johnson moved over to cover Jared Spurgeon so Fiala has a couple of options. He can pass to Parise in front of the net knowing Parise could also then move the puck to either Spurgeon or Staal for a quality scoring chance but…
Fiala created a shooting lane with his quick hands so what would he do with it? #WickedWrister
Fiala also knows he could just rip a wicked wrister past Francouz and get his team within a goal and that is what he did. What a fantastic play.
Kevin Fiala is turning into a heckuva player for the Minnesota Wild. Former GM Paul Fenton might not have been as bad as we thought he was, huh? Well, at least in his scouting of players. We’ll see how his 2 drafts turn out in a few years.
What do you think, ClutterPuckers? How good is #22 going to be? Is it a coincidence that he wears the same number as the one and only Cal Clutterbuck who is the reason for this here blog you are reading? It probably is but, hey, we’re big fans of Mr. Fiala and, at still only 23 years old, his future looks very bright and…Very WILD!!!
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