The Minnesota Wild face the Anaheim Ducks for the 2nd time this season already and we’re only 4 games into this season. They obviously were looking to avenge their home-opening loss they were handed by the Wild.

Did the Wild play a much more defensively responsible game after allowing 5 (or 6) goals? They’re at an average goals allowed of 2.67 per game which isn’t really that bad.

Let’s see what happened in today’s game.

Here’s how the teams lined up:

Minnesota Wild

Anaheim Ducks

1st Period Recap

The Ducks came out flying* and Rickard Rakell scored the first goal just 78 seconds into the game when he got to a rebound by winning a batter with Wild D Jonas Brodin and sent it through G Cam Talbot’s legs. 

Kirill Kaprizov & Max Comtois took coincidental Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalties at the 14:38 mark of the period so they played 4-on-4 for a couple of minutes and …

Brandon Duhaime scored his first career NHL goal & he didn’t even have his stick in his hand as the shot from the point came from Nico Sturm and it deflected off of Anaheim F Rickard Rakell’s stick then went towards Duhaime in front of the net and he had dropped his stick and when he went to grab it off the ice, the puck deflected off of his left skate & into the net. WOW!! How ‘bout that for your 1st NHL Goal, huh?

Then just 114 seconds later, D Jared Spurgeon unleashed a laser from a bad angle below the right faceoff circle to put the Minnesota Wild up 2-1. The Captain went bar down from that crazy angle. WOW! What a Shot!!!

Kaprizov received a drop pass from Brodin and decided to try to protect the puck instead of shooting it when he saw a defender in position to tip the puck away. It eventually turned into a goal for the Ducks as Troy Terry tied the game at 2. He somehow tipped this shot.*

Kaprizov took another penalty, this time it was a hooking penalty in the offensive zone just reaching instead of skating. The Wild are just piling up the stick infractions. Sooner or later, these penalties are going to cost them. They may have already. We’re not sure what penalties align with the goals allowed on the penalty kill.

This time it ended up in 4-on-4 play just 24 seconds after the power play began as Max Comtois took an interference penalty at the offensive blue line trying to stay onsides.

2nd Period Recap

Rickard Rakell scored his 2nd goal of the game to put the Ducks up 3-2 early in the 2nd period, this time off a tip from in front of the net.  

It took a little more than 10 minutes, that included another Wild stick infraction penalty (Goligoski hook) and a Ryan Hartman goalie interference penalty as he drove the net, but the Wild finally responded to tie the game at 3 on D Jon Merrill’s 1st goal as a member of the Minnesota Wild. 

It came off kind of a weird play as the Ducks D Josh Mahura had a deflected pass come to him in the middle of the Ducks zone & he tried to pass it to F Derek Grant but Grant didn’t handle it. Grant, Mahura and Ducks F Nicolas Deslauriers all thought one of the other 2 were going to get the puck so no one went for it and that allowed Marcus Foligno to get to the puck before all of them and they were now out of position.

Foligno proceeded to take the puck behind the net and you can see every Ducks player on the ice was PuckWatching so that allowed Foligno the time to find D Jon Merrill coming in from the left point and feed him a pass for a one-timer and his 1st goal in a Wild uniform AND another tie game!

Through the Five Hole!

Anaheim challenged the play as being offsides and failed so the Wild received another Power Play but, unfortunately, they did not score on it but Merrill got the double celebration of his goal and that’s always fun.

3rd Period Recap

Coincidental minors between Wild F Joel Eriksson Ek & Ducks D Hampus Lindholm after Ek checks Lindholm’s arm into the glass and he didn’t like that so he cross-checked Ek in his right side in the rib area and Ek went down. The official called cross-checking & embellishment. How do they determine it’s a dive? Maybe the official should feel what a cross-check in the ribs feels like. I don’t recall Ek being a diver, either.

No scoring in the 3rd so they headed to OVERTIME for the 2nd game in a row but the Wild finished the 3rd with a flurry of chances and had a minuter plus of offensive zone time but obviously couldn’t score to end the game.

Overtime

The Wild got a power play when D Hampus Lindholm closed his hand on the puck to try to get it out of harm’s way but the official spotted it. The Wild had their share of chances but couldn’t score.

Joel Eriksson Ek had planted himself in the Ducks’ heads as he tends to do to every opponent. He’d been knocked down in front of the net by Ryan Getzlaf when Getzlaf’s stick hit Ek’s left skate and Ek went down to which Getzlaf responded with palms up, obviously claiming he goes down too easy. He was backing up and all of sudden his left skate has nothing to stand on.

Then, after John Gibson made a glove save, Ek was going to past him thinking the puck had gone behind the net. Getzlaf got in his face and Gibson pushed him in the chest with his catcher glove. 

The Wild took their timeout so they could put the same lineup back out of the ice for the 2nd half of the power play and as Ducks G John Gibson skated to the bench, he ran into Ek on purpose. Ek is just a pest and you gotta love it because he just plays hard. He’s one of those guys who you love if he’s on your team but hate if he’s on the other team.

At the end of the power play, the Ducks got a 2-on-1  but didn’t get a shot but they kept possession and got a couple of chances that were stopped by Cam Talbot. 

The Wild then took control of the puck and got a shot from the point from Jonas Brodin that was deflected into the left corner (to Gibson’s right) and the Ducks were able to clear the zone but Brodin made a quick pass off the boards by the Wild bench to Zuccarello. He pulled the puck back to create some space and as he did so, he saw Gaudreau change for a fresh Ryan Hartman so he fed Hartman as he was just entering the zone. He skated to the left dot and went upper right with 13 seconds left to win another Wild game in OVERTIME!!!

Game Notes

*How do goalies deal with tipped shots? It has to be one of, if not the most, difficult shot to save because they can’t really plan for it because it might not get tipped. It’s like playing the pass instead of the shot. We’d assume they just try to follow the puck as much as possible and react accordingly. The puck can also be tipped in any direction. 

Consider the Duhaime goal… does Ducks G John Gibson see the puck get tipped at the point?

I just finished watching All or Nothing: Toronto Maple Leafs, a docuseries from Amazon Prime chronicling their 2020-21 season. It’s definitely worth a watch, especially if you’re a hockey or sports fan.

Toronto Maple Leafs Head Coach Sheldon Keefe cusses…A LOT in it. There’s one scene where G Frederick Anderson had allowed 4 goals and the coaching & front office staff are in the postgame meeting discussing the game and goalie coach Steve Briere said 2 of the 4 goals were deflected in and one of them went off D Jake Muzzin’s ass. He then asked what’s he (Anderson) supposed to do about that. Keefe responds saying he needs to stop one of them to which Briere responds, “off of Muzz’s ass?” which received a quick “Fuck Off!” then a pause for awkwardness. 

Maybe they were disCUSSing the game instead?

**Jordan Greenway seems a step off or a second late right now. In one sequence, he received a pass from behind the net when he was just above the goal line and he hesitated then moved a little and attempted to shoot but it was easily blocked. Is it a confidence thing or does he look to pass first?

He did have an assist today, a secondary assist on the 2nd goal to double his assist & point totals to 2. He also led the team in assists last season with  26 in 56 games. He also had just 6 goals on 80 shots in those 56 games so he just needs to look for his shot more. He hasn’t really been much of a goal-scorer since moving on to the US NTDP where he scored  25 goals in 105 games. In college, he scored just 28 goals in 112 games. He’s a big player (6’6, 231 lbs) who should be more physical than he is. That’s bigger than Marcus Foligno (6’3, 226) & Joel Eriksson Ek (6’3, 207) and those guys hit a lot more than he does but…

We’ve said this before, Jordan has never really had to worry about being physical because he was usually just bigger than everyone else so it was easy to impose his will on them. Now, he’s in a league with men and men who are as big and bigger than he is and they know how to by physical. Hopefully, he’ll figure out how to play a physical game and shoot more. He should easily average more than a shot per game in our opinion. In his NHL career so far,  he has just 289 shots in 214 regular-season games and 17 shots in 16 postseason games.

It’s a contract year for him, there is no better time to step up and be the player he can be. If he doesn’t, he’ll be another Charlie Coyle.

We’re pulling for you, Jordo!!!

LET’S GOOOOOO, JORDOOOOOO!!! 

Go The GreenWay, people!!!

***Kevin Fiala, on the other hand, looks like a player about to break out. He’s making things happen almost every shift but they just aren’t turning into goals right now. He had 3 shots but he just creates things with his speed, his hands and his vision. 

Some people think he should have better linemates but we pointed out in our Season Preview that Fiala is a player that can create with anyone and we like that the Wild went out and signed a free agent that he’s had success with when he was developing in the minors in F Frédérick Gaudreau.

He also gets to face the team that traded him tomorrow so…

Stars of the Game
1st Star
Minnesota Wild F Ryan Hartman

GWG with 13 seconds remaining in Overtime!

2nd Star
Minnesota Wild F Brandon Duhaime

1st NHL Goal, 5 shots on goal, physicality, compete level

3rd Star
Minnesota Wild D Jared Spurgeon

That BarDown Goal in the 1st! WOW!

Postgame

Ryan Hartman in the postgame interview: “Thanks to you guys, I knew when to shoot!” Haha

Next up: 

Mikael Granlund, Luke Kunin and the Nashville Predators come to town for another 5 pm game on Sunday night fresh off a 6-4 loss in Winnipeg that made them 1-4 on the season so they might be an ornery bunch.

Will the Wild be ready for them? We think YES!!!

The game will air on Bally Sports North.

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AND…as always…