The Minnesota Wild traveled to Vegas to roll the dice at a chance to equal the Vegas Golden Knights in total points at the top of the Western Conference. The Minnesota Wild aren’t fools, though. They knew they would still have work to do in the regular season’s last 6 games since Vegas held the tiebreakers if the teams were tied in points.
They also knew if they won this game they would have a chance to take over the lead in the Western Conference in their next game at home against these same Vegas Golden Knights on Monday night but there’s no way they were looking ahead. We imagine they were actually thinking back to February 9th when they were embarrassed by this Vegas team on their own ice. Let’s see if they were able to to “go and do something like this… and totally redeem” themselves!
This is not an April Fool’s joke though, ‘Puckers. This Minnesota Wild team is for real!
Alright. Enough words. Let’s…
Drop the ClutterPuck!!!
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Here’s how the teams lined up:
Minnesota Wild
Wild projected lineup
Forwards
Marcus Foligno — Ryan Hartman — Mats Zuccarello
Marcus Johansson — Joel Eriksson Ek — Matt Boldy
Sam Steel — Frederick Gaudreau — Oskar Sundqvist
Mason Shaw — Connor Dewar
Defensemen
Jake Middleton — Jared Spurgeon
Jonas Brodin — Matt Dumba
Jon Merrill — John Klingberg
Alex Goligoski
Goalies
Marc-Andre Fleury
Filip Gustavsson
Scratched:
Calen Addison
Injured:
Kirill Kaprizov (lower body), Gustav Nyquist (shoulder), Ryan Reaves (upper body), Brandon Duhaime (illness)
Status Report
The Wild will dress the same skaters they used a 4-2 win at the the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday, and once again will use 11 forwards and seven defensemen. … Fleury and Gustavsson will alternate starts for the 10th straight game.
Well, this status report was wrong. Wild Fs Brandon Duhaime & Ryan Reaves were back in the lineup which meant no Sam Steel and no Jon Merrill.
Vegas Golden Knights
Golden Knights projected lineup
Forwards
Ivan Barbashev — Jack Eichel — Jonathan Marchessault
Nicolas Roy — William Karlsson — Paul Cotter
Michael Amadio — Chandler Stephenson — Phil Kessel
Brett Howden — Teddy Blueger — Keegan Kolesar
Defensemen
Alex Pietrangelo — Alec Martinez
Brayden McNabb — Ben Hutton
Nicolas Hague — Zach Whitecloud
Goalies
Laurent Brossoit
Jonathan Quick
Scratched:
Pavel Dorofeyev
Injured:
Mark Stone (back), William Carrier (lower body), Adin Hill (lower body), Logan Thompson (undisclosed), Reilly Smith (lower body), Shea Theodore (undisclosed)
Status Report
Blueger enters the lineup after not dressing for a 4-3 overtime loss at the San Jose Sharks on Thursday; he will replace Dorofeyev, a forward. … Brossoit is expected to make his second straight start; he made 21 saves Thursday.
Game Recap
1st Period
18:51 – Penalty – Vegas – Jonathan Marchessault for Hooking Mats Zuccarello
Apparently Vegas F Jonathan Marchessault didn’t want Mats Zuccarello to backcheck since he hooked him as his team had a 2-on-1. They had just another rush that was broken up by a good stick from Zuccarello.
Before that, Wild F Joel Eriksson made a great play as went to cover someone in the defensive zone showing that the Wild were in this game from a mental standpoint from the drop of the puck.
The Wild had a few chances but the Knights killed off the penalty.
Not too long later, Wild F Mason Shaw went awkwardly into the boards beneath his own goal line and had to be helped off the ice. Hopefully, he’ll be alright. He’s torn his ACL 3 times already.
A minute after that, Wild F Matt Boldy and Joel Eriksson Ek were forechecking beneath the Vegas goal line. Ek came out with the puck and sent it back to the left point to John Klingberg and he took a shot…
15:00 – Goal – Minnesota – Matt Boldy from John Klingberg & Joel Eriksson Ek
1-0 Wild
11:23 – Penalties – Roughing to both Wild F Joel Eriksson Ek & Vegas F William Karlsson
Karlsson and Ek pushed and shoved each other after Ek was hit as he was changing.
While 4-on-4, the Knights had the puck in the offensive zone and a shot broke Wild D Jake Middleton’s stick so he had to drop it then had to try to defend without a stick…
10:05 – Goal – Vegas – Ben Hutton from Jack Eichel & Alex Pietrangelo
1-1 Tie
Off a faceoff that was kind of won by Vegas, Minnesota Wild G Marc-Andre Fleury is screened by Vegas F Michael Amadio and Wild D Matt Dumba and as he’s leaning to his right to try to find the puck the shot is coming and…
Screens are really tough for a goalie. Wild F Mats Zucarrello is a split second too late to get his stick on the puck as he was coasting in to defend the shooter, Vegas D Zach Whitecloud. Jonas Brodin probably needs to do a better job to block that shot.
3:47 – Goal – Vegas – Zach Whitecloud from Chandler Stephenson
2-1 Vegas
The Wild outshot Vegas 14 to 8. The score wasn’t as good.
2nd Period
The Wild announced that F Mason Shaw will not return to the game before the 2nd period began.
2 minutes into the 2nd period after a Wild scoring chance, Vegas F Ivan Barbashev gets a breakaway and Wild G Marc-Andre Fleury stops his shot. The puck went into the left corner (to Fleury’s right) and Barbashev was the first to it and he curled to come back up the boards…
All 3 Wild forwards were caught watching the puck and 2 Vegas players changed during the play which usually makes it difficult to find who you should cover. The goal-scorer was one of the players who came on to the ice and he cut inside Wild F Brandon Duhaime to get open as he saw Barbashev looking for passing lanes. Wild D Alex Goligoski went to defend him and the shot hit his stick and deflected into the net.
17:39 – Goal – Vegas – Brett Howden from Ivan Barbashev & Jack Eichel
3-1 Vegas
9:37 – Penalty – Minnesota – Ryan Hartman for Hooking Phil Kessel
Wild F Ryan Hartman was defending in front of the net but had his stick in the midsection so when the puck got there Phil Kessel couldn’t make a play on it.
Down 3-1 already, this felt like a very important kill.
4:31 – Penalty – Minnesota – Jake Middleton for Tripping
3:00 – Penalty – Vegas – Nicolas Roy for Holding Jared Spurgeon
3rd Period
The Wild had about a 90-second sequence in the offensive zone but they didn’t even get a chance then Vegas had a chance but Fleury made a huge glove save to keep the deficit at 2 goals.
Empty net with 3+ minutes to go and John Klingberg tried to do too much entering the zone &/or near the blue line 3 times and on that 3rd time it created a turnover that Vegas took down the ice and made it…
4-1 Vegas
The drop pass is one of the worst passes in hockey or at least it seems like it since it tends to not work most of the time and this was one of those times. Jared Spurgeon doesn’t look like he was ready for a drop pass there and probably thought Klingberg would pass it to Zuccarello. Vegas F Chandler Stephenson did end up poking the puck away so maybe he wasn’t dropping it.
Vegas just blocked so many shots and that made the Wild think too much about when to shoot the puck. Like that last play, they need to move the puck faster and take one-timers and/or fake a shot then pass. They were waiting and that plays right into what the other teams wants you to do.
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Final
Minnesota Wild 1 | 4 Vegas Golden Knights
Goals
MN: 1. Matt Boldy(29)
VGK: 1. Ben Hutton(3), 2. Zach Whitecloud(5), 3. Brett Howden(5), 4. Chandler Stephenson(14)
*PPG=Power-Play Goal, ENG=Empty-Net Goal
Assists
MN: 1. John Klingberg(21), Joel Eriksson Ek(37)
VGK: 1. Jack Eichel(34), Alex Pietrangelo(41), 2. Chandler Stephenson(45), 3. Ivan Barbashev(27), Jack Eichel(35), 4. Nicolas Roy(16)
Goalies
MN:
Marc-Andre Fleury
39 Saves on 42 Shots, .929 Save% – 14th Loss
VGK:
Laurent Brossoit
29 Saves on 30 Shots, .967 Save% – 3rd Win
Game Notes
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Mason Shaw and his Knee
Mason Shaw’s ‘Wild’ journey, through his dad’s eyes: ‘You can’t write that in a script’
From The Athletic which you can & should subscribe to for as low as $2/month!
Wild F Mason Shaw has been through hell with his right knee, 3 torn ACLs (Anterior Cruciate Ligament) in his career and sadly, it looks like that’s what he’s done again and it sucks but we’ll see how he responds. It will likely be how he always has, with resilience and a great work ethic to get back and help the Minnesota Wild but we’ll wait to hear what the actual prognosis is.
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Kirill Kaprizov Out for the Regular Season & the Playoffs?
How long did it take you to realize what day it was? I was wondering why there was only one tweet about it since that would be very HUGE news for the Wild so I’m glad it was April 1st when I saw it. I’m not sure how I feel about it yet, though.
I actually searched Twitter for Kirill Kaprizov because he went to the Timberwolves game last night to see if I could find a picture of it. Well, the tweet showed his ankles which look very bruised so you could understand why he hasn’t started skating yet. That was a pretty nasty injury and it sure could have been a severe ankle injury:
And… how many of you wondered what kind of shoes Kirill was wearing? Did you know the brand of those shoes? I did not so I searched for it and did end up finding it. I know. It’s sad but hey, it’s Google’s fault because they’ve taught us you can find anything on the interwebs.
I did find this, too:
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Next up:
Same Teams, Different Time on Monday night at The X at 7pm on Bally Sports North PLUS and we expect a different Wild to show up as they won’t be happy with the result of this game.
Thanks for Reading!!!
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