DENVER — This isn’t a reason to sound the alarms for the Minnesota Wild.
But shouldn’t there be a little bit of concern about the way things are trending?
Every team goes through tough stretches, losing streaks. Look up the past Stanley Cup champions — they all have them. However, there are certain points in a season when things can turn, when a slide can get a little out of control.
And that’s where Minnesota stands, especially with the Colorado Avalanche right on their heels in the standings and with the looming schedule. They’re coming off a brutal game — one they absolutely had to have in Nashville — and now face a surging Colorado team that’s one point back for the third spot in the Central Division.
Final. pic.twitter.com/wIqDuLtES4
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) January 19, 2025
A few more losses and the Wild are hanging on to a wild-card spot.
“We’ve got to act fast,” alternate captain Marcus Foligno said.
Saturday’s loss to the Nashville Predators was, for the most part, a stinker. The “old-school” response to Zach L’Heureux for his slew foot on Jared Spurgeon on New Year’s Eve was expected and, by all accounts, warranted. But the three fights in the first seven minutes shouldn’t have been the highlight of Minnesota’s night. This could have been 10-1 had it not been for Marc-Andre Fleury, who faced 33 scoring chances (19 of the high-danger quality), according to Natural Stat Trick. Expected goals were 5.8 to 2.14. Sounds about right.
“I think there was just a multitude of areas of our game that wasn’t good to me,” coach John Hynes said.
“We weren’t at our best tonight”
🗣️ Coach Hynes on tonight’s game and looking forward to Monday#mnwild pic.twitter.com/pUcrmXDlOi
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) January 19, 2025
The soft and sloppy play around their net was front and center. The lack of a sustained offensive push (12 shots in the first two periods). David Jiricek shouldn’t have their best chance of the first 30 minutes. The 24 giveaways and three takeaways were uncharacteristic.
“Fifty-fifty pucks, we seem a little hesitant right now,” Foligno said.
You do that against the Nashville Predators, you lose 6-2. You do that against Colorado, and it’s uglier.
To be fair, the Wild are holding on without their lone superstar (Kirill Kaprizov) and two of their top defensemen (Spurgeon and Jonas Brodin). They were missing Brock Faber for the previous four games. For any team that would be a huge challenge. Declan Chisholm, Zach Bogosian and Jon Merrill aren’t supposed to be playing this many minutes. It takes a lot of energy and guts to keep winning without your top guys. But eventually it catches up with you.
After winning five of their first six games without Kaprizov, the Wild have lost four of the last five. Hynes was asked Saturday if it’s a challenge to keep the group positive.
“I mean, that’s why you have to be able to play the games that you’re in,” Hynes said. “You’ve got to play with who’s in the lineup, and you’ve got to do certain things to do it. We weren’t at our best tonight, and that’s something we got to get back to on Monday. That’s what you have to do. It’s all about the next target. The next target’s Colorado. There’s certainly things we’ve got to clean up from tonight’s game, but you’ve got to take one game at a time. We can certainly be better than how we played tonight, for sure.”
This is the same team that found a way to beat the Dallas Stars on the road in overtime (thanks to Faber’s winner). It’s the same group that went into the Washington Capitals and Carolina Hurricanes and came away with a surprising sweep. It’s the same cast that rallied after Filip Gustavsson was pulled in a Jan. 7 start against the St. Louis Blues and won with a galvanizing two-minute, 44-second shift to seal it.
“I think the big-picture stuff takes care of itself if you focus on the now,” Hynes said. “And right now there’s another target on Monday that we’re gonna be able to get ready for them, and we’ve got to continue to find ways to win. You go through different stretches throughout the year. I think there was another one where we lost four in a row and the sky was coming in, and we were having these same types of questions. And I think we’d rattled off a bunch of wins right after that, too. So it’s the ebb and flow of the season. We gotta focus on them now, focus on our game — how can we be better? And let’s have a better game on Monday.”
Hynes is right about that. The Wild lost four in a row and then won six of seven, including those victories in Washington and Carolina. The challenge is doing it again. First comes Colorado on Monday, then an improved Utah Hockey Club on Thursday. The Calgary Flames, who are in the second wild-card spot, are in St. Paul on Saturday. The next long trip could be a gantlet, facing the Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators and Boston Bruins. This is one of the best road teams in the NHL, but still.
Gustavsson, a team MVP candidate during the first half, has struggled recently, giving up 19 goals in his last four starts, which sparked a 10-minute talk from Hynes during Friday’s practice. He was so sick Saturday that the Wild called up Dylan Ferguson to back up Fleury.
Kaprizov went from day to day around Christmas to being out for three weeks, and he isn’t on this trip. The team is going to be cautious with its best player and his lower-body injury.
Let’s be honest: Had Fleury not stolen those 2 points in San Jose last weekend, the Wild would be on a five-game losing streak. It’s interesting that it was a blowout loss in Nashville before last year’s trade deadline (6-1 in late February) that sounded the alarms for president and general manager Bill Guerin, who lamented how his group “didn’t rise to the occasion in big games.”
This team has felt and looked different from last year’s version. And there are still 36 games left. This could very well be another blip, like the pre-Christmas funk. But there’s little margin for error in arguably the toughest division in the league.
“We don’t want this to slide,” Foligno said. “We’ve got some guys back. It’s always tough when you come back from injury. We hope these guys pick up speed and help us out and get a balanced lineup again.”
(Photo of Brock Faber: Steve Roberts / Imagn Images)
