The Minnesota Wild were back home Thursday evening, Nov. 14, against the Montréal Canadiens after having three games on the road in the past week. They had a quick back-to-back Thursday, Nov. 7, against the San Jose Sharks and Friday, Nov. 8, against the Anaheim Ducks. They then swung up to Chicago to face the Chicago Blackhawks and on Sunday, Nov. 10 to finish the road trip. They went 2-1-0 on their road trip, with their loss coming in overtime against the Blackhawks.
They were looking to redeem themselves after that disappointing loss and they were without one of their top defensemen in Jonas Brodin who is listed as day-to-day with an upper body injury. The Wild were able to pull out a win despite losing two more players in the process. It wasn’t an outstanding performance but they kept their heads down and got things done despite the odds against them. We’ll start this article by taking a look at the injuries they faced.
Wild Face Injuries
The Wild are no strangers to injuries, but this season, they’ve been pretty lucky with a few minor injuries here and there. Joel Eriksson Ek missed two games with a broken nose but likely wouldn’t have missed any time if the doctors had allowed it. The one major injury so far was Jared Spurgeon, who missed six games earlier in the season due to a lower-body injury that hadn’t fully healed from the previous season.
Fast-forward to this season and Wild fans will probably feel like deja vu as Brodin has hit the injured list. For those who may not remember, he was bothered by injuries last season and missed 20 games. As of now, Brodin is listed as day-to-day, and hopefully, he’ll be back for good much faster than last season, but it was clear they missed him against the Canadiens, and he wasn’t the only one.
They didn’t even make it through the first period before losing not only Mats Zuccarello, who took a Brock Faber shot to the groin area, but also Eriksson Ek. It was unclear how Eriksson Ek’s injury happened, but something went wrong as he didn’t return to the game.
The Wild struggled a bit to find their game and dropped to 10 forwards, but they continued to play their style and eventually found the back of the net. That first goal gave them the boost they needed to continue to play strong and pull out the win despite being down two of their best forwards.
Wild’s Boldy & Rossi Step Up
Typically, in times of struggle, teams lean on their leadership, and while Kirill Kaprizov, Marcus Foligno, and Jared Spurgeon all contributed, it was Matt Boldy and Marco Rossi who got them on the board. These two players have been strong for most of this short season so far, and when their linemates Zuccarello and Eriksson Ek were knocked out, they stepped up.
Boldy has been getting strong chances in nearly every game he’s played this season, and it paid off against the Canadiens. He got the whole play started as he carried the puck in and sent it off to Kaprizov, who would eventually get it to Marcus Johansson. He saw an open Boldy and sent him a pass, Boldy took the shot and put it away to give his team a 1-0 lead. That momentum carried them through the period and into the third, where it was Rossi’s turn to shine.
Rossi, like Boldy, has been doing exceptionally well this season, and although he hasn’t been a scoring machine, he’s been steadily tallying points. While it’s typically Kaprizov or Eriksson Ek getting the power play going, Rossi got things done. He took a pass from Jared Spurgeon and sent it right over the goaltender’s glove to give them the two-goal lead they needed.
Kaprizov tallied an assist on the Boldy goal, but he wasn’t done for the night. He would go on to record the final goal of the game on an empty net. He’s been on fire lately when it comes to scoring, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to stop anytime soon. The Wild will rely on that if these injuries are serious for Zuccarello and Eriksson Ek.
Wild’s Lines Adjust
With everything going on and Boldy and Rossi stepping up to lead in scoring, it’s important to note how well the team adjusted overall. It’s not typical for two players to go down in a game, let alone two of your main players. The Wild were prepared to be without Brodin, or as prepared as they could be but to lose Zuccarello and then Eriksson Ek, no one could blame them for being a little out of sorts.
However, the team did what they’ve done best this season and adapted. They made mistakes, but that’s to be expected when lines are being thrown together with just 10 forwards. The lines actually did quite well despite not really playing much together during the season, and there weren’t any game-changing mistakes made.
Head coach John Hynes has done a good job of preparing this team to play through just about anything, and despite being down two of their strongest forwards, they didn’t look tired. Except for the injured players, every Wild player was on the ice for at least 10 minutes during the game. That doesn’t seem like much, but the fourth line typically doesn’t see much ice time, but they had to this time.
Everyone on the bench pulled their weight and did what they could to help secure the win, which is exactly what a team needs to do in this situation. If this had been last season, everyone would’ve expected the team to fall apart, but they’ve put themselves in a new mentality, and it’s worked.
Wild Face Stars
The Wild were able to get past the Canadiens, who’ve struggled quite a bit this season. Now they’ll face an even bigger test against the Dallas Stars at home on Saturday evening, Nov. 16. If they are still without Zuccarello, Eriksson Ek, and Brodin, they will have to find a way to play even better than against the Canadiens.
Related: Minnesota Wild’s 3 Unsung Heroes Through 15 Games
The Stars are always a difficult task for the Wild, and this will be no different. As there was no update postgame about Eriksson Ek or Zuccarello, maybe, one or both of them will return against the Stars. Hopefully, everyone will be at the top of their game against the Stars, and maybe they’ll come out on top.
