When the Minnesota Wild started the season, it seemed like they could do no wrong, and their composure couldn’t be shaken. However, as games have passed and the road has gotten tougher, they’ve been able to keep their composure, but they’ve shown they do have flaws in their game that they need to figure out.
They are in the “grind” of the season where they’ve been playing a lot of hockey with not much time in between to reset. After their most recent loss to the Ottawa Senators, where they struggled to play their style of game consistently, it was obvious this stretch of the season was not going to be easy. However, according to one of their players, the Wild know what they have to do to get back to winning, and it starts with keeping things fun.
Wild Need Fun
The Wild have been very businesslike this season, but they’ve also made time to have fun. And when Mats Zuccarello was asked about a key to getting through these grinding games, he talked about having fun, and while it sounds interesting to hear an NHL player say that, he’s right. They do play better when they’re a little relaxed and enjoying themselves. Playing too stressed out and worrying about winning makes it harder for them to make plays, and things don’t come as easily.
“You know, in the middle of the season like this, it’s grey outside, dark outside; I think we gotta have fun. Coming to the rink every day, have fun, it’s a grind, 82 games if you don’t have fun especially at this time around it can be hard when you lose. You win some, you lose some…” Zuccarello said when asked what the focus should be after losing a tough game.
Hopefully, the Wild can find a way to put some fun back into their game, which may help produce some more goals as well. It’ll be interesting to see how the team responds to another tough loss, especially at this point in the season and possibly still without Kirill Kaprizov.
Wild Need Consistentcy
Every team in the NHL aims to play consistent, strong hockey, and every team hits a rough spot. How they respond is what separates the good teams from the not-so-good teams. The Wild built themselves a strong cushion to ride this hard part of the season, but they can’t sit back for too long in this league as everyone is competitive, and those leads can dwindle.
The Wild have been struggling to play a consistent game. They play a strong fast, fast-paced first period, but then they sit back in the second and allow the other team to crawl back into the game. Then, in the third, they’ll try to pick it back up; sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. They have to find a way to put everything together and play consistently.
“We just need to be consistent; we play this game, last game too; we just need to be consistent; we can have ups and downs. We gotta get more goals forward and gotta get better that way, and we just gotta keep blocking shots, saves, pucks….you do that, you’re gonna have a good chance to get in,” said Filip Gustavsson about what he thought the focus should be going forward after their loss to the Senators.
Wild Focus on Details
The Wild’s head coach, John Hynes, has been preaching all season about how they have to focus on the little details. He’s talked a lot about their losses, how they’ve missed little details, and things that led to the other team scoring. Rather than making excuses about being tired and missed calls, they owned up to making mistakes and missing the details they needed to focus on.
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“…I think that the difference between winning and losing most nights is the details of the game..” said Hynes about how important details are, and he continued in their postgame press conference with, “…to me my take out of the game is when we’re playing a detailed, smart game, you give yourself the best chance to win. We want to pride ourselves on being a hard team to play against. We want to pride ourselves on being smart; we want that as a competitive advantage to our team…”
The Wild must fine-tune their game and make the little details happen. When they can do that, they’ll start winning games. When they focus on making the right passes, taking shots, and paying attention to the little things will make a difference.
Wild Can Win
The Wild have the talent and dedication to start winning games consistently again, and they know they can. They need to focus on getting the details right, and the rest should come along like it did at the beginning of the season, and then they’ll win games again.
