New reality or new-coach bump?
That’s the question that immediately comes to mind when watching the previously pitiful Minnesota Wild put together a three-game winning streak that may or may not be the start of them saving their season.
The Wild downed Connor Bedard and the Chicago Blackhawks 4-1 in St. Paul on Sunday and are now 3-0-0 since John Hynes took over the bench from Dean Evason.
On opening night this season, the Wild blanked the Florida Panthers 2-0. In the 18 games that followed under Evason, Minny never again surrendered fewer than two goals against in a game and its 4.17 goals-per-game allowed in that stretch was the worst mark in the entire league.
Since Hynes grabbed the iPad, the Wild have held their opponents to exactly one goal in each of their three wins.
Obviously a lot of the previous mess comes down to Filip Gustavsson and Marc-Andre Fleury not doing their part in the crease, so we’ll see if their improved play — Gustavsson has two wins with Hynes, while Fleury got the W on Sunday — continues.
Still, a lot more than the goaltending was askew when Evason was the coach and Minnesota’s skaters have much to prove. For now, though, Minny is off to a great start under Hynes.
First off, a couple things that were actually going right for the Wild previously have continued, as Marco Rossi popped two tallies versus the Hawks and Mats Zuccarello also found the back of the net. At one end of the age spectrum, the 22-year-old Rossi is finding his NHL footing and is starting to look like a centre who could kick in 30 goals this season. Zuccarello, meanwhile, is somehow tracking his best NHL campaign — 96 points — at age 36.
Of course, the list of guys who need to turn it on is much longer and there’s some positive news on that front, too. Matt Boldy hit paydirt against Chicago and he’s now got two goals under Hynes after a tough start to the year. Meanwhile, Kirill Kaprizov — otherwise known as the guy who makes everything go — picked up an apple Sunday and has three points in his past two outings. The 26-year-old had been producing at a decent level previously, but nothing like what we’ve come to expect from the dynamic Russian.
Jared Spurgeon played just six games under Evason thanks to a pre-season upper-body ailment and went pointless in those outings with a minus-3 rating. In three games with Hynes, Spurgeon is plus-4 with three assists.
Maybe that’s just him rounding into form, maybe it’s a sign that better times are ahead for both the Wild and their captain.
We should know more about this team soon, as — after taking advantage of middleweights St. Louis and Nashville before beating the bottom-feeding Hawks — the Wild now embark on a four-game Western swing that begins Tuesday in Calgary.
If the good times last through that roadie, this turnaround will start to seem real.
Other Takeaways
• One of the Western Conference wild-card spots Minny (and Edmonton, and Calgary and Nashville…) would like to get its hands on is currently occupied by the Arizona Coyotes, who beat St. Louis — the team holding the other wild-card spot just now — 4-1 on Saturday for their fourth consecutive victory. If you look at Arizona’s underlying numbers for the season, it’s not all flattering info.
That said, there’s a slightly different feel to this club because unlike previous editions of the team, this one has at least a little offensive punch. The Coyotes are right in the middle of the NHL — 15th, to be exact — in goals-per-game at 3.22. That might not seem like a huge compliment, but for a franchise that ranks dead last in goals-per-game over basically a 10-year-span from 2013-14 through last seasons, it’s appreciable progress.
Clayton Keller is an established point-per-game guy at this point and Nick Schmaltz isn’t that far behind. The support crew, though, is growing. Logan Cooley has hit a bit of a rookie wall, but Lawson Crouse — who had two assists versus the Blues — has 10 goals and 13 points in 15 outings since Nov. 1. Matias Maccelli, who finished fourth in Calder voting last year, buried against St. Louis and continues to help drive offence, mostly with his playmaking. Even somebody like Alex Kerfoot is coming around, putting up a 1-2-3 versus St. Louis that gives him eight points in his past seven games after a miserable start to his career in the desert.
These Dogs are a little different than the past and there’s some reason to believe they can remain in the playoff picture all season long.
• Speaking of goals-per-game, the Los Angeles Kings are your current leader with 3.86 per game following Sunday’s 4-1 win over Colorado. The Kings are also setting the NHL pace with just 2.29 goals allowed per outing. Let’s just take a moment and give that a little stick tap.
• The New Jersey Devils, Tampa Bay Lightning and Pittsburgh Penguins all lost this weekend and are all on the outside looking in when it comes to the Eastern Conference playoffs. New Jersey put 47 shots on Kaapo Kahkonen, but Akira Schmid allowed five goals on 17 attempts in a 6-3 loss to San Jose on Friday. Tampa, meanwhile, was throttled 8-1 by Dallas on Saturday. The Bolts have played more games than anybody holding down an Eastern Conference playoff spot and are still not above the cutline at 10-10-5. Pittsburgh got a Jake Guentzel goal with 21 seconds left in the third frame to grab a point versus Philadelphia on Saturday, but still fell in a shootout.
Maybe relief is a winning streak away for all these clubs. Right now, though, there don’t seem to be any easy solutions to their very real problems.
Weekend Warrior
Perhaps Jacob MacDonald should have been a forward his whole life? Through 109 career games — almost exclusively at defence — MacDonald had four NHL goals. However, the 30-year-old has been playing forward for San Jose this season and nearly matched that total in two contests this weekend with a pair of goals versus the Devils on Friday and a third at Madison Square Garden 48 hours later. Sharks fans, maybe this is the reverse Brent Burns!
Red and White Power Rankings
1. Vancouver Canucks (16-8-1) What a nice pre-season pickup Sam Lafferty was for Vancouver. The 28-year-old popped his sixth goal of the season in Saturday’s victory over Calgary and — after posting a career-best 12 tallies last year — is basically on a 20-goal pace in his first season with the Canucks.
2. Toronto Maple Leafs (12-6-4) Saturday’s 4-3 overtime loss to the Boston Bruins represented Toronto’s 11th extra-time contest of the season. That’s an even 50 per cent of the Leafs’ games this year going past three periods. Toronto’s five regulation-time wins outstrip just one team in the league — the Montreal Canadiens — this season.
3. Winnipeg Jets (13-8-2) The Jets did a nice job of halting a three-game losing streak with a 3-1 victory over Chicago on Saturday. Still, Winnipeg could use a little offensive jump as the squad is averaging 1.5 goals-per-game in its past four outings.
4. Edmonton Oilers (9-12-1) It was a rare weekend off for the Oilers, who probably would have like to lace ‘em up given they’re on a four-game winning streak. Edmonton’s lengthy five-day break ends Wednesday with a visit from Carolina that kicks off a six-game homestand.
5. Calgary Flames (10-11-3) About two weeks ago, Yegor Sharangovich played 9:48 in a shootout loss versus the Islanders in which he actually scored the game-tying goal in the third. Since then, he’s averaged over 18 minutes per night and, after recording an assist in Saturday’s defeat at the hands of Vancouver, has five points in his past six outings.
6. Ottawa Senators (9-10-0) After a sluggish start, Drake Batherson has really come around. His goal in Ottawa’s had-to-have-it 2-0 win over Seattle on Saturday marked his ninth point in his past eight contests.
7. Montreal Canadiens (10-11-3) On Saturday, the Canadiens announced Alex Newhook — who was just starting to find his groove with his new team — will be sidelined 10 to 12 weeks with a high-ankle sprain. Montreal continues to be haunted by awful injury luck.
The Week Ahead
• Tampa gets a chance to redeem itself on Monday, hosing the Stars squad that just spanked them. Also, the Pens and Flyers play a return match in Philly that night.
• The Devils visit Vancouver on Tuesday, marking the first time Luke, Jack and Quinn Hughes will all participate in the same NHL game. Honestly, how much hardware is this family going to win in the next 15 years?
Chances are Patrick Kane will debut for the Red Wings that same night. If that’s the case, No. 88’s first game in Red and White will come right in his hometown of Buffalo.
• The Battle of Ontario resumes on Thursday, as the Leafs make their first trip of the season to Ottawa.
• The Rangers visit the Capitals on Saturday for the first meeting of the season between the Metro foes. That, of course, means Peter Laviolette will face the Washington club he coached for the past three seasons for the first time as bench boss of the Blueshirts.
