Effort is there, but Wild's excuses are running out in a mistake-plagued season
There are no moral victories in the NHL, but with the Wild squeezing their sticks into sawdust the past two-and-a-half weeks, there apparently is salvation in one-goal losses wrapped in what might have been.
It’s hard to buy into the spin that this is a good team plagued by poor puck luck and razor-thin margins for error when the self-inflicted wounds pile up night after unfulfilling night.
The effort is there. No one’s questioning Minnesota’s work ethic, will to win or toughness. Just ask Joel Eriksson Ek whenever he’s paroled from the dentist chair.
Desperation is a potent motivator and there is plenty in the air after a 3-2 loss to the Colorado Avalanche Friday night at Xcel Energy Center.
It’s been 18 long days since the Wild tasted victory and the bitterness is soaking in, especially with coach Dean Evason, who sure sounds like a guy coaching for his job despite general manager Bill Guerin giving him plenty of political cover.
There was Evason accusing Avs star Cale Makar of flopping like a fish to draw two penalties, one of which negated a Wild power play with 2:22 remaining in the third.
"I don’t get the diving anymore; I don't get it in today's game," he groused. "It’s a different game. So I guess I gotta stop thinking like that."
At least Evason had the self-awareness of an old man yelling at the clouds in bemoaning modern-day gamesmanship. He also knows the Wild have not earned many breaks or the benefit of the doubt with their penchant for untimely penalties and coughing up the puck at the worst possible times.
Nov 24, 2023; Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA; Colorado Avalanche defenseman Kurtis MacDermid (56) beats Minnesota Wild goalie Filip Gustavsson (32) for a goal during the third period at Xcel Energy Center
© Nick Wosika-USA TODAY Sports
Defenseman Jon Merrill’s egregious turnover at his blue line set the table for regular healthy scratch Kurtis MacDermid’s go-ahead goal – just the 10th in 225 games for the rugged blue liner.
That’s what recent Stanley Cup winners and perennial contenders do. They dagger sloppy teams with unlikely heroes to steal two points on the road.
Predictably the Wild fell behind because of their hollow penalty kill and were wallowing in an 0-2 deficit when their money player finally cashed in.
Kirill Kaprizov had only one even-strength goal this season before bagging one midway through the second period just 34 seconds after the Avs forged a two-goal lead. Kaprizov pounced on a loose puck in the crease off a nifty steal from Marco Rossi.
Kaprizov’s slump buster flushed the Turkey Day tryptophan from the snoozing crowd with the Wild’s first shot since DiMaggio’s hitting streak reached 40. Somehow only 21 minutes felt like 80-plus years.
Moments later, Kaprizov helped Eriksson Ek retrieve one tooth and a piece of another that Ross Colton high sticked out of his grille. Ek handed them to head trainer John Worley on the bench and went out for the power-play faceoff.
"Yeah, I think just half," Kaprizov recounted about his dental assistance. “He forgot. I tried to help him, he said, ‘No, I’ll do it myself,’ and he went to the bench.
“I don’t know," Kaprizov mused through a translator. “I’ve never had a situation like this.”
Brutally amazing, this sport.
Another Colorado penalty gave the Wild a 5-on-3 power play and Eriksson Ek – no pain, no gain – banged in the tying goal just as the two-man advantage expired.
All that momentum turned to ash after Merrill’s gaffe summed up Minnesota’s rapidly declining season – brief stretches of brilliance bracketed by long spells of dormancy.
The Wild are 3-8-4 in their past 15 games, 0-4-2 in their last six and they haven’t won since Nov. 7. They are seven points out of the playoffs and staring up at 12 teams ahead of them in the Western Conference standings.
"That's the way it goes when things aren’t going good, right?” Evason said. “One mistake ends up in our net and it did. We made a mistake. Games are made up of mistakes and sometimes you can get away with it and sometimes you can’t.
"Right now, we can't get out of our own way."
It had been 12 days since the Wild last graced home ice and there was nothing graceful about it. An 8-3 loss against the Dallas Stars that looked even worse, a faceplant so grievous Guerin reportedly called the team on the carpet and peeled paint off the dressing room walls before they departed for Sweden.
A couple of extra-time losses and pedestrian points overseas did little to quell the consuming dread around a stale roster and regressing product that has become difficult to watch let alone invest time and treasure.
