It’s a well-known fact in the NHL that goaltending and special teams often win games, especially the grindy matchups that play out in the postseason. But the Minnesota Wild — despite sitting just three points behind the Vegas Golden Knights for the second wild card spot in the Western Conference — have struggled to find consistency in both goaltending and special teams.
There have been nights when Marc-Andre Fleury and Filip Gustavsson are brick walls, and then there are nights when it seems they struggle to stop anything that floats their way. Gustavsson slammed the door on the Anaheim Ducks Tuesday evening, stopping all 27 shots that came his way. However, Fleury put up a horrid .688 save percentage (SV%) against the Los Angeles Kings Wednesday night, allowing five goals on 16 shots before being pulled.
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The Wild’s special teams haven’t been any more consistent than their goaltending. They have failed to consistently pot goals while on the man advantage, and the club has one of the worst penalty kills in the league. If they intend on making the playoffs this season — however small their chances are — their goaltending and special teams will need to basically make a complete turnaround overnight.
Wild Must Find Consistency on the Power Play
The best teams find ways to score goals while on the power play. The 12 clubs with the best power play percentage in the league are playoff-bound, including the Tampa Bay Lightning, who manage to score goals 28.85 percent of the time they’re on the man advantage.
One element that makes the Lightning’s power play so successful is that they don’t linger around the perimeter, waiting for the opportunity to tee up the perfect shot. When there’s an opening, they take it, and it often pays off for them. And the most pivotal player on the Lightning’s power play is Nikita Kucherov, who plays along the half-boards on his off side. By doing so, the Florida club’s best playmaker has so many options at his disposal.
The Wild’s version of Kucherov on the power play is Mats Zuccarello, who has made a living by being a stellar playmaker. Earlier this month, Minnesota pulled Fleury in overtime against the Nashville Predators in a must-win game. Zuccarello set himself up against the half-boards, Kucherov-like, and used impressive deception to slide the puck across the zone to Matt Boldy who one-timed it for the win.
There’s no question the Wild have shown flashes of brilliance on special teams, but these moments have been few and far between this season. Not only have zone entries been a struggle for the club, but they often linger in the offensive zone too long without making an impactful play. At some point, someone has to buck up and rip a shot on net. Minnesota’s power play tends to wait for the opposition to completely break down before going for it, and it just hasn’t worked out for them this season.
The Wild’s power play scores just 21.52 percent of the time, good enough for 15th place in the league. And while that’s not the worst power play in the world, Minnesota really struggles to kill off penalties, making the need to score on the power play that much more integral to the team’s success.
Penalty Kill Is the Wild’s Achilles Heel
Despite the Wild’s shortcomings in net and on the power play, the most vulnerable element of the club’s play is the penalty kill. Minnesota currently sits with a 74.25 percentage on the penalty kill, which is almost five full percentage points less than the league average. Most teams that find success in the postseason have figured out how to reliably shut down the opposition’s power play, but the Wild just haven’t been able to do so.
Hockey Wilderness reported in early December that head coach John Hynes seemed to be turning the tide in St. Paul. The goaltenders were firing on all cylinders, the five-on-five play was showing signs of life, and the penalty kill was on the rise. However, one question the piece raised was whether Hynes’ initial success was sustainable.
At the start of the season, the Wild’s penalty kill was on pace to be among the worst in NHL history, but Hynes and assistant coach Patrick Dwyer managed to right the ship — at least for a little while. And now it has dwindled to the fourth-worst in the league, only beating out the Anaheim Ducks, Ottawa Senators, and New York Islanders up to this point in the season. Granted, the Wild have lost key components of their penalty kill to injuries — most notably defenseman and captain Jared Spurgeon and first-line centerman Joel Eriksson Ek. Ironically, both Spurgeon and Eriksson Ek are also key elements to the club’s power play.
Wild Have No Margin for Error
The Wild sit five points out of the second wild card spot in the Western Conference. The Vegas Golden Knights currently occupy the slot, and the St. Louis Blues are also ahead of Minnesota in the race. An optimist might say that the Wild are injured but not completely dead yet, but it’s difficult to see a path to the postseason for this group.
The silver lining is that it appears the team has not yet lost hope of a final push.
“It’s tough, but we’ve been clawing and we’re right there,” defenseman Zach Bogosian said. “We can’t lose belief. We’ve played some good hockey lately, we’ve been grinding. I don’t know how much you get done when you’re frustrated. Playing frustrated can lead to a lot of bad things. If you look at the bigger picture, what we’ve done the last few games, racking up points in consecutive games, taking positives every game at this time during the year is very crucial. What happened (Wednesday) happened, but you can’t feel bad for yourself or hang your head. We’re right there” (from ‘Wild’s margin for error in playoff chase all but gone after blowout loss to Kings,’ The Athletic, 3/21/24).