3 Takeaways From the Wild’s Loss to the Penguins

The Minnesota Wild played host to the Pittsburgh Penguins in an afternoon matinée on Sunday, Mar. 9. They were looking to get back in the winner’s column after losing to the Vancouver Canucks 3-1 on Friday, Mar. 7, which ended their recent road trip. Filip Gustavsson was in the net against the Canucks, but they gave Marc-André Fleury the start against his former team for what was likely the final time. 

The game started out equal but tilted the Penguins’ way. Despite the Wild’s efforts to force it their way, they couldn’t find the back of the net and lost 3-1. They have quite a few things to work on going forward, and we’ll start with their special teams. 

Wild Have to Fix Special Teams

The penalty kill was the Wild’s problem in their recent loss to the Canucks, but against the Penguins, it was their lack of success on the power play that caused them issues. While they scored on the power play to get themselves back in the game late, it should’ve been going earlier. At the beginning of the season, it looked like they were finally getting out of their horrible habit of wasting time looking for the perfect pass. Against the Penguins, they had a four-minute power play and had two shots, with the rest of the time taken up by passing. 

Successful power plays are typically done with a great pass or two, but not devoting the entire power play to finding that pass. The Wild must return to the basics: win the faceoff to their point and take a shot. When they did that, they found the back of the net more often then passing it around the perimeter. It doesn’t always work, but if they don’t take a shot, they can’t score. 

“No, I just thought tonight we slowed it down, the power play. We had to trigger the pucks, I think later in the power plays, in the second in particular, we did and showed the type of chances that we got, but the first time we tried passing it and, that’s not going to work, so in that particular situation it was more process than it was end result,” said head coach John Hynes about his concern level regarding the power play. 

On the bright side, their penalty kill has improved, but it’s still not good enough. They see what they have to do and implement it, but they have to find a way to improve. 

“It doesn’t matter unless the puck stays out of our net,” said Ryan Hartman about whether their penalty kill was getting better despite allowing a goal. They were three seconds away from killing off the penalty, but they must do better. 

Wild’s Lack of Goals

While the special teams have been difficult for the Wild, their lack of scoring has been worse. Everyone is aware they are missing key scorers in Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek but that can’t be an excuse. They were able to find ways to score earlier in the year when these guys were out of the lineup, but now that it’s getting late in the season, they are struggling.