Just 1 Game Fixes Wild Woes
SAINT PAUL – It’s amazing what just one game can do to resuscitate the hockey spirits of an entire state from near dormancy. The Minnesota Wild had left their most faithful followers at the lowest ebb of hope, optimism and confidence by finishing the regular season in a five-game losing streak, and extending it to seven by losing the first two games of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in Dallas.
Coming onto the ice to the anticipated artificial noise of an over-hyped public address screamer and a laser light show that sent lights flickering all over their Xcel Energy Center ice sheet, the overwhelming feeling was underwhelming. It all seemed artificial, too artificial to regain the hope of the last few Wild Card entries into the playoffs.
The standing room crowd of 19,038 in the seats had nothing on the capacity crowd in the press box high above. They dropped the puck and almost immediately Patrick Sharp, who swapped his Chicago Blackhawks villain outfit for one from the Dallas Stars for this season, scored at 0:26. Alex Goligowski – a former Grand Rapids and Gopher star defenseman -- fired a hard wrist shot from the top of the left circle, and Sharp deflected it just inside the left post and it was 1-0. The fellow to my immediate left in the press box was just getting settled, and he looked at me.
“If they’re just going to lay down,” he said, “I’m going to get out of here and get to Target Field in time for the last half of the Twins game.”
At 4:10, the same Patrick Sharp gathered in a long pass up the left boards and raced past the retreating defense and scored just inside the right post with a deadly shot and it was 2-0.
The Wild had scored seven goals, total, in their seven-game losing skid. Offensive leaders like Mikko Koivu, Jason Pominville, and Eric Haula, hadn’t scored a playoff goal – a point made everywhere in the media, which showed an amazing grasp of the obvious. The Wild lost 4-0 and 2-1, which means they had only scored one goal in the playoffs. So every player but one had failed to score in the playoffs.
More relevant, Koivu and Pominville had only scored one goal in the last dozen games, and with hustle-leader Zach Parise out with a herniated disc in his back that may require surgery rather than a return to the lineup, and Thomas Vanek still sidelined, every goal-scoring candidate needed to strive to come through. As for the game, every member of the team, and interim coach John Torchetti, all scrambled against that horrible start, trying to get a completely disjointed team to pull together. The players scrapped and battled the rest of the first period, much like a drowning man might flail for oxygen when a lake-full of water was trying to take him down.
In the final minute of the opening period, Haula curled out to center point and wound up for a slapshot. At the last instant, he turned his aim to the right of the net by about 10 feet and cut loose with a shot-pass. Chris Porter, a willing worker who played at North Dakota, was on the inside edge of the right circle, covered by a Dallas defender, but as the puck sailed in, Porter reached his stickblade inside the checker and deflected the puck cleanly into the net.
The goal had to be an uplifting element of the first intermission, and the Wild came out a different team in the second period. The scrambling, disjointed play to contain the high-scoring Stars was exchanged for a confident, unified outfit that suddenly played as if the players all believed they could engage the Stars and beat them. Pominville, wide on the left, flung the puck toward to slot and Haula deflected it ever so slightly but enough to get it through goaltender Kari Lehtonen, and at 6:04 of the second period, the game was tied 2-2. At first, the announcer said Pominville got the goal, but it was later corrected.
In the final minute of the second period, however, Haula’s line struck again. Nico Niederreiter took off up the right boards, turned the corner on the last defender and cut to the net. Lehtonen made a big-time save to block his shot, but Pominville arrived just in time to score with the rebound, and at 19:13, the Wild had taken an improbable 3-2 lead with their third straight goal. In the third period, the Wild got a power play and when Lehtonen blocked a shot, Koivu tried the rebound, had it blocked, but pulled it back and scored with his second try att 6:26, and the lead had grown to 4-2.
Koivu remains an outstanding captain, an unwavering defense-first standout who is one of the cleanest and best checking centermen in the NHL. He can be your best player without scoring, but everyone likes to score. And in the face of mounting criticism about his lack of goal-scoring, Koivu’s goal unleashed a surge of emotion. He leaped for joy and relief, then he raced to the corner of the rink and nearly jumped over the glass.
The Stars got one back, with 6:15 remaining, on a deflected shot through traffic, and with the crowd either roaring, or too afraid to roar, Lehtonen went to the bench, and Pominville plunked a shot into the open net from center ice for the 5-3 final.
It was difficult to say which goal was biggest, with Koivu, Pominville, Haula and Porter each scoring their first playoff goals, and Pominville adding his second, as well. “You’re not going to be able to score every night in the National Hockey League,” said Forchetti. “But Mikko is one of our leaders, and it was great to see him get a goal, Porter has a lot of confidence and speed, and you don’t worry about systems when you can play with such speed.
“Haula gives us so much confidence,” the coach added. “He centers Pominville and Nico Niederreiter, and those three play for each other all the time. They’re always looking for each other, and they talk on the bench to make adjustments that will help them work together better. To me, that’s what you play the game for. Everybody has got to give up more for each other.”
The guy on my left in the press box never did leave, dismal as that Wild start seemed. He missed a big night by the Twins, with Miguel Sano and Byung Ho Park both smacking home runs and the previously underachieving Twins beat Milwaukee 7-4 in a game delayed and then halted early by rain. Back inside Xcel Center, it was only one game, and the teams met for Game 4 Wednesday night – after this was written but before the Reader could be delivered. Still, for that one Tuesday night, and for the next week at least, it’s still hockey season.
