Wild win special teams battle against the NHL's elite: 3 takeaways vs. Hurricanes

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RALEIGH, N.C — No Kirill Kaprizov. No Jared Spurgeon. No Jake Middleton. No problem.

Despite some titans out of their lineup, the Wild left the Twin Cities and dispatched a pair of Eastern Conference titans, themselves, in consecutive games.

Two nights after beating the Washington Capitals in a shootout, the Wild followed that up by defeating the Carolina Hurricanes, 4-0, at Lenovo Center to improve to 13-5-3 in the past 21 meetings.

The Wild, despite being severely banged up, have now won five of their past six games and four of five without Kaprizov, who remains off the ice as he tries to mend a lower-body injury.

Mats Zuccarello scored two goals and an assist, Joel Eriksson Ek scored a power-play goal, Matt Boldy scored a breakaway goal and had two assists and Marco Rossi, who had the tying goal in Washington late, had four assists and four points — both career-highs. Unfortunately for him, Ben Jones had his first NHL goal overturned in the third period when the Canes successfully challenged goalie interference.

Filip Gustavsson made 20 saves for his 18th victory and third shutout of the season. In 27 starts, he’s two off the win total he got last season in 43 starts.

The Wild, who are on the road each weekend in January, return home to face St. Louis on Tuesday night and, for the first time this season, Colorado on Thursday night.

Wild win the special teams battle

The Wild’s penalty kill ineptitude is well-documented at this point. And until their three power-play-goal game against the Predators in the last home game, the Wild’s power play had been in a funk since before Thanksgiving.

On the penalty kill, the Wild entered Saturday’s game ranked 30th overall and 26th on the road. The Canes, on the other hand? They have the best combined special teams in the NHL, ranking sixth on the power play (fifth at home) and first on the penalty kill (second at home).

In fact, in the previous five seasons, Rod Brind’Amour’s penalty kills have ranked first, second, first, third and fourth, respectively.

So when Eriksson Ek took a four-minute high-sticking penalty on Seth Jarvis 92 seconds in to interrupt a strong start by the Wild, there was an ominous feeling.

Instead, the Wild’s penalty killers gave up one total shot to Carolina’s elite power play. Assistant coach Pat Dwyer, the former Canes forward, went with two rotations of forwards with the penalty killer, Eriksson Ek, in the box — Marcus Foligno-Marat Khusnutdinov and Freddy Gaudreau-Yakov Trenin — and defensemen — Jonas Brodin-Brock Faber and Jon Merrill-Zach Bogosian.

They were textbook kills with disruptions in the neutral zone and at Minnesota’s blue line, getting in shooting and passing lanes and terrific boxouts and back pressure highlighted by great sticks by each player.

Overall, the Wild went 4 for 4 on the kill (three shots allowed), then got to the league’s best penalty kill in the second period. After Foligno drew a penalty, Eriksson Ek redirected Zuccarello’s shot for his first goal since Nov. 1 to snap his 17-game drought.

Wild perfect on challenges

For the fifth time this season and the fourth time since Dec. 10, the Wild were successful on a coach’s challenge.

In fact, the Wild are now a perfect 5 for 5 this season.

In the second period, with 5:01 left, Jalen Chatfield appeared to cut Minnesota’s deficit to 2-1 when his rebound of a shot from the right circle caromed behind Gustavsson off the back of defenseman Declan Chisholm.

But Hynes quickly challenged offside, and once again eagle-eyed video coaches Jonas Plumb and T.J. Jindra were correct. Ten seconds earlier, Jackson Blake needed to get off the ice and changed at the bench door well inside the Wild blue line. That meant he was offside once the Canes entered the zone and the goal was quickly wiped out.

Gustavsson lights out on the road

The Wild improved to 15-3-3 on the road with Gustavsson extending his road point streak to nine games (7-0-2) Saturday. Only Devan Dubnyk had longer road point streaks with the Wild. Dubnyk had 11-game point streaks in 2016-17 and 2014-15.

Facing a team that leads the league with 32.2 shots per game, Gustavsson only had to face 20 — and three in the third period. But he did make a couple of fine saves, including two robberies on Jarvis in the first period — the last coming in the waning seconds of the period on a two-on-one with Sebastian Aho.

(Photo: James Guillory / Imagn Images)





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About The Author

Fannie Hogan is a writer and editor who covers lifestyle, books, sports, education, and tech. She's always loved to write—from the time she was a little girl writing stories about talking animals to the day she got her first job as an editor at a lifestyle magazine. Her hobbies include long walks on the beach, running, and taking breaks from work to read a good book.

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