PHILADELPHIA — Everything about Saturday felt like a trap.
The Minnesota Wild, historically, aren’t usually in sync during matinees. There’s a reason why skilled players like Kirill Kaprizov, Mats Zuccarello and Matt Boldy never skip a pregame skate. To be at their best, they feel like they need to get their hands and legs tuned up in the morning by playing with the puck.
The Wild, also historically, are as sloppy inside Wells Fargo Center as a cheesy, greasy, slobbery Philly cheesesteak. That often leads to frantic games and ugly defeats — 13 in 18 all-time visits.
But most of all, this was historically so, so, so NHL: A Wild team that hadn’t lost in regulation in seven games, was statistically the best defensive team in the NHL and starting a goalie that had allowed seven goals in five starts vs. a Flyers team that had lost six in a row since an opening-night win in Vancouver, were statistically the worst defensive team in the NHL and had been using two goalies that were hemorrhaging goals.
So why were the Wild only a tiny favorite over the Flyers?
Because the Vegas books knew this was a total trap game.
And in the end, even though the Wild controlled much of the first 45 minutes of this game, they were handed their first regulation loss and saw their season-opening point streak stopped dead in its tracks at seven games during a hard-to-figure-out-what-even-happened 7-5 loss to the Flyers.
“It was a little bit of a weird game,” coach John Hynes said. “We had some mistakes early, and then I thought we took the game over for a long period of time, and obviously battled back, battled back. … So (it will) take a little bit of time to digest it.”
The one thing Hynes hesitated to say is the one thing that was easy to digest: Filip Gustavsson had his first off night of the season.
The Wild had been riding the ‘Gus Bus’ for much of this season’s first month and he carried a 4-0-1 record with a 1.40 goals-against average and .952 save percentage into Saturday’s game. Well, just like last season when he allowed six goals in Philly, Gustavsson was torn apart once more.
He gave up two goals on the first three shots he faced, and in a game where the Wild went 30 minutes without giving up a legit shot after those two goals, Gustavsson still gave up four goals on the first 10 shots he saw and six on 22 shots overall.
The Wild rallied from a 2-0 deficit to take a 4-3 lead early in the third period on two goals by Marcus Foligno and one each by Eriksson Ek and Brock Faber in a 7:24 span between the second and third periods.
But Gustavsson couldn’t lock it down.
Less than three minutes after Foligno’s second goal, Travis Konecny scored on a power play, then Sean Couturier scored the second of his three goals 3 ½ minutes later.
Jake Middleton tied the score at 5-5 on a dribbler with 6:32 left, but on a late four-on-two rush in which Boldy lost his stick, the Flyers went direct to the net with some terrific passing. Gustavsson served up a rebound and Rasmus Ristolainen shoveled in the winner with 2:24 to go.
RASMUS RISTOLAINEN IN FRONT!!!
THE #FLYERS GO UP 6-5 LATE IN THE THIRD!!! pic.twitter.com/jsvrc8yz1e
— Flyers Nation (@FlyersNation) October 26, 2024
“I think Gus made the first stop, and then it was another rebound sitting right in the slot there,” Hynes said. “And that’s tough because obviously Bolds loses the stick, and then they got four guys basically right around the net. So, it bounces the right way for them in that situation, then they put the puck in the net.
“If Gus makes that first save and then kicks it to the corner, then it’s probably not in the net. But I think in a game like that, that’s usually what’s going to happen when the goals are going in like that, either way. Unfortunately for them, they got it.”
Couturier and Konecny became the 9th and 10th players to score five points in a game against the Wild and became the first Flyers teammates to register at least five points in the same regular season game since 2007.
You could see early Gustavsson wasn’t on top of his game. He kicked out a perfect rebound on Couturier’s first goal. Then after a defensive breakdown, he was way off his angle on Nick Seeler’s shot for a 2-0 lead.
NICK SEELER WITH A SNIPE!!!
2-0 #FLYERS!!! pic.twitter.com/jd0KZ3SKwt
— Flyers Nation (@FlyersNation) October 26, 2024
But then the Wild took over and you knew the floodgates would open if they could ever execute. It was an aggravating game for them because there were so many examples of Kaprizov, Zuccarello, Boldy and Faber fanning on passes or scoring chances. Players also missed the net on point-blank chances.
But once Kaprizov set up Faber’s first of the season, the Wild would put together a furious comeback and ultimately take the lead.
It felt like another win and an eight-game point streak was inevitable. Until it wasn’t.
Foligno wondered if the seven-game, 17-day road trip caught up to them in the third period. They had to rally to beat the Lightning on Thursday night, then flew to Philly after the game getting into town in the wee hours of Friday morning. They still bussed over the bridge to New Jersey to practice Friday because of the afternoon game the next day.
Foligno felt they just didn’t have the energy needed to close Saturday’s game strong and paid for some mental breakdowns on the late goals.
“You don’t want to make excuses but just a little bit fatigued honestly,” he said. “I thought for the most part we got to our game maybe besides the first two. Just a missed assignment and really a point-blank shot. We didn’t really give them (many) Grade-As in this game.
“Loved our second period. You’d like to see maybe a little bit more of a gap on our end, but, yeah, I just thought we needed a little bit more energy in the third and we lost it and didn’t really have it in waves like we did in the second. They capitalized and kudos to them.”
Added Faber when asked if the road trip caught up to them, “Could be, right? It’s a lot of travel, especially to start the season. Your bodies are still adapting to playing again, to getting back into the groove of things and traveling. It gets difficult. I thought for the most part we were just OK tonight. We weren’t as good as we should have been.
“Obviously, it cost us. Two days in Pittsburgh should definitely help us recover and hopefully end the trip on (a) high note.”
Foligno was not pleased that with 2:03 to go, the Wild’s fifth-ranked 30.8 percent power play didn’t get a chance to tie the score at 6-6.
Lifelong agitator Garnet Hathaway chopped Zuccarello to the ice for what was going to be a Wild power play. Zuccarello lost his cool and got into a major league scrum where several players converged, including Hathaway who grabbed Eriksson Ek and went to town on his recently broken nose.
But instead of giving Hathaway a second penalty, the refs chose to give only Zuccarello a minor for starting the melee and thus nullified the original power play.
Foligno called it “bulls—.”
Earlier in the game, Hathaway also targeted Eriksson Ek with an elbow to the nose. The Wild were on the power play at the time and Hathaway was whistled for a minor. Eriksson Ek couldn’t believe it wasn’t a major and said the referee later told him he doesn’t like calling majors when a team is already on a power play.
Regardless, none of this is why the Wild lost.
They were just too sloppy defensively at times. For the third time this season and the second time on a delayed penalty, they gave up a five-on-six goal on a beautiful shot by Calder Trophy contender Matvei Michkov. Jonas Brodin, who was coming off a terrific game in Tampa Bay, had some tough moments throughout that led to goals. Boldy had a career-high nine shots but was minus-3 and part of a line with Marcus Johansson and Eriksson Ek that was pinned in its zone for a lot of its third-period shifts.
And Gustavsson was atypically bad.
In the end, on a day legendary racecar driver Mario Andretti read the starting lineup card in the Wild locker room, the Flyers sped through the Wild in the final 15 minutes of the third period.
The Wild flew to Pittsburgh after the game for three off-nights before Tuesday’s game against the Penguins ends this seemingly endless road trip.
They’ll take Sunday off, practice Monday and Marc-Andre Fleury will make his final start of his 21st career back in the city where his Hall of Fame career began in 2003.
If that was fatigue that caught up to them in the third period, they’ll have plenty of time to rest up, reenergize and repair some of the leaky parts of their game that jumped to the forefront for the first time this season Saturday.
But if they can win in Pittsburgh and finish this road trip with a 5-1-1 mark, anybody within the organization and in their fan base would have taken that after their last home game way back on Oct. 12.
“I like a lot of things about the group, obviously the points, the wins. But to me, it’s really the process of how we’ve gone about it,” Hynes said. “We’ve gotten a lot of points. We’ve done well. I think our game’s come, our identity is really starting to show. I think our mental toughness is there. A lot of the things that we talked about coming into camp, coming through, and then getting tested, almost 10 games in, we’ve had a lot of different situations.
“Tonight, it didn’t go our way, and now I’m looking forward to a new, … different challenge for us. It’s the first game where you didn’t get points, you lost in regulation. So now we have an opportunity to respond. That’s another ‘next test’ for us, so I’m looking forward for the next couple days, and getting after it on Tuesday.”
(Photo: Kyle Ross / Imagn Images)
