ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Wild made headlines to start the season, going the first 391 minutes, 31 seconds of regulation before facing their first deficit — the second-longest run in NHL history. They entered Friday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning — their first home game since Oct. 12 — having trailed for a league-low 56:28 following a 5-1-1 road trip.
But despite such a strong start to the year, it’s these past two games where you sense they’re maturing and believe they may have something special brewing.
Tuesday night in Pittsburgh, after not playing a home game in 17 days, the Wild fell into a quick 2-0 hole. After being on the road that long, many teams would have one foot on the bus, another on the plane and would have allowed that two-goal deficit to balloon into four or five before getting out of Dodge.
Instead, the Wild stormed back and left Pittsburgh with two points.
Friday night against the Lightning, the Wild looked like they were going to succumb to your typical “first home game after a long road trip” blues. They didn’t have anything close to their “A” game in the first period, relied too much on their goaltender to save the day and gave up the first goal. Then, even after rallying to take a one-goal lead early in the third period, the Wild gave up a tying power-play goal that a year ago would have almost surely led to a disappointing home loss.
This time, though, behind superstar Kirill Kaprizov’s continued brilliance, the Wild responded with a 5-3 victory to open a three-game homestand by improving to 7-1-2.
“It’s resiliency,” defenseman Jake Middleton said. “We’ve been doing that since the start of training camp. We’re one of the hardest-working teams and one of the smartest-working teams, and when you have work ethic behind it and confidence, it doesn’t matter what the score is.”
Every team is going to have off nights, but what the Wild have shown is they have a foundation to rely on. Even Friday, when they were turning too many pucks over and defending more than they wanted, it never felt like they were in danger of letting the game go off the rails.
Part of it was the fact Filip Gustavsson, coming off a rough six-goals-against outing in his last start, displayed immediately that it was a one-off. Just like his first five starts when he allowed just seven goals, Gustavsson swallowed pucks, controlled his rebounds, challenged shooters and was calm under pressure.
That allowed the Wild to discover their game and immediately knot the score at 1-1 in the second period on Joel Eriksson Ek’s fifth goal after Kaprizov’s latest perfect pass.
this pass from Kaprizov to Eriksson Ek… 🥵 pic.twitter.com/KdIhhPaWVY
— Shayna (@hayyyshayyy) November 2, 2024
What it comes down to, coach John Hynes said, is a team that knows how it needs to play and thus can handle adversity during stressful junctures of games because it’s mentally tougher than last year.
“You’re tested, and how are you going to respond to that test?” he said. “I think tonight, you come off the road trip, Tampa’s coming in, they come strong but I thought that our goaltender was solid. I thought our structure was solid. We didn’t really have our legs, but I thought we played … smart. I thought we played structured. We didn’t give up a ton, although we got outshot and they won the territory battle in the first.
“But it wasn’t like we were under major duress. We just had to defend a little bit more than we wanted to. And then I think in the second, we got our legs and then we got to the game we wanted to get to. And that’s what’s going to happen over the course of 82 games. That’s why I think the mindset, the mental toughness part of it, the structure, the attention to detail, those things matter a lot. That’s when you have to rely on your habits, your structure, your mentality, and it may not always be where you’re constantly on the attack, but you got to find ways to manage certain situations.”
It helps that they have Kaprizov, who broke a 2-2 tie with 5:23 left and iced the game with an empty-netter for his third 3-point game in the past four and his seventh consecutive multipoint game.
He leads the NHL with 21 points in 10 games.
Kirill Kaprizov became the first player this season to reach the 20-point mark and just the fifth different since 2000-01 with 21 through his first 10 games of a campaign.#NHLStats: https://t.co/mqPaQgF4s6 pic.twitter.com/EmB61gwTD6
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) November 2, 2024
We’re not used to league scoring leaders in these parts. Brock Faber, who broke a 1-1 tie early in the third period with a short-side whistler, knows that.
“Hey, I’m from Minnesota,” the Maple Grove native cracked. “You guys all see how good he is on the ice, how well he’s playing. Such a complete game, too. He works his ass off day in, day out. And then the player he is off the ice, that’s the coolest part for me and I think the whole team. He’s such a good teammate, he’s such a good leader, such a good person.
“And he’s the best player in the league right now. Actually, cut that out — I don’t want to jinx him. But, no, he deserves it all. Everything he’s doing right now, he’s been the leader of our team, no doubt.”
To Faber’s point, it’s the complete game that makes Kaprizov so special. To be fair, even though he finished plus-4, Friday’s game wasn’t one of Kaprizov’s cleanest. He sent more than his share of blind hope passes to the middle of the Lightning zone that were turned the other way for Tampa Bay transitions.
But when the Wild needed a big play down 1-0, he made it to Eriksson Ek. And when the game was on the line after Jake Guentzel’s tying goal, he scored the winner by driving the net.
KAPRIZOV CRASHES THE NET AND GIVES THE WILD A LATE LEAD 🗣️
That sets a franchise record of SEVEN straight multi-point games for Kirill pic.twitter.com/6SeSMqoykm
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) November 2, 2024
And when the Wild were defending an extra attacker with the Lightning’s net empty, Hynes was comfortable putting Kaprizov on the ice. Some stars in the league who can’t be relied upon don’t get that treatment, yet Kaprizov has now scored three empty net goals out of his seven.
“You’re not just putting him out there because you want to get him an empty net goal,” Hynes said. “He’s proven that he’s committed to play both sides of the puck five-on-five, and he’s been very good in those situations. I think that’s what makes him special. We talk about a one-trick pony, he’s not a one-trick pony. He’s obviously a point guy and a highly talented offensive player, but his commitment to play for the team and his commitment to do the things necessary when he doesn’t have the puck is what’s really impressive to me.”
You can tell Kaprizov is also starting to believe in what this team’s got cooking. It doesn’t get any easier with Toronto and Los Angeles coming into town next before the Wild once again embark on a three-game road trip. But as Kaprizov said: “It’s nice win, but I feel like we play not our hockey in first period. Maybe it was because it was a long trip and something like that. But I feel like second and third period we played better, and Gus huge saves and a couple blocked shots and we scored our goals.”
Far from perfect, yes. A number of hiccups, sure, like losing the special teams battle. But another solid win, thanks in large part to big goals, big saves and gutsy blocked shots from the likes of Marcus Johansson in the first period and Jonas Brodin over and over again in the third.
And that’s all that matters from this maturing team. As Faber called it, a “very imperfect win” but a “more gritty win.”
“We’re playing with a lot more confidence every night, expecting to win every night,” Faber said. “Definitely could have been dropped (this game) last year. But with the start we’ve had, we’ve been sticking together, I think. We’re on the right path.”
(Photo: Nick Wosika / Imagn Images)
