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How Wild fell in shootout despite late rally without Kirill Kaprizov: 3 takeaways

24 November 2024Last Update :
How Wild fell in shootout despite late rally without Kirill Kaprizov: 3 takeaways

CALGARY — Playing without Kirill Kaprizov due to a lower-body injury, the Minnesota Wild’s offense was missing in action for much of Saturday afternoon’s game against the stingy Calgary Flames.

Until it wasn’t.

Brock Faber scored a power-play goal with 3:59 left, then Marco Rossi scored as the extra attacker on a six-on-five with 34 seconds left in regulation to send the game into overtime before the Flames took a 4-3 win in a five-round shootout.

Freddy Gaudreau opened the shootout with a goal, but Justin Kirkland extended the shootout and Rasmus Andersson won it.

Marcus Johansson also scored for the Wild. The Flames won for the fourth time in five games, while the Wild went 2-0-1 on their three-game trip.

The Wild flew home after the game, will take Sunday off and host the Jets on Monday night. The big worry is how serious Kaprizov’s injury is. He’ll be examined by Wild doctors Sunday and the Wild will learn more.

Kaprizov, Khusnutdinov trickle-down effect

With Kaprizov and Marat Khusnutdinov (lower body) hurt, it scrambled the lineup dramatically.

Johansson took Kaprizov’s spot on the top line with Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy. Marcus Foligno was elevated to play with Rossi and Ryan Hartman. Jakub Lauko was elevated to play with Gaudreau and Yakov Trenin and the Wild unveiled an all-Iowa fourth line of Devin Shore-Ben Jones-Travis Boyd.

Boyd, a native of Hopkins, Minn., was making his Wild debut and playing for the 297th time in his NHL career. Boyd became the 35th Minnesota-born player to suit up for the Wild.

The Kaprizov loss coupled with Zuccarello caused revamped power-play units. For the first time in his career, Rossi skated on the top unit with Boldy, Eriksson Ek, Hartman and Faber. The second unit had to be really reshaped and consisted of Johansson, Foligno, Gaudreau, Boyd and Jared Spurgeon.

The Wild went 1 for 3 on the power play and trimmed the deficit to 3-2 with 3:59 left on Faber’s goal for Minnesota’s fourth power play in their past 33 chances.

Wild penalty kill reverts to bad

The penalty kill, which had only given up one power-play goal in their past 20 chances, went 0 for 2, including the Flames’ tie-breaking second goal.

The Flames’ first power play came on a questionable call by referee Ghislain Hebert. Despite his partner Jordan Samuels-Thomas standing five feet away behind the net as Lauko went for a puck that was being played by Dan Vladar, Hebert decided to call a goalie interference penalty on Lauko from 100 feet away after Vladar fell easily.

Jonas Brodin decided to eat a puck rather than work it up the wall, Trenin lost a board battle and fell, the Flames were then able to set up and Nazem Kadri set up Martin Pospisil for a goalmouth tap-in with 31 seconds left in the second.

The Flames then added a big insurance goal early in the third after Gaudreau was beaten cleanly on a draw. After some nifty passing, Yegor Sharangovich sent a rocket of a shot past Filip Gustavsson from between the circles for a 3-1 lead.

The Wild had already been frustrated with Hebert. In Edmonton, the same ref didn’t call the kneeing/tripping penalty against Kaprizov or Boldy being tripped on a delayed penalty. In Calgary, not long before the call on Lauko, he watched Hartman get cross-checked three times, including once in the throat, by MacKenzie Weegar. He didn’t call anything until Boldy came to Hartman’s defense. He then called a dubious roughing penalty on Boldy to even out a roughing minor on Weegar.

Johansson starting to produce

With Kaprizov hurt, Johansson got a chance to play on the top line and scored for a second straight game.

After Boldy stripped Andersson of the puck in the neutral zone, Johansson completed a two-on-one with a one-timer from the right circle to tie the game at 1-1 just 63 seconds after the Flames took a 1-0 lead. Johansson now has a point in four of his past five games after one goal and two assists in his first 14.

Johansson had eight of the Wild’s 23 shots.

(Photo: Brett Holmes / Imagn Images)

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