ST. PAUL, Minn. — The night had already gone badly enough for the Minnesota Wild when it went right to downright scary.
The Florida Panthers were finishing up a 6-1 thumping of Minnesota, the game in the final moments when star defenseman Brock Faber crumpled to the ice after taking an Eetu Luostarinen wrist shot to the neck area.
Faber got up quickly but dropped his gloves and sprinted off the ice and down the tunnel, grabbing his throat as he did so. It worried teammates, staff and the collective 17,423 at Xcel Energy Center.
Faber’s overall health is more important than the hockey portion of this. But losing the franchise defenseman for any length of time would be a significant blow to a Wild team already reeling, having lost four of their last six.
“There’s always concern,” coach John Hynes said. “For him to still be evaluated, there’s obviously a concern for him. First and foremost, that he is OK because I don’t have that knowledge now.”
Brock Faber takes a shot up high and bolts off the ice immediately#mnwild pic.twitter.com/AXEMSb8gfw
— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) December 19, 2024
The Wild, already without top goalie Filip Gustavsson, Joel Eriksson Ek, Jake Middleton, not to mention Yakov Trenin and Jakub Lauko, are certainly feeling the effects of those injuries. The fact it took Game 32 for Minnesota to have its first back-to-back regulation losses is pretty remarkable.
But the team isn’t using injuries as an excuse for the funk they’re in right now. Nor should they. Though this is the first major gut check of a season that has started out special but could end up in danger of spiraling.
“No season is perfect, right?” said Marc-Andre Fleury, the future Hall of Famer. “Right now, we’re seeing a little adversity. We’ve just go to find a way through, find a way out of out and on the right track.”
Fleury was saddled with six goals in this rout, but it wouldn’t be fair to put it on him. He was really good early on, making three big saves in the opening seven minutes to where it could already have been out of hand. When it was still 2-1 in the second, Fleury robbed Tomas Nosek on a breakaway. As much as the box score reads as a blowout, this game was within reach for the Wild with seven minutes left in the second.
Minnesota had won a coach’s challenge for offsides — making them 3-for-3 on the season — to keep it a one-goal game. But a couple of minutes later is where the game turned, with a couple of “critical mistakes,” as Hynes called them, symbolic of what has ailed the team recently. Faber jumped into a rush with Marcus Johansson in the Panthers zone. The scoring opportunity fizzled out and Florida went on a quick counterattack.
It looked like Ryan Hartman was supposed to cover for Faber when the Calder Trophy finalist jumped up. But Hartman aggressively pinched forward, leading to the odd-man rush the other way. And the Wild forwards, including Hartman, didn’t get back fast enough to thwart what turned into the first of two Matthew Tkachuk goals.
Matthew Tkachuk doubles Florida’s lead to 2 and then mayhem breaks loose!#TimeToHunt pic.twitter.com/ZcEyUPG2cv
— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) December 19, 2024
“I thought our effort back from that miscue needed to be better,” Hynes said.
With the injury to Eriksson Ek, Hartman was thrust into a second-line role with Matt Boldy and Johansson. Hartman isn’t the only Minnesota player who needs to step up in this stretch, but he’s got zero goals in his last 13 games and one in his last 20. His last point was Nov. 20. The defensive errors on plays like that most likely bother coaches more than the point totals. Later in the game, Hartman was on the third line.
“When he’s playing his best hockey, he’s moving his feet, he’s competing on the puck,” Hynes said of Hartman. “Today’s game is a skating game. And if you want to be able to produce offensively, you’ve got to skate. You’ve got to play with pace. You’ve got to be a willing skater, to be on pucks, you’ve got to get over pucks. When you have the opportunity to make plays, you’ve got to make them. Those are things for him and anybody else.
“If you’re going to be counted on to play a big role and to be counted on to produce, you have to play with pace.”
There were enough mistakes to go around in this one. Boldy’s slashing penalty late in the second led to a Tkachuk power-play goal that made it 4-1. Ben Jones, one of the several forwards filling in from AHL Iowa, turned what looked like a simple stretch pass from Marcus Foligno into a costly turnover. Jones, trying to collect the pass at the Panthers blueline, tripped and fell. Florida went up the ice and scored on a Mackie Samoskevich wrist shot.
THE KID IS ALRIGHT! pic.twitter.com/Qr7YqJNBlb
— Florida Panthers (@FlaPanthers) December 19, 2024
The Wild aren’t getting much offense lately other than the top line of Kirill Kaprizov, Marco Rossi and Mats Zuccarello (Rossi scored Minnesota’s only goal). The second line struggled on Wednesday.
The bottom six hasn’t produced much, with the absences of Yakov Trenin and Jakub Lauko being felt (Trenin could return Friday). Is it fair to expect the Wild to still play at the level they did early in the season while being short-handed?
“Yes, to answer your question,” Hynes said. “You need to be able to find ways to win games. We have capable players. We need some guys to step up, that’s for sure. When you get those opportunities. When you have a healthy team, certain guys play in certain roles. But usually, guys want more. Now you have the opportunity. We need a complete team effort with everybody playing to their max capability. Then you play with strong structure. Right now, coming into Friday, we’ve got to get the team to play at max capacity.”
Whether the Wild get Gustavsson back on Friday, or Saturday in Winnipeg, remains to be seen. He did do some on-ice work with Eriksson Ek on Wednesday morning, but with no practice scheduled Thursday, it’d be hard to see him playing Friday against Utah. They certainly don’t want to rush Gustavsson back from his lower-body injury and risk losing him for any length of time, as Gustavsson has been a huge catalyst for the strong start.
No matter who is in net, Fleury or rookie Jesper Wallstedt, the guys in front of them have to be better. You always learn more about teams during the bad times than the good ones, and this is one of those stretches that could go a long way in deciding where the Wild end up.
“I think you look back at the years and different teams that have won or have winning cultures, they certainly don’t do it by trying to put up five or six goals a night,” said veteran defenseman Zach Bogosian, who won a Stanley Cup with Tampa Bay.
“They do it by playing sound defensively, which is what we have, Bogosian said. “We believe in our structure and that’s the foundation of what makes us drive, what makes us tick. We have enough offensive talent where we’re going to score goals. It’s continuing to play good defense and make sure we’re eliminating the other team as much as possible.”
(Photo of Marc-Andre Fleury defending the goal against Aleksander Barkov: Brad Rempel / Imagn Images)
