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Wild's Marco Rossi's late-game heroics salvage point and save PK's bacon: 3 takeaways vs. Utah

11 December 2024Last Update :
Wild's Marco Rossi's late-game heroics salvage point and save PK's bacon: 3 takeaways vs. Utah

SALT LAKE CITY — The Minnesota Wild’s penalty kill reared its ugly head once again, but Marco Rossi’s heroics with the extra attacker also surfaced once again.

In their first trip to Utah’s capital city to play the new Utah Hockey Club, the Wild gave up two power-play goals in the third period to let 2-1 and 3-2 evaporate. But after Utah took a 4-3 lead, Rossi scored on a six-on-five with 43 seconds left for the second time in nine games to force overtime.

The Wild picked up the extra point in the shootout on Matt Boldy’s lone goal for a 5-4 victory.

Clayton Keller scored a pair of power-play goals in the third period. In between, Marcus Johansson responded less than a minute later to give the Wild the lead again.

But after the Wild allowed their second power-play goal, third-pair defenseman Juuso Valimaki scored on his own rebound after Filip Gustavsson was stunned and couldn’t handle his initial shot up high.

The Wild’s penalty kill has been a thorn in their side since the 2022 playoffs when they gave up nine goals to the Dallas Stars. Last season, they finished 30th at 74.5 percent. This season, they have allowed 19 goals on 67 chances (71.6 percent), which also ranks 30th in the NHL.

Marat Khusnutdinov scored his first goal of the season in the second period. Soon after, Kirill Kaprizov followed up with his 178th career goal.

The Wild went 2-1 on the trip and return to open a five-game homestand against the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday night.

Khusnutdinov finally lights the lamp

With the Wild in dire need of a spark and having gotten no shift in momentum when Dylan Guenther’s goal for a 2-0 lead was overturned after John Hynes successfully challenged that Logan Cooley played the puck back into the offensive zone after it came out, Khusnutdinov turned nothing into something by picking off Mikhail Sergachev’s pass to nobody.

Despite not coming since his NHL debut last April 12, Khusnutdinov made it look easy by snapping a 27-game goal drought with his first goal 25 games into the season.

Of 325 NHL forwards who have played at least 235 minutes at five-on-five, Khusnutdinov had the fourth-fewest expected goals per 60 minutes (.24), according to MoneyPuck.

That got the party started for the Wild, who at one point were outshooting Utah 22-6 but trailed 1-0.

Just 36 seconds after his countryman’s goal, Kaprizov scored his 18th goal to give him at least a point in 14 of his past 15 road games.

Kaprizov and Johansson fought through a fence-off at the blue line, and Johansson poked the puck ahead for Kaprizov to skate into.

Wild trying to avoid track meets

With forwards Mats Zuccarello and Joel Eriksson Ek injured and mobile defenseman Jonas Brodin also hurt, the Wild have tweaked their style on the trip.

Hynes alluded that the Wild are trying to avoid track meets, especially against fast teams like Utah, with scoring becoming so difficult with two offensive forwards and a human breakout out of the lineup.

It’s understandable when the Wild’s second through fourth lines started the game like this:

Marcus Foligno–Ryan Hartman–Johansson
Jakub Lauko–Freddy Gaudreau–Yakov Trenin
Devin Shore–Khusnutdinov–Ben Jones

Tuesday was a good example of the Wild controlling much of the play and generating shots but not being able to get a lot of scoring chances out of it. Minnesota had 27 shots through two periods, yet Natural Stat Trick had it charted for five high-danger chances.

In an effort to add a scorer to the second line and spread the wealth, Hynes moved Boldy to the second line in the second period. The result was two goals for the new-look top line of Kaprizov–Rossi–Johansson.

Jiricek sent to Iowa

This was always the plan unless there was an injury, but David Jiricek’s first action with his new organization will indeed come with Iowa. More than a week after the Wild acquired him and a fifth-round pick from the Columbus Blue Jackets for prospect Daemon Hunt and four draft picks, including a first- and second-rounder, Jiricek was swapped with Cameron Crotty to be the Wild’s extra defenseman.

The Wild also planned to start Jiricek in Iowa because he has played only 10 games this season, six of which have come in the NHL. But to start his career in Minnesota, the Wild decided it would be beneficial for him to spend his first week practicing with the coaches and getting to know his eventual teammates on the road.

“It’s important for David to (play),” Hynes said. “We had a good meeting with him. Gave him some things that we’d like to see. But it was important for him to come here, come to a new organization, see, meet everybody here, coaches, the players, spend some time, get a feel — ‘OK, here’s how they practice, here’s how they run meetings. This is the feel of the team, this is how it’s run, these are the expectations of how you practice, of how you play.’

“I think it was really good for him, and self-admittedly, that was nice. But he wants to play, too, and it’s important for him to go down and play, work on some things that we want to see him execute but get back into playing hockey.”

Crotty, 25, was signed as a depth free agent this past summer. It was cool that his first recall with Minnesota came against Utah — the former Coyotes. Crotty was drafted by Arizona in the third round in 2017 and played four years for its AHL affiliate in Tucson. His only NHL game came last season with the Coyotes.

(Photo: Alex Goodlett / Getty Images)

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