Minnesota Wild: Roster Hopefuls Give Good Effort in Dallas
The Minnesota Wild reverted to giving away games in the last half of the third period, and lost their fourth of the preseason. We’re here to find our top 3 performers of the game.
The Minnesota Wild sent a lineup full of 3rd and 4th line players, most battling for a roster spot, to face the Dallas Stars top line. Somewhat surprisingly, they held their own well in hostile territory.
Dallas walked away with a 5-3 win when all was said and done, but 3 goals by players playing against Dallas’s top 4 defense and a heavy dose of their Top 6 forwards is a credit to how hard they fought.
Minnesota gave up 2 goals in 90 seconds at the start of the 2nd period to make it 3-1, and it appeared the rout was on. But they dug their heels in, holding firm and battling back to tie it at 3 early in the 3rd period.
That tie lasted not quite 7 minutes, and then Dallas did the same thing as we saw last week. They scored 2 more goals in 92 seconds to regain the 2 goal lead.
The Wild fought hard to come back again, but it was too little too late. Devan Dubnyk faced a ton of shots in this one (30 through 2 periods), and will have to find a way to get a W soon.
Finding the top individual performances from this one was hindered by the fact the game was not televised in any way, so I was left to infer from the radio broadcast. What can I say, I work with what I’m given.
The biggest positive I take away from this game is definitely that Miro Heiskanen was kept off the score sheet. That’s a positive since I assume we’ll be seeing a lot of him this year.
The next game in Winnipeg is being predicted as the dress rehearsal for opening night. Expect to see the expected starting roster (sans Suter) all on the ice for that one.
After every Minnesota Wild game I’m going to give my Top 3 Wild Performers of the game, and an honorary mention to the top performer of our opponent. I greatly appreciate any feedback you have on these recaps, and anything you’d like to see from them in the future.
Dallas Stars’ Jamie Benn
The KFAN radio broadcast named Roope Hintz as their #1 star in this game, and most of the social media chatter I saw suggested he was making an impression on everyone.
I saw things a little differently though, and I have to give my honorary mention for Dallas to their captain, Jamie Benn. The new “wild killer” was the cog who made Hintz’s performance possible at all.
Many seem to have forgotten that Hintz was also on the ice for the game in St.Paul last week, and was actually on the ice for the Wild’s only goal in that game.
Benn is a superstar that can make players look better beside him, and this is a clear case of him elevating the game of Hintz by proximity.
Jamie Benn finished with 2 goals on a team leading 7 shots on goal. His linemate Hintz had a third, together their line provided three-fifths of the Stars offensive output and did it all while playing against 4th liners. (Coyle line was not scored against)
Take that as you will, but I see it that an NHL top line rarely sees prime minutes against any opponent’s bottom line. No reason to panic, we went to Dallas with a bottom end roster and lost, but didn’t play like losers.
If we flip this around, for as good as Jamie Benn was in this game it was also his line that was on the ice for the first Minnesota Wild goal (and only even strength goal).
If a 4th line can score against Benn, imagine what we could have seen had the full lineup been dressed.
Minnesota Wild Power Play
I’ve been giving the Minnesota power play a hard time all preseason for their ineptitude. They broke the drought in Dallas, but had a ton of other opportunities in that game that it should have been more than one.
Well in this one I have to give it to the powerplay, because with few individual performances that really stood out to me the performance of the powerplay was the main reason the Wild were in this game still in the 3rd period.
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What makes it even more impressive is that Charlie Coyle is the only player in the lineup who will expect to see power play time during the regular season.
The first unit got the first PPG to close the gap in the 2nd period. It was Joel Eriksson Ek, Jordan Greenway, and Coyle being joined by Ryan Murphy. Eriksson Ek got the goal from Greenway, and gives a reason to maybe consider one or both of them on the regular season units
The second unit got their goal on a scramble play from a nullified faceoff, but a goal is a goal and doesn’t matter how you get it. Sam Anas, Justin Kloos, and Kyle Rau were joined on that unit by Matt Read. Ryan Murphy played most PP minutes when he was fresh.
Nobody seemed to know what was going on, and somehow the puck ended up in the net. There’s no video evidence of the game, so no way for me to say what happened, but Rau was credited with the PPG and the power play went 2 for 4 on the day.
The top units of the Staal Line and Koivu Line have struggled to get sustained pressure through most of the preseason so far, outside of the Colorado game. If they continue to struggle perhaps looking for some help on the other lines will be a spark to get the unit rolling.
Nick Seeler
Nick Seeler has had a great preseason to this point, and Monday was not an exception. He was the only player on the team to finish the game with a positive plus/minus, and was not on the ice for any of the 5 goals against.
He and Pateryn did not play a ton of minutes, as Boudreau opted to use those D still fighting for spots more in this matchup, but they were both solid when they were out together.
Seeler is locked in on the 5/6 pairing for Minnesota, and probably should have been used more against Benn to shut him down but I understand why he wasn’t.
Why should Bruce put out his shutdown pairing in a game that doesn’t matter, and allow the opposition a chance to feel them out and find if there are any holes in their game?
Instead, Seeler was used more against the lower lines to allow him to continue his development and shutdown the Dallas hopefuls from being able to make any difference in the game.
I feel like when the regular season starts he will be the type to float quietly under the radar of major media outlets, but should earn a lot more attention from the offensive game planners around the NHL.
His skill set is growing game by game, and he already looks like an NHL veteran as a 25 year old rookie. He is still technically a rookie, as he only played 22 games last year. Don’t be surprised if he is in the talks as best rookie D at the end of the year.
Matt Read
Matt Read gets his place in the Top 3 for this game largely in part because of his goal, but also for what that goal means in regards to his bid to secure a position on the Minnesota Wild’s opening day roster.
Read followed up his first preseason goal from the 7-0 win against Colorado, with another to tie the game Monday late in the 1st period. The goal puts him as the front runner to secure one of the final forward positions on the Wild’s 4th line.
Read was slightly exposed playing against the Dallas top line for a large portion of this night as he was on the ice for 4 of the goals against, including all 3 by the Benn/Hintz line. The bright side to that, is that he was always on the ice for 2 of the goals for, and if he can score while playing against an opposing top line then he should be able to score more when he’s playing in a 4th line role.
He spent most of the game on the opposite wing from Marcus Foligno, and the pair were centered by both Eric Fehr and Matt Hendricks at diferent points in the game. If I were a betting man, I’d say that Fehr is the more likely to open the season with these 2 wingers.
The other solid part of Read’s game was that he got to spend a large portion of the power play on the ice. This is an area Read probably won’t see much of when regular season starts, but he didn’t seem out of place in his role there.
His biggest detraction is that he only played 10 seconds shorthanded, and was scored against in that 10 second period. As a 4th line player, usually your best hope of seeing any special teams action would be on the PK. That’s an area Read needs to work on if he hopes to stick with the team long term.
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Read is a former 20 goal scorer at the NHL level, so he has proven he can get it done at the NHL level. All signs point towards him getting another chance to regain his past glories, hopefully for him these preseason games are a sign of things to come. If they are, the Minnesota Wild could have found another free agency bargain!