Minnesota Wild: Three takeaways from strong result versus Vancouver Canucks

Good things happen for the Minnesota Wild when Granlund and Zucker combine

When Jason Zucker and Mikael Granlund are on the ice together, the Minnesota Wild have netted 13 goals at even-strength. On the power-play, you’re looking at 8 goals when they’re together.

Their relative Corsi For (per 60 minutes) when together at even-strength is 10.86; meaning in simple terms, the Minnesota Wild are putting almost eleven more shots on the opponents’ net when the pair on are on the ice together than when they’re not.

Quite simply, the duo are driving each other to be even better than they already are.

This was evident against the Vancouver Canucks; in all situations, they logged 14:09 ice-time together, managing a Corsi For of 51.72% (meaning they were on the positive end of shot attempts). They had eight scoring chances and two goals too.

You need only look at the deftness of the passing between them to realise that there is a chemistry that has developed.

Now granted, in this game it was the power-play that sealed the win, but just because there’s one less opposing player, it doesn’t always mean that the Minnesota Wild are going to benefit.

On this occasion, the combination of Mikael Granlund and Jason Zucker was near unstoppable; the saucer pass cross-ice completely splitting the Vancouver Canucks defense:

It’s not the first time this year that a passing sequence between the pair ended up with the puck in the back of the net and is unlikely to be the last.

Given that Granlund is now on 28 points in 27 games and Zucker on 18 points in 27 games, you’d put safe money on them both sitting high on the point-scoring chart for the Minnesota Wild come season-end.