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Dumba Has A Day As Wild Inch Closer To Playoff Berth

March 30, 2018, 11:08 AM ET [2 Comments]
Dan Wallace
Minnesota Wild Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Last night, Matt Dumba established a new Minnesota Wild franchise record for points in a single game by a defenseman, with 4 points (1 goal, 3 assists). Ryan Suter also stretched his franchise best assist mark to 45 and tied his career best and franchise mark in points at 51 with five games still to play.

Dumba is a quite the lightning rod for the Minnesota Wild faithful, in a thoroughly "love, hate" kind of way. He has drawn the ire of fans in the last two OT defeats, but then goes Dumba crazy last night with the huge powerplay goal (which I will come back to later), to turn the game in the Wild's favor after a very lackluster first period.

There is no doubt that Dumba is a very talented young NHL defenseman who is just 23 years old. Defense in the National Hockey League, is the hardest position to play (outside of goaltender). It takes most defenseman several years before they truly become regulars at the NHL level, but Dumba who is in his fifth NHL season at just 23, is merely scraping the surface of what he can become.

Dumba entered the season having scored 30 NHL goals, with exactly half of those coming on the powerplay. So back to Dumba's powerplay goal last night, which by the way,established a new career high in goals for a season with 12, but surprisingly that was his 1st of the season on the man advantage. Now true he has had a couple of goals this season that came just as the Wild powerplays had ended, but the fact is Dumba is becoming a more complete player with each passing game.

Dumba created the tying goal against Boston on Sunday and then made a huge defensive play on Brad Marchand with under a minute remaining in the game to preserve the tie and enable the Wild to gain a valuable point in the standings. Yes, he made a fatal dump in relinquishing control of the puck in overtime, and got beaten up the ice by Marchand on the winning goal, but by all accounts Alex Stalock should have made what appeared to be a routine save on the shot.

Dumba is a huge asset to the Wild team, and for those that call for Fletcher to deal the young defenseman, one needs to just turn and walk away when that topic comes up. Anyone that thinks that you just give up on a franchise type defenseman at 23 with such amazing upside just flat out does not understand the game or the value of talent.

For sure Dumba will confound us again with future gaffes, but in the end the good far outweighs the bad and the fact of the matter is Matt Dumba is maturing and the poor decisions are becoming fewer.

Another fact about Dumba is that he plays with passion, he hates to lose and he has the ability to raise his game when the stakes are at their highest. An even more valuable Dumba attribute, is that when he gets going he has the ability to fire his teammates up with his infectious swagger.

Back to last night's 5-2 Wild win that opened up a six point cushion over the Avalanche, with both teams having five games to play. The win may have appeared solid by looking at the final score but it was anything but.

Dallas came out flying in the first period and took away any space the Wild tried to create. They had an aggressive approach from the start and were rewarded just 2:51 into the game when Jamie Benn took a Tyler Seguin feed and put the Stars up 1-0, with his 29th goal of the season.

The Stars continued to dominate the time of possession forcing the Wild to take consecutive penalties late in the first period giving Dallas what was essentially six straight minutes with the man advantage. The first penalty to Charlie Coyle, the Wild were able to kill, but shortly thereafter, Ryan Murphy took a four minute high stick penalty when he inadvertently caught Antoine Roussel with his stick, drawing blood and thus received a four minute penalty.

With the Wild shorthanded Mikael Granlund took a pass from Suter up the boards and burst out of the Wild zone on a 2 on 1 with Koivu. Granny ripped a wrister past Kari Lehtonen for his 20th of the season . The Wild went on to kill the remainder of the Murphy penalty and headed to the room tied at 1.

In the second period Matt Dumba scored on the Wild's first powerplay of the game and Zach Parise turned a nifty pass from Mikael Granlund into a two goal Wild lead, just 59 seconds later.

With the game being played on NBCSN the mid-game coaches interview with Stars head coach, Ken Hitchcock shortly thereafter. Hitch minced no words when referring to Dumba's goal, calling it a shot from the 3rd row, a glaring indictment of his goaltender, Lehtonen.

Dallas got the game back within a goal when Devin Shore redirected Dan Hamhuis's point shot perfectly off the inside of the post and past Devan Dubnyk, just a minute and 24 seconds after Parise's goal. The game went back and forth from their with Dallas nearly tying the game on more than one occasion.

Jason Zucker scored his 31st of the year, with just 11 seconds remaining in the 2nd with the Wild on the powerplay. That goal gave the Wild back their two goal cushion, but the 3rd period was once again all Stars as they outshot the Wild 13-4 before Zach Parise sealed it with his second of the game and 12 of the season, into the empty net with 18 seconds to play.

It is good to see the Wild win without playing their best hockey, but details are important and they need to keep playing the right way down the stretch heading into the playoffs. They extended their regulation unbeaten streak to seven games (4-0-3), their longest such streak of the season (they had two six game streaks earlier in the season).

They are now gone 7-2-3 since dropping the first two games of the month and will finish March with a winning record, something they were unable to do a year ago, which ultimately led to their early playoff exit.

Dallas will be ready come Saturday, and the tone was set with some late game calling cards sent. For the Wild they have a chance to even their road record which would be an accomplishment for sure after wallowing below the .500 mark on the road all season.

Follow me on Twitter @dwallace17
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