Kaapo Kahkonen earned his first NHL shutout on Monday as he stopped all 26 Vegas shots he faced leading the Wild to the 2-0 victory. The win was the seventh In a row for the Wild rookie goalie and he will look to make it eight straight tonight in the rematch.
Vegas was without Mark Stone, who single handedly torched the Wild with his five assist performance last Monday in Vegas. The Golden Knights were also missing top defenseman, Alex Pietrangelo and both are still listed as day to day ahead of tonight's game as well.
Kevin Fiala scored the winning goal Monday and now has goals in two of the last three after going the previous six without scoring. Fiala is obviously key for the Wild to succeed and finding the right line combinations has not exactly sorted itself out as of yet.
Kaprizov on the other hand has established immediate chemistry with Mats Zuccarello and has rejuvenated Victor Rask and of last Nick Bjugstad, whichever has found their way between the two. Dean Evason needs to find that ying to Fiala's yang.
The never ending saga with the Wild powerplay, which has sunk to record low levels clicking at a less than 7% rate. Absolutely astounding the Wild are scoring as many goals (3.1) per game without the benefits of the man advantage tallies. That can only hold up for so long and this is becoming a broken record day after day discussing the PP futility.
The talent is there obviously, so why is it not translating to the powerplay? If we knew that answer it would be solved. Evason has been trying everything and all sorts of combinations even just rolling the lines as a last resort. That of course is desperation mode for sure because not all the lines can practice the powerplay and run it effectively.
The lack of a true playmaker for the puck to go through is evident as well as the poor win percentage in the faceoff circle. With Fiala and Kaprizov the Wild have snipers now, and Jordan Greenway is establishing himself as a real force using his size and strength to create opportunities.
These three should be providing the Wild with powerplay options that they could have only dreamt about prior to this season. Combine them with the mobile defense and powerplay smarts of Ryan Suter and Jarrod Spurgeon, along with the big shot of Matt Dumba the powerplay has the tools to be successful.
It is the burning question and one that hopefully gets answered soon, in the form of powerplay goals.
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