Tonight Ryan Reaves will get back into the Wild lineup after being a healthy scratch against New Jersey on Saturday. It will be the tough winger's 800th NHL game, which says a lot about the player and character that is Ryan Reaves.
Reaves has been a big part of winning organizations since he made his NHL debut with St. Louis back in the 2010-11 NHL season. He has made stops in Pittsburgh, Vegas and New York before coming to the Wild in a trade earlier this season.
His on ice presence is intimidating to opponents while his off-ice leadership qualities show through from every teammate that has laced them up with the big man from Winnipeg. Reaves knows his role and he plays it very well. He rarely takes a bad penalty and is accountable on the ice in his limited role.
Sam Steel has gone from the Wild "penthouse" centering Kirill Kaprizov to the 2nd line, to the 4th line to the press box in the last week. Steel is only one of the many Wild forwards struggling to score, but his play of late has warranted the latest demotion.
Saturday the Wild played a very good firts 20 minutes and actually began period two with a powerplay. The middle frame has been the team's undoing of late and it was again against the Devils. That opening man advantage was about as bad as it could have been and ultimately Joel Eriksson Ek had to take a penalty to break up a Devils scoring opportunity.
Tomas Tatar scored twice in a three minute span to erase the Wild 1-0 lead and give the Devils the lead. That was it for the scoring until Ryan Hartman was credited with his sixth goal of the season. I say credited as Hartman scored one the hard way taking a Matt Dumba slapshot off the chest and in past Devils goalie Vitek Vanicek.
This one needed extra time and following a very entertaining 3-on-3 overtime, the game would be decided in a shootout. Filip Gustavsson was the star of the game for the Wild making big saves late in the third period and in overtime, before stopping both Devils shootout attempts by Tatar and Jesper Bratt.
Gustavsson gets the nod again tonight when the Wild host the Panthers. Florida had their recent three game win streak snapped Saturday when they lost to Colorado at home. That loss came on the heels of a couple wins that appeared to have gotten the Panthers back on course looking more like the team that captured the Presidents Trophy a year ago.
An overtime win over this year's top squad Boston followed by a sound thrashing of their cross state rivals the Lightning and then a solid 4-1 victory over San Jose got the Panthers up to fourth in the Atlantic Division. They are still on the outside of the playoff picture looking in and in a dog fight for one of the wild card spots as the top six in the Eastern Conference appear all but locked up.
For the Wild they are in a similar position with 30 games reamining including tonight's tilt, they need to start stringing together games where they collect points and in more cases than not it must be two points that they garner.
Hopefully that Ryan Hartman goal was they bounce that the offense needed to get things jump started as their 5-on-5 scoring has been abysmal to say the least. Sometimes all it takes is simplifying the game and that is all the Wild really can hope for. They are not loaded with gifted offensive players beyond the obvious Kaprizov, Mats Zuccarello, and Matt Boldy.
There were a couple of instances on Saturday where both Kaprizov and Zuccarello were guilty of the too cute play once in the third period and the other in overtime. Fortunately the extra point on Saturday was to an Eastern Conference opponent, but plays like that can be costly when every point is magnified and regulation and overtime wins are key tie breakers.
The trade deadline is less than three weeks away and now that Vladimir Tarasenko has been dealt to the Rangers, eyes have shifted to Patrick Kane to see where the future Hall of Famer will land. Surprisingly the Wild have been linked to Kane along with a handful of others of course.
Kane? on the Wild? Not sure how that works financially even with Chicago eating a ton of his $10M and are the Wild in a position where one player like Kane can catapult them to a significant playoff run?
I don't see it any way you slice it, this to me seems far fetched to say the very least.
Rest assured Bill Guerin is in the game to win the game, however, he is also a realist with an eye on today as well as next year and beyond.
In the division, Chicago and now St. Louis have already begun the process of returning to contenders. That has to be a bit worrysome as both have celebrated with champagne from the ultimate prize.
Does Guerin really want to part with some of his prized prospects to a division rival, no less, for nothing more than a rental? I don't think so.
It's always Hockey Day in The State of Hockey!