The Wild as a team responded well last night to their performance from Tuesday night's 2-1 loss at the hands of the Jets.
All eyes were squarely focused on Matt Dumba last night to see how he would respond to his benching and then being called out by Wild coach, Bruce Boudreau afterward.
Well Dumba, being the professional that he is, first stood up and took his medicine following Tuesday's game, and then came out last night and played his best game of the season.
Dumba played just under 26 minutes last night, by far the most minutes he has logged in any game this season, and over 2 minutes more than Wild workhorse Ryan Suter had. Now to be fair, had the game been more in question, those numbers would surely have been reversed. Still a good showing for #24 nonetheless.
Boudreau had thought about making Dumba a healthy scratch, but in the end felt that may not be the best message, since he had just sat him for the good majority of the final period Tuesday night.
It is obvious that Dumba must play better, it is also equally as obvious that in order for the Wild to be a factor at all they need Dumba and the talent and skillset that he brings to the table. It is a double edged sword, as the Wild have a clear top four defensemen and the dividing line is firm between those four and numbers 5,6,7, being Mike Reilly, Gustav Olofsson, and Kyle Quincey and not always necessarily in that order.
If you recall there was a game last season in Philadelphia in November, where Dumba was on the ice for all three Flyer goals against, in the 3-2 OT loss. After the game Boudreau called out his defenseman in his post game press conference much like he did Tuesday night. The next night the Wild played in Ottawa and Dumba responded with a strong performance, and potted the OT winner to boot.
Boudreau is pushing the right buttons with Dumba. The kid has talent, but as he himself said last night, he needs to keep his game simple and not try to make something out of nothing all the time. Dumba has some very special qualities that made him the high draft choice (#7 overall 2012) that he was. But none of that matters if he does not play within the structure and do the things that are expected of him in the grand scheme of the Wild game plan.
Lost a bit in the win last night or at least brushed aside may be a better choice of words is the lackluster play of Devan Dubnyk in the third period. I have written many times of how Dubnyk has been susceptible to the leaky goal far too often, and we saw a pretty ugly one again last night.
Those are killers to a team's mental well being when games are on the line. It is often not the number of goals that a goalie allows, but more the timing of those goals or the type of goal that gets scored that can do in a team that is working hard to get one of their own while limiting their opponent's opportunities and looks at their own net.
So last night the softy did not hurt, but the fact remains it is happening with far too much regularity for a goalie that is being trusted to carry the load for a team with high expectations.
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