Wild Game Day 2017-18 Stanley Cup Playoffs Round 1 Game 2
Series: Jets Lead (1-0)
Wild Regular Season Record (45-26-11 101 pts) 3rd Place Central Division, 4th Place Western Conference Home Record (27-6-8) Road Record (18-20-3)
Winnipeg Jets Regular Season Record (52-20-10 114 pts) 2nd Place Central Division, 2nd Place Western Conference Home Record (32-7-2) Road Record (20-13-8)
All-Time Record: Wild/Jets vs. Winnipeg Jets 18-17-1 @ Home 10-7-1 @ Winnipeg/Atlanta 8-10-0
All Time Playoff Record: Wild vs Jets 1st postseason meeting between Wild and Jets
Opponent: Winnipeg Jets (52-20-10 114 pts) Road Record (20-13-8)
Site: Bell MTS Place, Winnipeg, MB
Time: 6:30PM CT
TV: Fox Sports North (FSN), NBC (NBC), CNBC
Last 2 seasons results: 2016-17: 10/15 Jets 3 @ Wild 4 11/23 Jets 1 @ Wild 3 2/7 Wild 4 @ Jets 2 2/28 Wild 6 @ Jets 5 3/19 Wild 4 @ Jets 5
2017-18: 10/21 Wild 3 @ Jets 4 10/31 Jets 2 @ Wild 1 11/27 Wild 2 @ Jets 7 1/13 Jets 1 @ Wild 4
Game two in Winnipeg as the Wild look to get a split on the road before the series shifts south of the border to the Xcel Energy Center on Sunday. A split is always the goal of the road team in the first two games of a seven game series, and the Wild had an opportunity with a 3rd period lead in game one.
That lead dissipated quickly and the Jets skated off with a hard fought 3-2 victory.
I have found it very interesting listening to the recaps and dialogue following the Wild's 3-2 loss in game one. The talk of the turnovers that led to the tying and winning goals and the dreadful analytics of Carson Soucy.
The bottom line is the game like every other sport played, is a game of mistakes. The team that takes advantage of the other's errors usually comes out on top. There is no such thing as a perfect game, but in todays world we have to be so black and white as to why something happened. It can never be a culmination of many things that led to an end result.
Matt Dumba played an excellent game one, logging huge minutes, but all anyone will talk about is his turnover that led to the Patrik Laine goal.
Come on people this is hockey and there are two teams playing the game. Both teams are loaded with highly skilled professionals trained to force their opponents into making mistakes. I have yet to hear anyone chastise Laine for being totally out of the play allowing the odd man scoring opportunity that created the Wild's first goal by Matt Cullen.
The Jets committed their own fair share of mistakes in game one and most notably was their lackadaisical puck control in their own zone. There were a number of times where the Wild forwards were able to strip the Jets of puck possession or create turnovers of their own in the Jets zone. The difference of course is that the Wild did not make those turnovers count on the scoreboard.
Tonight the Wild need to generate more shots on goal and as simple as that sounds it needs to be their M.O. going forward. When the Wild are playing well they are generating offense off the shot. When things start to come undone offensively is when they fall into the over passing game.
Eric Staal and his line of course must be better than they were in game one, but again, that is an easy finger point situation. It is one game and in that game give the Jets defenders credit, they shut down the Wild top line. Now it is up to Staal, Zucker, and Niederreiter to make the necessary adjustments to become more effective.
The Wild are not a one line team, and as long as Staal and Granlund are separated they will continue to have a more balanced approach. Now a strategy that Boudreau may want to incorporate would be to juggle his lines a bit during the game utilizing the TV timeouts and possibly get Granluund and Staal out together for a few shifts during the game. That could present a difficult matchup for the Jets and just may deliver a goal or two for the Wild, who knows.
The next area that needs to be addressed and I am truly not sure Boudreau will ever do this but he needs to manage the minutes that Koivu is playing. Koivu is clearly his most trusted forward, and rightfully so to a degree. Mikko is so responsible and does so much for this team, but in the third period he was gassed but Boudreau had him on the ice for the entire last few minutes with Dubnyk on the bench for the extra attacker.
Not sure if anyone else noticed that one of the many icings the Jets had in thos last couple minutes Koivu was the first player back for the Wild. As the puck went down the ice Koivu inexplicably stopped skating and the linesman was looking at him almost to say "uh Mikko, you know you need to get to the hashmarks for me to blow the whistle." Koivu did eventually glide to the hashmark and the whistle was blown. It was clear he was spent and was particularly worthless to the Wild from that point forward where the Jets just iced the puck continuously until the clock wound down to zeroes.
So tonight the Wild will have to weather a Jets storm once again, but if they play the way they are capable of playing with a simple plan of moving the puck quickly and take advantage of the Jets over aggressive play, they have a good chance of evening the series. Now if they get caught up in trying to match the Jets physical play or a retaliation game then it could turn into a long night for the Wild.
Jared Spurgeon returned last game and looked pretty good considering he had not played in a month. He will most certainly be better this evening which will also help to improve the confidence and game of Carson Soucy as well.
Joel Eriksson Ek was noticeably absent from practice yesterday, and hoping that it was just a precautionary measure after the huge hit he took from Dustin Byfuglien in game one. Eriksson Ek was one of the Wild's top forwards in game one and has been an integral part of the teams strong play down the stretch.
Boudreau did say that Tyler Ennis may get back into the lineup tonight. The only situation I can see where Ennis gets in is if Eriksson Ek cannot go, otherwise Jordan Greenway stays in the lineup and deservedly so as he is becoming a real force for the Wild up front.
Should be another great game between these two Central Division rivals. The white-out will be rocking, it is up to the team wearing white to silence the crowd.
Wild projected lines: Zucker-Staal-Niederreiter Parise-Koivu-Granlund Greenway-Cullen-Coyle Foligno-Eriksson Ek-Winnik
Brodin-Dumba Soucy-Spurgeon Seeler-Prosser
Dubnyk
It's always Hockey Day in The State of Hockey!
Follow me on Twitter @dwalace17