Wow, the Rantanen thing was kept pretty quiet to outsiders, really, only the team and he knows what happened. I am guessing that Rantanen did not want to play as structured as the Hurricanes do.
Gutsy win last night. Again, the Wild tend to be hard to watch at this point, and Heinzy has got to double down on low event hockey and stay within the structure. Watching last night was a bit frustrating as it’s allergy season and apparently the Wild have an allergy to the middle of the ice in the offensive zone. Everything is perimeter except for turnovers.
Boldy and Rossi appeared on the scoresheet with Zuccarello. Boldy’s SO move was really, really good. Actually, so was Zuccarello’s which set up Boldy’s move. Goose played really, really well and never saw the puck that got past him. He was so screened when the puck went into the crowd, who knew where it was coming out.
Colorado has a lot of speed built into their lineup. However, it seemed like they were also getting bounced around a lot by a lineup that isn’t the largest in the league. I am intrigued about a Colorado/Dallas 1st round matchup. One team will go home feeling like complete failures!
I do not believe the Wild are catching Colorado. LaPanta was even talking about Colorado’s record after the Blackwood trade being 4th in the league. The Wild were never going to hold them back with the injuries they’ve had. But, in the grand scheme of things, Vancouver lost last night, so they are now 9 points behind us along with St. Louis.
The hard report to receive last night was at the beginning of the game. Kaprizov, Ek, Brodin were part of the injury chart, and NONE of them have started skating yet. Now, the information that Shooter received from the medical department indicated all 3 of these guys were supposed to be back before the end of the regular season. I would consider that back before the end of March to be valid. Any later, and the Wild should have gone big fish hunting and held them out for conditioning for a couple of weeks.
What happens if these 3 are not back by then? We’ve already zeroed in on our medical staff needing some scrutiny, but does this put a laser focus on that aspect of the organization? Guerin acted based upon their opinion. Does he have any repercussions in this?
https://hockeywilderness.com/news-rumors/wilderness-walk/wild-sneak-out-shootout-win-over-avalanche-r30561/