An inside look at Wild head coach John Hynes' crazy decision to pull the goaltender in overtime last night.
ST. PAUL - Pulling the goaltender in overtime is something that doesn't happen often. The Los Angeles Kings did it in 2017 but they pulled Jonathan Quick with 0.4 seconds left. The Kings won the face-off and scored.
John Hynes' decision to pull the goalie was a little different than that.
The Wild were chasing the puck the whole overtime period. Nashville had the puck the whole period it felt like but once the Wild gathered the puck you could see Marc-Andre Fleury creeping towards the bench.
"Yeah, I think it's something, as I said, we've talked about it," Hynes said when was the right time to pull Fleury. "I think the timing of it is important and the rotations of the players that go through, and tonight, it worked out for us. But we want to be aggressive. We want to win, and as I said, one point, zero point, it's not doing us any good. Two points is what we need."
Finally, the Wild did it. Hynes called for Fleury and the Wild sent Matt Boldy out for the extra attacker.
“I don’t know honestly. I don’t know what I had for breakfast," Fleury, who's been in the NHL since 2003, said if he's ever seen anything like this. "So, tough to remember all these years, right? I’ll remember this one. I think it was such a great feeling, great ending to the game.”
Boldy hopped over the boards with 1:30 left in overtime. Kirill Kaprizov held onto the puck and let the Wild regroup. He then fed Mats Zuccarello and the two played give and go for a few more times before Zuccarello sent a cross-ice pass to Boldy for the one-timer.
“Yeah because nothing else I can do, right? But I have a lot of faith in our guys," Fleury said about just waiting on the bench and watching. "They got in the zone and Zuccy great patience and obviously great pass making it to Bolds. It was a great feeling to see that puck go in.”
What many people, and even the players, didn't know was if you pull the goaltender in overtime and you allow the other team to score in the empty net, you forfeit your extra point and walk away with zero.
"Yeah, for sure. I mean, one point, … we need two points," Hynes said when asked if he knew the rule. "We feel like we were organized with it, the players knew what was going on. And I think it's when you put the four guys we have on the ice that we believe that it gives us the best chance to score a goal and get two points and that's what we're here for."
Fleury, Boldy, Marcus Foligno, and Ryan Hartman all admitted to not knowing the rule but all said they were glad it worked.
But Hartman actually said at the beginning of the year he brought up the idea of doing this in overtime because he felt overtimes where getting stale and not very exciting anymore. But Hynes wasn't even the Wild's coach when this was brought it.
"I love it. I actually, talked about it beginning of the year, kind of just how some overtimes had been going for us specifically," Hartman said on the decision. "There seemed to be going a little stale with the pullups and the backs and like early when first 3-on-3 started, everyone just traded chances back and forth and teams have learned how to play defense kind of against it and they’re more conservative, and I was like someone’s gonna have to, because I know some teams are doing it in the KHL, so I was like eventually it’s going to happen. We’ll see.
"Obviously, in the beginning of the year, there’s no real point, but in the position we are, we really needed two points and we got a great power play. Those four guys out there, it’s hard to stop. I love that play."
Well, the move worked. About 20 seconds after Fleury made his way to the bench the Wild scored off a nice feed from Zuccarello to Boldy.
The Wild are in the position where they need as many points as possible. They don't need one point they need two. That's why Hynes pulled Fleury for the extra attacker.
"I think in our position, we want to be aggressive, we want to get two points, we want to continue to fight -- we believe in our group -- and continue to fight to play meaningful games down the stretch and let the chips fall where they may," Hynes said. "So I think in the situation we're in, one point, no point, it's not going to do us any good. We got to get two points."
If the Wild go 13-4-0 in their remaining 17 games of the year they would finish with 95 points. But the Vegas Golden Knights, who hold onto the last Wild Card spot in the West, are on pace for 96 points.
If the Wild go 13-4-0 or better, they would need the Knights to go 9-8-1 or worse for Minnesota to make the playoffs. That is a tough task to ask considering the Knights traded for Noah Hanifin, Tomas Hertl, and Anthony Mantha at the trade deadline.
So the Wild just need to get as many points as possible and just let the chips fall where they may.
“Nobody’s going to quit, right? We all want to battle to make a push," Fleury said. "Obviously, we know we’re behind, but ain’t going to quit. We’ll keep battling every night and try to get some points and see where it takes us.”
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