‘I Thought We Played A Really Solid Game’: Wild Fall 3-2 To Red Wings In A Game That Will Be Flushed

ST. PAUL - Sometimes hockey doesn’t make sense. You might out work a team, out chance them, defend better, and get more shots but still end up losing. 

The Minnesota Wild (34-20-4) did just that on Tuesday but still lost to the Detroit Red Wings (30-22-6) by the score of 3-2. 

“I think it’s a disappointing loss from the sense that I thought we played a really solid game,” Wild head coach John Hynes said. “I thought we carried the play. I think if you look at most categories, we were there: offensive zone time, chances for, and Grade As. They found a way to get a couple more goals than we did, but I think the style of game that we played, the structure we played with, the offensive attack that we had, we did lots of good things tonight, but sometimes that’s how it goes.”

According to Moneypuck, the Wild deserved to win that game. After 1,000 game simulations, the Wild win that game 75.2% of the time. 

“Well, you have to,” Filip Gustavsson said on if this is a game you flush down the toilet. “You know, I don't think we played bad today. It just games right now get tight at this time of year and sometimes one bad goal like that can determine the game.”

The Wild opened the game with the first two goals but ended up letting in the next three. They took one penalty and had one of their best penalty kills of the season. That was until Vladimir Tarasenko scored a second after the penalty expired. 

“I don’t know, man. Like, we're confident in it too,” Jake Middleton said on the PK. “We did really well with however long it was -- a minute and 58 seconds and whatnot. And then, granted, they make a great pass, and they score a great goal. But yeah, no, we're still plucking away at it because, as you guys saw, we’re confident, and we feel good when we're out there. And then sometimes you just score a nice goal.”

Simon Edvinsson scored three minutes later on a goal that Gustavsson admits he should have saved. The Wild only allowed seven shots in the last two periods but allowed three goals. Gustavsson saved negative 1.6 goals save above expected. 

The third goal came from Edvinsson again. This time there was a screen in front and Gustavsson didn’t pick it up. 

“Second one, I'm not happy with,” Gustavsson said. “And then the third they go D to D and go past our guy that tries to block it. They have a screen in front and I pick it up late.”

It is easy to say this team might have won if they had Joel Eriksson Ek and Kirill Kaprizov in the lineup but they should have won the game regardless. Sometimes that is just how it goes. 

“Yeah, obviously, Ekky and Kirill is probably our two most important forwards so it’s always a big loss for the lineup, for the team,” Jakub Lauko said. “So, obviously, we got guys that got this chance to play more, to have a better chance in the lineup, so it’s on us to step up and take those minutes for ourselves.”

Nonetheless, the Wild can’t even think to use the excuse about their top two forwards being out because they are going to be out for even longer. Like weeks longer. 

“It’s the same template if we have Ek and Kaprizov, the same way,” Hynes said. “It doesn’t change the identity of how the team wants to play. Now, when you don’t have those two guys in the lineup, there’s different skill sets there, but I think if you look at tonight’s game, there’s not much that we didn’t do well. We did lots of things well. We just didn’t find a way to win the game.”

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