ST. PAUL - The Wild finish the preseason 5-1-0 after a 4-0 win over the Dallas Stars on home ice. In a game without their captain, the Wild's defense really stepped up. Here are two key takeaways from tonight's 4-0 win.
Defense stepped up
Without Jared Spurgeon, the Wild's defense had to tighten up and look for guys to step up. So getting solid contributions from all six of their defenders was huge for the Wild. After holding the Dallas Stars to no shots through the first ten minutes of the game, Jake Middleton ripped a shot home from the high slot past Jake Oettinger giving the Wild an early first-period lead.
That goal held through the second and onto the third. The second period was end-to-end action, resulting in only six shots for the Wild on about 15 attempted shots. But the Wild also held the Stars to eight second-period shots and not many high-danger chances.
In fact, the Wild had a lot more high-danger looks than the Stars but just couldn't capitalize on any of them. Through two periods the Stars had 44 shot attempts but only got 15 on net. A testament to the Wild's defense and their sticks.
Another Wild defender got the second goal three minutes into the third period after Mats Zuccarello and Jon Merrill came in on a 2-on-1 against Sam Steel. Zuccarello then opened up and fed it to Merrill who made it 2-0.
So in a game without arguably the Wild's most complete defender, Minnesota got two goals from two different defensive defensemen.
"We made a conscious effort tonight to get through the neutral zone, get it down there, regardless if we get some chances, let's do some wearing down there," Wild head coach Dean Evason said. "Our commitment was real good, Gus was real good, and then we were patient and waited for our offensive opportunities."
Power play looks great
After multiple chances throughout the preseason and a heavy emphasis being placed in training camp, the power play looks really good right now for Minnesota and tonight was an example of that.
“We were getting good looks, and our structure was real good. We were just a little bit off. The schemes were good as far as trying to make the plays through the seams and getting pucks," Evason said on all the Wild's power play chances.
"I think Ekky had three or four at the front of the net, and it was nice to get rewarded, though, too, right? If you go through this game and you don’t score, it’s like wow, but now we scored so a lot of positive reinforcement.”
It took the Wild five chances tonight before they capitalized but with every power play they had the Wild had a ton of pressure. In fact, in the second period alone the Wild got six shots with five of them coming on the power play.
But Jake Oettinger, whom Wild fans know too well, stood on his head. In the third period, the Wild had five chances before they scored on the power play, this time it was Scott Wedgewood who stopped them all.
The Wild finally picked up a power-play goal in the third when Kirill Kaprizov ripped home a slot shot after Matt Boldy one-touched passed it.
Minnesota later picked up an even-strength goal from Marco Rossi to make it 4-0 after a great feed from Marcus Foligno. The Wild held onto the four-goal lead and walked away with a convincing win to end the preseason.
Final thoughts
The Wild will take the next two days off of practice before hitting it hard on Tuesday just two days before the regular season home opener. There isn't an official decision on who starts in net for the Wild in game one but I'd guess it would be Filip Gustavsson who stopped all 22 he faced tonight.
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