Sending a message by healthy scratching a player has been done before. The Wild might have to do just that.
ST. PAUL - We are 12 games into the season and some players on the Wild just haven't reached their potential yet. Last year, guys like Freddy Gaudreau, Ryan Hartman, and Marcus Johansson struggled at times. But the Wild stated they wanted and are expecting more from them this season.
Gaudreau, 31, has bounced back and has been great recently. After having five goals and 15 points in 67 games last year, Gaudreau is off to a great start. In 12 games, the 6-foot center has two goals and six points.
Every goal and assist has come during his four-game point streak.
Hartman, 30, has three goals and four points in seven games this year and has been doing it while playing through an injury.
Johansson, 34, has one goal and three points in 11 games this year. But he has one goal and zero assists in his last ten games.
Other than Johansson struggling, Yakov Trenin has also started the season slow. In 12 games this year, Trenin has zero goals and one assist.
Trenin, 27, has 11 shots and 31 hits in 12 games. He opened the season on the third line and has been recently demoted to the fourth line.
According to MoneyPuck, Trenin is last on the team in goals above expected and is tied with Johansson for second to last in expected goals amongst Wild forwards with a minimum of eight games played, this excludes Liam Ohgren who is in the AHL.
Johansson has 16 shots on goal on 22 attempted shots that have gone unblocked. Which means he has 16 shots on net and six shots that have missed the net. He has zero high danger shot attempts and 18 low danger shot attempts.
The Wild recalled one of their top prospects from the AHL on Wednesday. Wild head coach John Hynes was asked after Tuesday's 5-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings if Mikey Milne could get in the lineup, Hynes indicated that it's possible considering some guys haven't been playing good.
"Yeah, there’s a good chance he could get in," Hynes said. "I’d still like to see some more from certain guys. I thought there was some light players tonight (Tuesday), so we’ll make some decisions. But we’ll see.”
I think it is safe to assume those "light players" were Trenin and Johansson.
Healthy scratching or benching top players, or anyone for this matter, is a thing that teams do and it usually works. The Boston Bruins benched their superstar forward David Pastrnak for the whole third period a couple nights ago.
The Buffalo Sabres healthy scratched Mattias Samuelsson, who is in year two of a seven year contract, in their last game based on his performance this year and the team responded with a 5-1 win.
There is no doubt that both Trenin and Johansson have to be a bit better so we'll see if one of the two comes out of the lineup for Milne on either Thursday, when the Wild play the San Jose Sharks, or on Friday against the Anaheim Ducks.
Let us know what you think by commenting below or on the Forum.
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