The Wild definitely got their chances with a ton of high-danger looks but still walked away with yet another loss as they fall to 5-7-2 on the season after a 3-2 loss to Buffalo.
The Wild out-chanced and outplayed the Buffalo Sabres tonight but still walked away with a 3-2 loss. Yet another game where Minnesota had higher expected stats but still lost.
This is yet another game where the Wild allowed under 30 shots on goal but a turnover and a faulty forecheck cost the Wild. Minnesota had 33 shots but missed the net 19 times. Here are some other takeaways from the Wild's latest 3-2 loss to Buffalo.
Kaprizov - Hartman - Zuccarello line back together
Minnesota experimented with Marco Rossi on the top line with Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy but now have broken that up and put the original top line back together.
They connected with a few chances at 5v5 but weren't able to put the puck in the back of the net. The Kaprizov-Hartman-Zuccarello generated the most expected goals on the whole team with 1.15 xGF. The next closest was the Foligno-Eriksson Ek-Maroon line with 0.28 xGF, according to Natural Stat Trick
Kaprizov has looked a little out of place in the last couple of games so hopefully putting him back with Hartman and Zuccarello will get him going.
Spurgeon's first game of the year
The Wild welcomed Jared Spurgeon back for his first game of the year. The last time he played was over a month ago in a preseason game against Chicago. It was big for the Wild to get him back.
Spurgeon played over 20 minutes with some time spent on the power play and penalty kill. The 33-year-old defenseman played four minutes and 20 seconds on the penalty kill that went 4-for-4.
Wild are getting chances
The Wild lost another game where they got tons of chances and walked out of the game with higher expected goals for and minimal expected goals against but they still lost.
Minnesota doubled Buffalo in high-danger scoring chances with nine to the Sabres three in the first two periods and finished the game with 14. Buffalo had four, according to Natural Stat Trick.
According to Moneypuck, the Wild had 4.87 expected goals but Devon Levi stood tall for the Sabres who only had 2.25 expected goals. The Wild definitely got their chances with a ton of high-danger looks but still walked away with yet another loss as they fall to 5-7-2 on the season.