Injuries mount and costly turnovers plague the Wild as they search for answers amidst another frustrating overtime defeat.
ST. PAUL, Minn - If there was ever a way to describe a team based on one moment or one game, Sunday's overtime loss to the San Jose Sharks was just that for the Minnesota Wild.
The Wild opened the season 2-1-0 but since then they have lost six of their last seven games and are now 3-5-2 which puts them last in the central division.
Things just keep stockpiling for the Wild as well. Zach Bogosian was in the press box on Sunday with a boot on his leg and Marcus Foligno had an X-ray after the Wild's loss to the Utah Mammoth and did not play on Sunday against the Sharks.
With Bogosian's injury it has opened the door for David Jiricek to play and log some minutes. Despite constant mistakes in games and costly turnovers, Jiricek remains in the lineup due to the injury situation. He even got some time on the penalty kill for the Wild on Sunday.
Which, of course, turned into a costly goal.
Ryan Hartman got the Wild back on the board in the third period with a power-play goal. It put Minnesota within one of the Sharks. That was until Jake Middleton went to the box. The Wild started with Jonas Brodin and Brock Faber as the defenders on the PK. After they went off, Jiricek and Jared Spurgeon hopped over.
Yakov Trenin was pressuring Macklin Celebrini along the left wall. Jiricek decided to leave the net and pursue Celebrini. The play left Tyler Toffoli open in the slot and Celebrini dished it to him for a power-play goal. This gave the Sharks a 5-3 lead.
Head coach John Hynes admitted after the game that Jiricek was on the ice because Middleton was in the box. But also said Jiricek should have never gone to the point on that one.
“I would say more it’s experience of being in that situation. It’s understanding the details of it and how those things matter. So, I think it’s a work in progress.”
How much longer can you go through before the "work in progress" continues to hurt you in games like it has been?
Luckily Zeev Buium answered the Sharks goal with one of his own. He fired a point shot that hit off Ty Dellandrea and beat Yaroslav Askarov to put the Wild back within one goal.
It wasn't just Jiricek tonight. Kirill Kaprizov had four giveaways in the loss. Two of them led to goals. On the Sharks second goal of the game which gave them an early 2-0 lead, Kaprizov turned the puck over to the point for Timothy Liljegren. The 6-foot-1 defenseman then walked into the zone and juked Kaprizov out of his socks and drove the net hard. The puck landed on the stick of Michael Misa and the young center got his first in the NHL.
Good on Kaprizov for flushing it and moving on though. He later set up Marco Rossi for the game-tying goal in the first period just 32 seconds after Marcus Johansson got the Wild on the board.
But it didn't last.
Kaprizov got the puck on the right side in the second period and instead of trying for a soft chip out, he spun around and backhanded one to the slot which went right on the tape of Philipp Kurashev's stick. He then fed it to William Eklund who made no mistake and gave the Sharks a 3-2 lead.
Ryan Reaves later scored to make it 4-2 before Hartman brought the Wild back within one. That was until Kaprizov made another turnover, this time in the offensive zone. The Sharks rushed back up the ice and Middleton took an interference penalty which sparked the Toffoli goal.
"Yeah, I think when you get, … part of it is from caring. It's from trying, it's trying to make a difference, and it's just when you go through little segments like we're going through, I think that's what happens," Hynes said on Kaprizov's turnovers. "You look at Brock the other night. He was trying to make a difference and he was beating himself up. And it's because they care. We all do. And it gets discouraging at times, right? But I think that what I liked was today, some of that discouragement turned into determination. And I think that's what it needs to continue to do, and work for solutions to get our game where it's going to give us the opportunity to win night in and night out, and find those solutions.
"We know that we can play really good hockey. We know we're capable of better than what we're doing. But I do like in tonight's game, I did like the fight in the team and the ability to work for it. You know, if you're asking me specifically about Kirill, it’s the care of the guys you know is what you respect about them, but now it's we got to channel that care and that energy in the right directions and continue to move forward in a positive direction."
Just about nine minutes after Buium put the Wild back within one, Kaprizov fired a shot on net with under three minutes left that Joel Eriksson Ek tipped in front of Askarov with 2:18 left.
Somehow, the Wild clawed all the way back from down two goals three different times and forced overtime.
Here's where it got fun.
The Sharks sent out Alex Wennberg with Eklund and Liljegren to start overtime. Wennberg is good on the draw and I would have to think that is why he was out there to start overtime instead of Celebrini, despite Celebrini going 16-for-20 on the dot.
Wennberg got kicked out of the face-off circle and Rossi won the draw back. The Wild then went on to have 3:40 of possession time. Faber had three high-danger chances and got two shots on net. Matt Boldy hit the post and Kaprizov had a shot blocked.
Somehow, Eklund got off the ice and Celebrini jumped over the boards. After Boldy hit the post, Faber had a shot in the slot that was stopped by Askarov and flew out to the point. Faber tried to keep it in but Celebrini came from behind and stripped the puck.
The 19-year-old bursted down the ice and beat Jesper Wallstedt under the pad to give the Sharks their second win of the year.
"Yeah, Bolds hit the post, and then Fabes comes down and hits it, and then he's got the other chance that goes right through the slot," Hynes said. "So, yeah, … what did they have it for like, 3:40 or something like that. So we had some looks that didn't go in, and they had one and it went in."
If that overtime doesn't define the Wild's start to the season I am not sure what else does.
Last year the Wild got off to a fast start. They started 7-1-2 in their first ten games and were 18-4-4 in their first 26 games. Part of the reason why they got off to such a hot start was they never were trailing hockey games.
The Wild opened the first six games never trailing. They didn’t trail in their first 391 minutes and 31 seconds of regulation time during the 2024-25 season. It was the second-longest streak to open a season in NHL history behind the Boston Bruins’ 457:21 in 1969-70. In the seventh game they finally trailed.
This year, the Wild have done the opposite. Sunday marked the fourth consecutive game that the Wild have allowed the first goal. They are 1-4-1 in games this year when they allow the first goal and 2-0-1 when scoring the first goal.
“I know. It’s what I say. I think sometimes we just give too much space [to] the other team and we should be play more with the puck and a little more offense and play mor with the puck and hold more puck and just enjoy the hockey, you know? Just give and go, stuff like this," Kaprizov said on what the difference is between this year and last year. "Sometimes how I say we try make some plays and it’s not there, turnover, and sometimes we just try too simple, just put in zone, and just go for it, you know. I mean like sometimes we can just play some hockey.”
In the slump the Wild are in, losers of six of their last seven, it is tough to even look at positives or at least try and take positives out of games.
The Wild came back from two goals, three times on Sunday but yet still lost.
"I mean, if you want to try to take something positive out of it, we battled back multiple times from being down by two. Obviously, we got to clean it up," Hartman said. "Giving up goals and quick ones after they get one, ... the next four shifts after a goal, for a goal against, are some of the most important shifts in the game. You either keep momentum or you kind of start losing momentum. Whether we score or they score, we have to make sure everyone's next shift is their best shift of the night."
A point is a point, I guess, but can you take positives out of this game or is it time to sound the alarm?
"I don't think it helps to carry ourselves in negativity," Hartman said. "I mean, look, it's not great. We know that. We got to focus on the next game and dig ourselves out. No one else is going to do it for us."
For action-packed issues, access to the entire magazine archive and a free issue, subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/free. Get the latest news and trending stories by subscribing to our newsletter here. And share your thoughts by commenting below the article on THN.com.
Recent Minnesota Wild Stories
Wild's Marcus Foligno Out With Upper-Body Injury
Forward Marcus Foligno is sidelined with an upper-body injury, undergoing X-rays. His absence impacts the Wild's lineup for tonight's game against the Sharks.
- Wild Acquire Former Top Prospect From San Jose In A Trade.
- Wild's Zach Bogosian Out With Lower-Body Injury, Day-To-Day.
- Iowa Wild Bring Back Franchise Goals Leader On AHL Contract.