The Minnesota Wild ended their home back-to-back on Sunday evening, Mar. 15 against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Despite a snowstorm that tried to stop the Maple Leafs from arriving, they were able to make it and the game went on. The lineup was almost the same as Marcus Foligno and Bobby Brink were still dealing with injuries. Jeff Petry made his Wild debut and that was the reason John Hynes gave to the media after the game on why Zach Bogosian was out.Â
Jesper Wallstedt was back in the net and the Wild started out behind for the third straight game. They did climb back into the game and nearly tied it a number of times but couldn’t get that third goal and fell 3-2. In this article we’ll look at few takeaways starting with the Wild’s same pattern.Â
Wild Fall Into Same Pattern
The last few games the Wild have struggled to start off on the right foot and it’s led to them getting behind early in the game. It hasn’t just been one goal either, their opponents have jumped out to two or more goal leads and it’s been hard for them to climb back in. When they had their win streaks, a big key was getting the jump on the board and they need to find their way back to that.Â
Of course it’s almost impossible to score first in every game but the Wild have shown they are capable of doing so and they need to have that energy from the first drop of the puck, not near the last. While the game against the Maple Leafs it could be understood a bit more for the lack of energy being it was a back-to-back but the others are harder to accept.Â
If the Wild want to get back into the win column, they have to get their energy back at the beginning of the game. If they continue this pattern they’ve been in, they’re going to start losing valuable points they can’t get back.Â
Wild’s Tarasenko Contributes
Normally it’s Matt Boldy or Kirill Kaprizov scoring the Wild’s goals lately but against the Maple Leafs it was Vladimir Tarasenko. He’s had his moments throughout the season, not a lot but a few here and there and he added to it with his goals against the Maple Leafs. He got the Wild on the board early in the third as he waited for the perfect pass and snuck it past the goaltender.Â
Then just over 20 seconds later he did it again but this time it was his sniper shot he’s known for that went in past the goaltender. Just like that, the Wild went from down 3-0 to 3-2 in barely 20 seconds thanks to Tarasenko. He nearly had a third for a hat trick later in the period but the goaltender was ready for it.Â
Although the Wild lost, Tarasenko’s goals were enough to ignite the team and the crowd and get the building lively again. When the goals happened, Marcus Foligno was on the TNT/HBO Max broadcast and he joked he wouldn’t leave the booth after the Wild scored their second goal. Hopefully those goals can give the Wild the spark they need to get things back together in their next game.Â
Wild Had Chances
Overall, the Wild looked better in this game than they did in their past games despite the same pattern happening at the beginning. They had a lot of chances and unfortunately they’ve run into some strong goaltending from their opponents lately. They put up 38 shots to the Maple Leafs 26 but again, the goaltender came up strong.Â
This time, unlike the other games, they kept their play going once they found it. When Tarasenko scored they kept pushing and they scored their second goal and nearly had a third. If they’d had a few more minutes they likely would’ve tied it as they pushed with everything they had.Â
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The Wild need to harness the energy they had near the end of the game and start their next game with it. It doesn’t matter if they lost to the Maple Leafs, if they can start with that energy level, they’ll have a better chance to score first and get the win. Their next game will be on the road after this four-game homestand, and it’ll be against the Chicago Blackhawks, on Tuesday, Mar. 17. Hopefully they can snag a win and come back home with two points.
