The Minnesota Wild and Nashville Predators met for the first time this season on Saturday evening, Nov. 30. The Wild were coming off a comeback win over the Chicago Blackhawks the previous afternoon, while the Predators were also on the second half of a back-to-back and were coming off a 3-2 overtime loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Wild’s lineup remained the same, the same injuries were still healing, and the only change was Filip Gustavsson in the net. The game started like many of the Wild’s recent games have gone: they couldn’t score right away, unlike at the beginning of the season when it came easy. It took until the end of the period to get on the scoreboard, and then it took until overtime to decide on a winner. The Wild needed just 58 seconds to get the game-winner, and in this article, we’ll look at how they did it, starting with their leaders continuing to step up.
Wild’s Captains Lead the Way
While being a captain isn’t all about production, it always helps when your captain can score goals. The Wild’s Jared Spurgeon isn’t known as a goal-scorer, but they know they can count on him in nearly any situation. He’s great defensively, but lately, he’s found the scoresheet and can’t be stopped.
Spurgeon scored two goals against the Chicago Blackhawks the day before after not scoring since April 2023. His scoring against the Blackhawks unlocked a scoring streak, as he also tallied the game-winning goal in overtime off a shot from Kirill Kaprizov. Apart from that goal in Spurgeon’s 21 minutes of ice time, he also had one blocked shot and one hit.
Kaprizov has been finding ways to step up since the first game of the season, and he did that against the Predators by scoring himself and setting up the game-winning goal. He could’ve tried to score himself but instead made sure he gave his team the best chance to win, and they did, which is why he wears one of the “A’s.” Hopefully, the Wild’s leaders can continue to show their scoring talents.
Wild’s Power Play Works
The Wild finally got their power play on the board once again after being held off the board for the past three games. They started the season on a hot streak, scoring a power-play goal in seven out of their first 10 games. While three games isn’t a huge streak to not score a power-play goal, it made it worse with how successful it started.
Kaprizov not only scored and helped set up the winner, but his goal was on the man advantage. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was still a very well-timed tip that not everyone could do. The Wild have to have their power play step up more often like this. It helps win games when teams are successful on the power play, and the Wild need to be one of those teams more often.
Wild Find Good Mix of Physicality
The Wild may have been outhit on the stats sheet, but that’s not how it looked watching the game, with Marcus Foligno hitting nearly everyone who moved. Being physical has been an up-and-down area for the team, and looking at their game against the Predators, that is what they should be striving for without it being too much or too little.
“I really liked the effort; I thought it was a hard-fought game by both teams; you go back and look at every situation, special teams, 5-on-5, goaltending on both teams, the physicality of the game, I think the competitiveness of it, it was two teams that went to battle tonight, glad we could find a way to get the two points,” head coach John Hynes said in the postgame press conference when asked about the intensity of the game.
Related: Wild Acquire David Jiricek From Blue Jackets for Hunt, Draft Picks
“Tonight was better. There’s still things we got to do offensively, but we got that one goal, and I thought Trenny (Trenin) was skating really well tonight, and we just held onto pucks a little better. We need more of that for our team, especially we can’t be a no-shows some night I think yesterday against Chicago was not great; I don’t think we moved our feet that well, but when we do, you see it, we get a lot of pucks back, we go low to high, and we found pucks at the net, we get chances, and you just hope that you get rewarded when you do,” said Foligno in his postgame press conference when asked about the game.
Wild Host Canucks
The Wild will stay at home for one more game that will take place on Tuesday, Dec. 3, when they host the Vancouver Canucks. It’s unclear if they’ll have any of their injured players back yet, but they’ll need their power play to build off its recent success and find a way to replicate it. Hopefully, they can keep learning from their games like they have been, and they’ll keep winning.
