The Minnesota Wild’s road trip took another tough turn Thursday night in Calgary, where a slow start and a pair of early power-play goals from the Flames set the tone in a 2-1 loss.
There was some movement in the lineup before puck drop. Jared Spurgeon and Olli Määttä were back, while Maxim Shabanov was out with an upper-body injury, opening the door for Rieger Lorenz to come back in.
Jesper Wallstedt got the start in goal, but Calgary made life difficult early. The Flames struck twice on the power play and carried that edge the rest of the way through the first period and all of the second. Minnesota finally broke through early in the third, and the comeback effort briefly picked up steam, but Calgary’s goaltender held firm and the Wild never managed to pull even.
Special teams were the biggest issue again. Minnesota’s power play came up empty, and the penalty kill couldn’t stop the damage on the other side. That’s been a sharp reversal from the strong start the Wild had to the season, and it carried over from their previous game against the Edmonton Oilers, where the penalty kill struggled and the power play failed to score.
If Minnesota wants to get back on track, that part of the game has to settle down fast. The talent is there on both units, but over these last two games the execution has slipped. Even getting one of those two areas back to where it was would make a real difference, whether that means keeping the puck out of their net or cashing in with the man advantage.
The other problem was the same one that has popped up too often: the Wild didn’t put together a full 60 minutes. Early in the season, they were sharp from start to finish, even when games began a little flat.
Against the Flames, they were behind the pace for too long and only started to look dangerous in the third period. By then, the hole was too deep.
That late push did include some encouraging work from the fourth line, which has been one of Minnesota’s steadier groups this season. Michael McCarron delivered the goal that got the Wild back into it, with Nico Sturm and Jonas Brodin helping set it up. Sturm was in his second game back from injury, and that trio brought energy when the rest of the lineup was still searching for rhythm.
Bobby Brink also stood out. The longer he stays in the lineup, the more he seems to show, and Thursday was another step in that direction.
Minnesota leans heavily on its top line, but nights like this show why contributions from elsewhere matter. The fourth line provided the spark this time, and McCarron’s goal was the clearest sign that the Wild had enough scattered positives to make a game of it.
The road trip now continues in Seattle for the first half of a back-to-back, before a matchup with the Vancouver Canucks in the second half. The Wild are still looking to clean up the special teams and rediscover the level they showed before leaving home.
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The complication is obvious: any talk around Konecny comes with serious layers attached. His contract is heavy, and his no-movement protection gives him control over where this goes next, if it goes anywhere at all. For the Wild, the appeal is easy to understand, but so is the challenge, since getting a player of that caliber in the door would require much more than simple interest from both sides. [Read more 🡒]