3 Takeaways From the Wild’s 3-1 Loss to the Devils

The Minnesota Wild finished up their first long road trip of the season on Wednesday night, Oct. 22, against the New Jersey Devils in New Jersey. They looked to extend their win streak to two games after taking down the New York Rangers on Monday night, Oct. 20. Their injury list remained the same as Zach Bogosian was placed on injured reserve earlier in the week. 

However, Marco Rossi returned to play after missing the Rangers game due to a blocked shot from their loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday, Oct. 18. Filip Gustavsson was in net, and the rest of the lineup was the same as the game prior. 

The game started out in the Devils’ favor and continued that way throughout the game. The Wild attempted a comeback but fell short, and the Devils took the win 4-1. In this article, we’ll look at a few takeaways from the game, starting with the lack of consistent play. 

Wild Struggle to Find Game

The Wild played one of their best games of the season earlier in the week against the New York Rangers. They were fast, moved the puck efficiently, and outplayed the Rangers. It appeared they were moving in the right direction after losing the first three games of the road trip. Teams have struggles like that all the time. It seemed like they figured it out and were going to get past it. 

However, when they took on the Devils, those items weren’t as strong. They still had all the same skills, but the Devils were better. The Devils did exactly what the Wild did to the Rangers, but they did it to the Wild. They still have to find a way to play their strongest consistently, which is a battle every season for every team. 

Towards the end of the game, they started to find their play, but it wasn’t enough, and they ran out of time. The Wild have to push harder and quicker if they want to win games, and hopefully, they can do that sooner rather than later. 

“Yeah…It just comes to consistency and a willingness to put that game on the ice night in and night out. That’s usually what it takes to win, right? You have to be.. New York, we were extremely competitive. We played to the identity that gives us a chance to win, and tonight we had pockets of it; we didn’t have it for long enough stretches. It just comes down to a willingness to put that game on the ice and the work that it takes to win night in and night out regularly, and that was the difference,” said John Hynes in his postgame media availability posted to Wild.com. 

Wild Try to Change It 

The Wild’s consistency may have lacked, but their coach’s efforts to change the outcome didn’t. Instead of trying to stay the course and keep playing the way they had been all game, Hynes changed up his lines to start the third period. It wasn’t just one or two player changes either; instead of his top line of Kirill Kaprizov, Marco Rossi, and Matt Boldy, he switched to Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek, and Vinnie Hinostroza. 

The second line was Boldy, Rossi, and Marcus Johansson, the third line was Yakov Trenin, Ryan Hartman, and Vladimir Tarasenko. The fourth line was Marcus Foligno, Danila Yurov, and Tyler Pitlick, but they didn’t see a lot of ice time. Kaprizov and Boldy were double-shifted as much as they could in order to try to spark a goal.