3 Takeaways From the Wild’s Loss to the Devils

The Minnesota Wild hosted the New Jersey Devils for the first game of their home-and-home series on Saturday evening, Mar. 29. It took nearly the whole season for these two teams to finally meet, and then they see each other twice in the span of three days. The Wild had the same lineup as their previous game, a win over the Washington Capitals, which meant Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek, and Declan Chisholm were still out. 

Filip Gustavsson was back in net for his second consecutive start and struggled with the rest of his team as the Devils stormed forward and took the 5-2 win. This article will look at what went wrong, starting with their inconsistent start. 

Wild’s First Two Periods Inconsistent

Going back to the beginning of the season, the Wild were a strong first-period team, but lately, it’s been up and down. Against the Devils, it wasn’t good but it wasn’t bad, it was just inconsistent. They’d have a strong chance, not convert, and then give the Devils an equally good chance the other way. Again, it’s difficult to say they were outright bad, but just struggled to make good passes and keep the momentum going, at least through the first two periods. 

After scoring late in the first period, the momentum did swing slightly, but they had issues keeping it there. However, towards the end of the second, they started to look strong again. They also had a spot of luck, as the Devils had a great scoring chance that hit their player and didn’t go in. Until the third period started and it went downhill once again.

“I just thought from the drop of the puck, I thought mentally and physically we weren’t where we needed to be and it lasted throughout the game,” said head coach John Hynes about the overall effort in the game and he continued about the beginning of the game being so shockingly off, “I would agree, you guys kind of saw the same thing, I see, I’m not going to mince words on it but we weren’t mentally ready to play, focused, the details you need the game I think the competitive level that’s required to win wasn’t there. We beat ourselves in so many different ways tonight, so it’ll be addressed and we’ll be ready for Monday.” 

Wild Have to Improve Faceoffs

Again, this is often mentioned as an area for improvement when the Wild are concerned, but their faceoffs have to improve. While Devin Shore and Ryan Hartman had decent numbers, at 50 percent or above in faceoffs won, Marco Rossi and Frédérick Gaudreau were under 45 percent. If they want to succeed, they have to win more faceoffs, especially in the offensive zone, where it can lead to an instant shot from the point in many cases.