In the three games the Minnesota Wild have played since firing head coach Dean Evason on Nov. 27, the team has looked completely different.
After winning 4-1 against the St. Louis Blues on Nov. 28, their first game under new head coach John Hynes, the Wild followed it up with two more wins, beating the Nashville Predators 6-1 on Nov. 30 and the Chicago Blackhawks 4-1 last Sunday.
The Wild are still seventh in the Western Conference’s Central Division with an 8-10-4 record and 20 points, but their performance in the last week has people wondering if the “new coach bump” is real for this squad.
On Monday’s episode of "Daily Faceoff LIVE," Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk discuss the Wild’s three-game winning streak and if it’s the start of something new in the State of Hockey.
Tyler Yaremchuk: John Hynes takes over, and it’s a perfect 3-0-0 run for the Minnesota Wild and their new bench boss. They’re getting offense from their entire lineup, but perhaps what most impressive during their three-game run is their goals against: they’ve only given up three goals in that span.
We discussed the Edmonton Oilers the other day and their “new coach bump,” and I think if they had kept Jay Woodcroft, they could have gone on a similar run. With this Wild squad, yes they’ve gotten a bit of a bump, but they could have gotten this anyway because they’re finally getting the goaltending they need.
Frank Seravalli: The stat that’s stood out for me in the Wild’s last three games is their penalty kill. When you’re at 65 percent for the season, and you can’t get a save or keep the puck out of your net, you’re swimming upstream every night. I look at this team from a 30,000-foot view, and I think they would have had the same changes under Dean Evason that they’re having under John Hynes right now.
They’ve made subtle little tweaks that are going a long way. I guess we’ll see at the end of the year if they really needed to make a coaching change, or if they’ll settle back into their old issues. I get why teams make the move, but I’m not entirely sold that they needed to.
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