Honestly, the Wild should thank the NHL schedule makers. A series against arguably the worst team in the league proved to be the perfect way to avoid a slump.
Though it’s still hard to say where the Wild fall in the pantheon of powerhouses across the league, they are back on track after a 3-2 win on Wednesday night at Xcel Energy Center.
Jared Spurgeon scored a pair of goals to continue his recent hot streak, Nico Sturm netted the game-winner, and Cam Talbot finished with 28 saves to record the win.
“Just being able to come home and get right back on it was big,” Spurgeon said. “It gets the confidence of the group right back up.”
Don’t get it twisted. It wasn’t a pretty game by the Wild by any means. They lacked energy like they have for much of the past week and compounded that by playing sloppily across the 60 minutes of play. They are nearing the end of a grueling stretch of 10 games in 18 days and it’s showing.
“It was not a pretty game,” coach Dean Evason said. “I’ve seen some not-so-pretty games in this league and that was not pretty. It has a lot to do with what we did and how we played. You never want to obviously complain about two points, that’s for sure, but there’s a lot of things that we can do better.”
It was actually a pretty good start for the Wild as Spurgeon redirected an initial shot from Ryan Suter early in the first period to make it 1-0. That’s when things started to sag for the Wild as Derek Grant helped the Ducks level the score at 1-1 on the ensuing shift.
That score held until late in the first period when Spurgeon struck again to make it 2-1. It was a similar setup as Spurgeon scored via a redirection with Suter getting that assist. That assist from Suter was the 600th point of his NHL career.
“That’s a good thing with Spurgey,” Suter said. “He’s always on the attack and always on his toes. When he sees an opportunity, he’s always going. Just a smart player. He saw there wasn’t a lot of time left in the period, took off, and made a good play.”
While it looked like the Wild were poised to take control in the second period, the Ducks responded right away with a goal from Max Comtois to tie the game at 2-2.
With the game hanging in the balance at that point, Sturm scored what proved to be the game-winner thanks to an incredible effort play in front. He skated the length of the ice to track down a seemingly harmless dump in, then hammered home a rebound to make it 3-2 after Ryan Miller egregiously misplayed the puck in front.
“It was a fluky one,” Suter said with a smile. “They don’t ask how, right?”
No they don’t and that proved to be the difference as Talbot was a brick wall in the third period to preserve the win.
“Not every night we’re gonna have our top guys buzzing and scoring goals at will,” Suter said. “It’s kind of the dog days of the season and for us to find ways to win is really important.”
Now the Wild must shift their focus ahead to a big game against the St. Louis Blues on Thursday night at Xcel Energy Center. They know they have to be much better if they want to have a chance of winning that game.
“We didn’t play our best,” Spurgeon said. “The good thing is we know that. We aren’t sitting here saying we played a great game. We have a big test (on Thursday) and we have to get ready for that.”
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March 25, 2021 at 08:31AM
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Wild complete sweep of Ducks to get back on track - Bemidji Pioneer
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