After Thursday night’s 5-2 loss to the New Jersey Devils, it’s clear that Minnesota Wild head coach Dean Evason has seen enough. Not only did he switch up the lines after Minnesota fell into a 3-0 hole, he ripped his team’s effort and poise to start the game.
“We start at 7 o’clock, not 7:30, 7:35,” Evason growled after the game. “So, wonderful that we played hard at some point tonight. But it’s not good enough.”
The first period was putrid enough that head coach Dean Evason took Ryan Hartmana and Mats Zuccarello off the top line and instead went with Marco Rosso centering Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy.
And as bad luck would go, Rossi took an elbowing penalty 33 seconds into his first shift on the top line and the result was New Jersey taking a 3-0 lead on a power-play goal by Timo Meier.
“Nice f*cking play.” -Timo Meier to Jack Hughes. #NJDevils pic.twitter.com/X5gYrXDwve
— James Nichols (@JamesNicholsNHL) November 3, 2023
It was the 10th goal allowed in 29 penalty kill chances by the Wild for the season.
Minnesota cut New Jersey’s lead to 3-1 on Kaprizov’s power-play goal 9:03 in the second period. It was Kaprizov’s third goal of the season but his first in the last six games.
THAT KK97 đź“Ť WE ALL LOVE#mnwild pic.twitter.com/U9blnoLnrZ
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) November 3, 2023
The new look top line struck again 70 seconds into the third period when Rossi netted his fourth goal of the season to trim the deficit to one.
“We switched up the lines in the second period, that gave us a little bit of a jolt, just to come with more energy,” Kaprizov said, via NHL.com. “So, play right off the rip with that kind of energy and that kind of jam.”
But then New Jersey scored another power-play goal to go up 4-2 only to have the Wild respond when Jake Middleton tipped in a goal 51 seconds later to make it a 4-3 game.
The Wild continued to pressure and then pulled goalie Filip Gustavsson with 2:45 remaining but those plans were blown up when Boldy was whistled for interference with 1:32 to go and then four seconds later Kaprizov was sent to the box for high-sticking.
The Wild played the final 88 seconds down two skaters and the Devils made them pay with Dougie Hamilton’s slap shot goal for the 5-2 final score.
#mnwild lose their 4th in a row (0-3-1) and sixth in their past 7 (1-4-2). They are now 2-4-2 against the East, have given up an embarrassing 12 power-play goals on 33 chances (5 in 2 games vs. #njdevils) and have trailed in a league-high 309 minutes, 49 seconds
— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) November 3, 2023
“It seems like every shot’s going in the net, every opportunity you have to clear, we don’t do it,” Evason said. “Every chance we have to box a guy out we don’t do it. Goaltenders are getting screened, so yeah, there’s a confidence factor. But who cares? Tomorrow or two days from now, if you’re not confident then don’t go on the ice. You don’t want to play, then don’t play. We want guys that will play. We’ve been resilient in that room in the past and I expect our group to be resilient again.”
Up next: Wild vs. New York Rangers, Saturday at 7 p.m.
