Wild's slide continues against Utah with third loss in a row

Sarah McLellan, The Minnesota Star Tribune on Dec 20, 2024

Published in Hockey

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ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Wild’s doozy of a weekend is living up to its difficulty.

Before facing the first-place Jets, the Wild were dumped, 2-1, by Utah Hockey Club on Friday night at Xcel Energy Center to end a miserable homestand with their season-high third straight loss.

Dylan Guenther’s second goal of the game broke a 1-1 tie at 10 minutes, 1 second of the third period, with Guenther wiring a puck by goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury only five seconds into a power play that started with another faceoff loss for the Wild’s beleaguered penalty kill.

Fleury finished with 16 saves, while Karel Vejmelka had 28, including 11 during five penalty kills for Utah.

Even with No. 1 Winnipeg on deck, Utah, which narrowly fell to the Wild, 5-4, in a shootout on Dec. 10, might be the Wild’s toughest matchup before next week’s holiday break: This was Utah’s fourth consecutive win, the team is on a seven-game point streak, and it has only one regulation loss in its past 11 games.

The Wild were still down five regulars, but they did have Brock Faber on their blue line.

Faber left during the last minute of the 6-1 romp by the Panthers on Wednesday after taking a shot to the right side of his neck. After struggling to breathe initially, the defenseman went to hospital to make sure the swelling wouldn’t progress to the point where he couldn’t breathe. Faber said he’s on medication, and his voice — which sounds raspy — has improved; it’s like he has strep throat (minus the chills, he noted).

“It was definitely scary, but doctors took care of me,” Faber said. “Very, very thankful that it got me where it did because it could have been a lot worse.”

Injured goaltender Filip Gustavsson and forwards Joel Eriksson Ek and Yakov Trenin skated Friday morning, but the Wild rolled out the same personnel except for one change on defense: Travis Dermott made his second appearance in place of Jon Merrill after Dermott was claimed off waivers from the Oilers a week earlier. Ryan Hartman, who had been playing center, moved to right wing on the third line, while Frederick Gaudreau and Marat Khusnutdinov were promoted up the middle to the second and third lines, respectively. Travis Boyd, who was called up from the minors, was the team’s lone healthy scratch at forward.

The Wild looked ready to atone for their meltdown against Florida, controlling the puck early against Utah, which didn’t register a shot until nine minutes had elapsed.

Then just past the midway point, the Wild capitalized on an odd-man rush when Marco Rossi passed to Mats Zuccarello, who handed off to Kirill Kaprizov before one-timing in the return feed at 10:20.

The goal was Zuccarello’s first in four games since returning from a month-long hiatus after getting struck by a shot in the midsection. Kaprizov, who is tied for third in league scoring with 49 points, has assisted on all seven of Zuccarello’s goals.

But the Wild’s lead didn’t last long: Only a minute later, the rebound from a Jack McBain shot bounced off Guenther and past Fleury; former Gopher Logan Cooley also factored into the goal for his seventh assist over his past four games.

Utah had the next goal, too, when McBain — the one-time Wild prospect who was traded after he told the team he didn’t want to sign — buried a blocked shot almost halfway through the second, but the Wild successfully challenged for goaltender interference; Kevin Stenlund’s stick connected with Fleury’s pad before McBain’s shot. The Wild (4 for 4) have yet to lose a challenge they’ve made this season.

Late in the second, the Wild had a few close calls, with the rebound from a Zuccarello shot bouncing through the crease and Matt Boldy hitting the post on the power play, which went 0 for 5 despite registering more than a third of their shots with the man advantage; Utah was 1 for 3 after Guenther’s sixth goal during a four-game goal streak. The 19 shots against the Wild tied their season low.

The Wild will now go on the road to play the Jets on Saturday before returning home to host the Blackhawks on Monday.

They went 1-4 on this five-game homestand.