Reusse: Hockey coaches can rip their teams, but few will roast individual players

New deadlines, a new knee and other priorities caused an aged sportswriter to make his season debut at a Wild game on Thursday night, Jan. 15. This would also make it his first appearance at Grand Casino Arena, which is a worthy sponsor but doesn’t roll off the tongue as did “the X.”

This was Game 48 of the Wild’s 82-game regular season and the 23rd at home, where the Wild carried a record of 13 wins, five losses and six of those phony-baloney overtime or shootout defeats that don’t appear as losses in the NHL standings.

Considerable viewing of Anthony La Panta and his partner (I miss regular servings of Wes Walz’s candor) on FanDuel Sports North telecasts had convinced me the Wild had become a powder keg after the acquisition of wheeling, dealing defender Quinn Hughes in mid-December.

Embarrassing as it was to be first showing up in mid-January, there was a need to slip down to the suite level and say howdy to Craig Leipold, the team’s personable owner.

There had been a couple of occasions to spend a period or so in the suite as Leipold took a seat, generally with an open one next to him, and watched his team with full intensity. He suffers immensely at bad turns for his athletes, and guards against over-optimism when things are going well.

The reason for such caution in this weird game of hockey filled with unpredictable caroms was apparent in the final six minutes of the first period.

The Jets from Winnipeg, the winners of the Presidents’ Trophy as the regular-season points winner in 2024-25, had been inept when star goalie Connor Hellebuyck was injured, and came to town with only 18 wins in 45 games.

As it turned out, maybe he was.

The Jets had their first shot while on a power play and Jonathan Toews (he’s still around) put in the rebound at 14:08.

A few minutes later, I was at the elevator, and the Jets scored again. Then I was in the elevator and not aware the Jets scored again eight seconds later — the fastest goals ever scored against the Wild on home ice in their 25 seasons.

Leipold came out of the suite during the break, we exchanged howdies, talked for a minute and I said, “It’s only two-nothing, you’ll win this game.”

Which brought me awareness it was 3-0.

The Gus Bus didn’t add to the misery and the final was 6-2 for Winnipeg.

When coach John Hynes arrived for his postgame media session, Mike Russo, a hockey scribe in the parts for two decades, tried to get an answer on the importance of a soft goal in ruining the night for Wallstedt and his team.

Hynes said he didn’t want to get into the contribution of a specific player to this disappointing effort.

It’s the curse of modern sportswriting: coaches in all sports willing to cite a terrible performance from their team, but trying to avoid calling out specific players for crucial blunders.

Take Kevin O’Connell, the Vikings coach, spending the season talking in generalities about quarterback J.J. McCarthy’s struggles, but I don’t think we ever got:

Hockey coaches … they were always the best in ripping players,

Mike Keenan coached eight NHL teams by being abrasive to all and enthusiastic in calling out specific failures. Jacques Demers — as Glen Sonmor said, “Demers has a four-year contract and a two-year act.”

Wren Blair: a highlight of my life. Drinking at 2 a.m. in the North Stars GM’s Met Center office in the late ’60s with my pal Mike Augustin and Wren’s coach Parker McDonald, and profanely hearing of all the mistakes his players had committed in the past few games.

Now, our guy Hynsie doesn’t want to get into specifics on the night the goalie might have given up four if the opponents were firing volleyballs.

Wallstedt wasn’t alone. No. 97, Kirill Kaprizov, soon to be the highest-paid player in the NHL, failed to score for the 10th time in the past 13 games. Worse yet, he did not have a shot on goal.

The Wild aren’t the same with the terrific Joel Eriksson Ek out because of injury. And Hughes, seeing him in person in the home uniform … he’s incredible with his puck possession.

The Wild also have this break coming: Because of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia is banned from the Olympics and Kaprizov gets three weeks off in February while other stars are mugging each other in Italy.