In his hometown Saddledome where he played countless games as a kid and Western Hockey League player, Matt Dumba had his coming out party as a pro tonight with friends and family in the barn for the Wild's 3-2 overtime victory over the Flames.
Not only did Dumba score his third goal of the season, the 20-year-old rook played his best defensive game of the season by far. Prior to Justin Fontaine's goal, he made a great stick check to force a turnover on a 2-on-1 heading to the Wild net. That led to a Charlie Coyle to Thomas Vanek to Fontaine goal and 1-0 lead.
Then, in overtime, Dumba broke up a potential Jiri Hudler goal, then made a poised play to get the puck to Marco Scandella for a 3-on-1. Scandella fed Coyle to his right coming over the blue line. Coyle skated deep and sent the puck up top in the slot for Mikko Koivu, who made one move to the inside to deke the defenseman and scored his fourth career OT winner off a pump fake and bank off Johnny Gaudreau.
Koivu's goal snapped the Wild's 0-5-1 streak in OT's and shootouts since that run of three out of four overtime losses in December. This after Koivu may have saved goals with a bigtime backchecks in the second and third periods. Dumba also had several other big defensive plays and logged a career-high 18 minutes, 20 seconds because the Wild played most the game without Jared Spurgeon.
Said coach Mike Yeo, "Even before the play [Dumba] made in overtime, which first off saved a goal, but also just a poised play coming out of D-zone to get the puck to Marco and allow us to get on a 3-on-2 rush, I felt that was his best game as a pro even before that moment. It's huge for us the fact that he can step up in a game like that when we lose a guy and he's able to elevate a game to that level."
Spurgeon was nailed in the face by a deflected Mark Giordano shot on his second shift of the game 3:24 in. Spurgeon was bleeding, but for him not to come back, he could have a concussion. The Wild would have to call up Christian Folin or Jon Blum, or go with Stu Bickel on the back end, if Spurgeon can't play in his hometown of Edmonton on Friday.
The Wild's D stepped up bigtime in Spurgeon's absence. Not easy to play a full game with five D against a pressure team like the Flames. They made it hard for the Wild, getting the puck deep and forechecking hard.
The Wild lost momentum in the second period because of two penalties. That kept a bunch of players on the bench and taxed penalty killers and the Wild's already working defensemen. That seemed to halt a lot of offensive chances, but even though the Flames tied the score at 2-2 midway through the third, the Wild didn't give up a ton of great scoring chances, and when it did, Devan Dubnyk was there.