Stream of consciousness blog after tonight's 4-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues just because there are a few subjects to hit.
1. Devan Dubnyk, chased after giving up three shaky goals on 16 shots in 30 minutes, 17 seconds, wasn't happy with the result of a coach's challenge after Ryan Reaves scored 9:37 into the first period.
From 51 feet, the fourth-line bruiser scored from 51 feet out inside the right circle inside the post.
Bad goal, yes, but coach John Torchetti challenged that Kyle Brodziak was offside coming into the zone. Brodziak backed into the zone ahead of the puck, but linesman Brad Kovachik, who made the original onside call, and Brian Mach reviewed the video and determined that Brodziak had possession and control of the puck when he entered ahead of the puck.
That is the rule, although possession and control in this case is awfully subjective. The fans and Wild bench disagreed, and frankly, I too don't buy Brodziak controlling that puck after watching the replay several times. I think most linesmen would have blown that dead the second it happened.
Regardless, how ironic is it that this occurred on the day my Sunday Insider appeared on this very subject after my visit last Wednesday to the NHL Situation Room in Toronto? Here is that link.
Cue Dubnyk: "This is the play that they brought the coaches challenge in for, this exact play. It's so offside that both our defensemen stopped playing and all of a sudden they have twice as much room as they would because both our guys stopped playing. You have guys on the other bench that are laughing after the goal is called, and I mean, it's just added to the list of interesting calls on challenges for everywhere around the league this year. You want to say he has possession? If you put that video up and you didn't know what that call was – if it was offside or onside, and you argued if he has possession or not I think it's pretty obvious, but you got the guy that made the call on the ice that's looking at the iPad and making the call again it doesn't really make much sense."
As you'll read in the column, it's not an iPad, it's a 4K Shogun. On challenges, the officials on the ice make the ruling with the aid of Toronto, but it is the officials making the final decision (ref's for goalie interference, linesmen for offside). I get into this in the column, but there does seem to be a groundswell of teams that think Toronto should make every call.
Dubnyk thinks Toronto should make all the calls.
"You don't have the guy on the ice making the call on an iPad that's 4 inches big," he said. "It doesn't make sense. You got a lot of technology elsewhere that people can have a look at. You're asking good referees that are proud guys to … overturn calls that they just made. Don't get me wrong, these are the best referees in the world hands down, but you're asking a guy to go look at a video in front of 20,000 people and overturn a call he just made. It doesn't make sense. There's enough technology to go elsewhere for it."
Torchetti wasn't getting into the offside, saying you have to trust the system. As for Dubnyk's assertion that defensemen Marco Scandella and Jonas Brodin stopped playing, Torchetti said, "It doesn't matter. We teach play to the whistle, right? But it was a one-on-three, and we should have eliminated the player. Either the weak-side D should come over, or it doesn't matter who is doing what. Or the late forward should come over and finish the check on him, and strip him from behind. Lift his stick and go through him, but those are details that we've been doing that's helping us win, and that's what happens when you don't stay detailed for one second off. Next thing you know, one guy beats three, and it's a goal."
2. Dubnyk had an off night, and Monday morning quarterback fans were losing their minds on Twitter that he started in the first place.
I figured Dubnyk would start after winning four in a row and making some huge stops in consecutive wins at Toronto and Buffalo.
My reasoning was probably the same the organization went through: It wasn't a normal back-to-back. The Wild played Saturday at 1 p.m. ET and landed in Minnesota by 6:30 p.m. CT. Dubnyk was superb in the second of back-to-backs last season, giving up seven goals in his last six. The Wild's off until Thursday, so he can rest up. And Darcy Kuemper's tough outing his last start in Washington.
Regardless, Dubnyk, after actually covering up for the sloppy Wild in the first six minutes, gave up three shaky goals for his second early exit of the season.
He had won four in a row but has allowed three goals in nine of 14 starts since the All-Star break. That's because of the Wild's ghastly penalty kill (he has a .936 5-on-5 save percentage, but an .831 shorthanded save percentage).
"I missed two shots," he said. "The third goal was a bad rebound and I was right there and it happened to go through me. I felt fine the whole game. It's one of those games. That's the way it goes."
If it were me, I would have probably pulled him after the second goal, but the offside challenge probably would have stopped me. I don't buy that you pull him after a four-minute delayed challenge. It's just not reality. I don't think any coach sees the ref go good goal, and then finally you pull him.
Torchetti said he didn't think of it regardless.
"No, I wanted to see how we'd respond," he said. "He's our go-to-guy, and it was just one of those things. We gave up two chances, and I'm sure he'd want those back, and you move on from there. I liked our bounceback, and I liked a lot of things. We didn't give up. We had some chances on that second power play I thought that could have scored. [Jake] Allen made some really key saves for them. If we just get one in the first 40 minutes, and then we press pretty good in the third. Our puck possession time was better, and we had a little more jump. You don't want to play come-from-behind, but I did like our second, and our push in the third period. We didn't get rewarded."
3. Torchetti overhauled the PK tonight with the recent struggles. Jarret Stoll was scratched for the first time, and Zach Parise, who hadn't been killing penalties for the most part since breaking his foot coincidentally against the Blues two years ago, and Charlie Coyle killed. So did Mikael Granlund and Jason Zucker.
"I think that we just need different looks," Torchetti said. "We didn't have the success, so the top guys have to do some kills. Using Zach and Zach's speed maybe backed them off, so now they're a little bit leery, and he did a fantastic job. So did [Granlund], so did [Coyle], so did [Porter], and it's something that we're going to keep improving on, and now the guys are going to have to pull the rope a little bit harder, and tighten up. We'll get it straightened out."
4. The Wild just wrapped up playing eight games in 13 nights and 15 in 29 days, including the outdoor game and Mike Yeo being fired.
The Wild will take Monday off, then practice Tuesday and Wednesday before Edmonton arrives.
The Wild could use the rest, then the work to help improve the PK.
"The last couple weeks, we've been all over the map," defenseman Matt Dumba said. "We've been to Vancouver, we've been to Toronto. We've covered the whole country. We had the Stadium Series game, there were a lot of different emotions throughout these last couple weeks. I think we've handled it well. We've been playing some good hockey. Tonight was just one of those nights. The next couple days will be good for us to regroup and get going on the right track."
Added Ryan Carter, "The schedule's been kind of unrelenting. I don't know what the longest stretch is, like 15 in [27] or something like that, so we've got to take a couple days. Tonight's tough, but feel good about our game. We're coming off a nice little streak there. We've gotten ourselves back in the conversation. Things are going in the right direction, so we have to make sure we focus on that coming off this."
The Wild's still up on Colorado by two points with an even amount of games now. Colorado plays Arizona and Anaheim by the time the Wild next plays, so the Wild will have two games in hand again.
OK, that's it for me. Crazy long day after waking up at 4 a.m. in Buffalo. Wild's off Monday. I'll be in studio at KFAN at 9:15 a.m.
