TORONTO – Already the Wild has faced three of the top four scorers in the NHL, left a usually road-friendly arena empty-handed and had its manpower take a hit.
Bumpy Canadian road trip ends for Wild with difficult Saturday task
A game against the red-hot Flames in Calgary will be a litmus test for the struggling Wild.
February 26, 2022 at 6:39AM
And the stiffest assignment of this cross-Canada trek is still on deck for Saturday night.
"If we're not prepared, we're in trouble," coach Dean Evason said.
Even after Vancouver ended Calgary's 10-game win streak on Thursday with a 7-1 blitz, the Flames remain the toughest opponent on this trip and the most relevant.
They lead the Pacific Division and sit only one point ahead of the Wild in the Western Conference, a litmus test at a time when the Wild is primed for a gut check.
"We'll get pushed into the fight," Evason said, "and we like that our guys will enjoy that challenge."
While the Wild could do plenty of strategizing to combat Calgary, with this the teams' first meeting since Jan. 9, 2020, the Wild's best approach might be to turn the attention internal.
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After back-to-back losses to Ottawa and Toronto, on the heels of a victory at Edmonton, the team still hasn't recaptured the consistency that's helped it rank among the leaders in the West. Since the All-Star break, the Wild is a ho-hum 3-5.
"Our focus is most importantly to do the right thing and focus on playing that honest game that I know we can play and believing that when we do that, most of the time, we come out with the win," said center Frederick Gaudreau, who scored the team's lone goal in a 3-1 letdown to the Maple Leafs on Thursday.
A slow start doomed the Wild against the Senators, culminating in a 4-3 slip-up, and although the team had a better beginning at Toronto, it couldn't come up with enough offense to flip a tie in its favor.
"They're a good team," defenseman Jonas Brodin said. "We're a good team, too. It was a tight game. We got some chances to score. We got some power plays, too. We just gotta keep grinding.
"We just got to get back to winning games here. I think the last couple of games haven't been our best, and we got way, way, way better."
That was just the 11th time this season the Wild didn't tally at least three goals. Scoring leader Kirill Kaprizov was held without a point for the second consecutive game, and low-scoring hockey could become more prevalent in the second half since teams tend to tighten up as they jostle for playoff seeding.
"Whatever kind of game it is, I think we are capable of winning games and not every time you do," goaltender Kaapo Kahkonen said. "But still, I think we have a chance every night if we play like that."
What could galvanize the Wild is getting healthier, but that boost might not come ahead of puck drop on Saturday night in Calgary.
Defenseman Matt Dumba (lower-body injury) isn't on the trip, and Evason said the upper-body injury that sidelined winger Jordan Greenway vs. the Leafs may be more serious than the team anticipated.
Regardless of the lineup the Wild ices against the Flames, the opportunity to split the trip still exists.
And after how the first three stops went, that's the best-case scenario for the Wild.
"That's why we play and why we're going to show up there in Calgary," Gaudreau said, "is to win a game."
The Wild prevailed 5-4 on Tuesday night, moving back into first place in the NHL with a hard-fought victory in their first trip to Utah. Matt Boldy scored the winner in the shootout.
