The Minnesota Wild hosted the Utah Hockey Club on Thursday evening, Jan. 23, in their third meeting of the season. After being injured, they welcomed Kirill Kaprizov and Jared Spurgeon back to the lineup, but they were still without Jonas Brodin and Marcus Johansson. Filip Gustavsson was in the net after Marc-André Fleury had the past two starts.
Utah started the game with the first goal and kept it going. They had the upper hand, and while the Wild tried, they couldn’t get any traction. Utah went on to win the game and took away two valuable points from the Wild. While it wasn’t the game the Wild wanted, there was something to celebrate as Spurgeon played in his 900th career game. In this article, we’ll look at what happened and a couple of bright spots despite the loss, starting with how the Wild lacked energy.
Wild Lacked Energy
Even with having Kaprizov back in their lineup, the Wild lacked energy. They had little spurts, but they played really flat-footed and reached for the puck more than they skated. It was clear Kaprizov was a little rusty after missing nearly a month of hockey; he did make some strong plays once he got his feet back under him. However, his team struggled to gain any momentum.
As the game went on, the Wild struggled and couldn’t get anything going their way. They couldn’t get control of the puck, and when they did, they lost possession almost as fast as they gained it. Utah had the faster feet and hands despite both teams having the same number of days off between this game and their previous one. Hopefully, this was just a fluke game that every team has, and now that it’s out of their system, they can get back to the style of play everyone expects.
While it’s easy to expect Kaprizov to take the reins and get a goal or two, it’s just as important to remember this was his first game back after missing the past 12 games with an injury that was initially expected to keep him out a few days. His teammates needed to step up and get things going as he eased himself back into the game, but they couldn’t convert.
“Well it’s just what you talked about, we weren’t emotionally engaged in the game. We didn’t have the energy, the required competitiveness that you need to have, the execution, the speed. We can go down the list of what it is; it wasn’t a good night,” said head coach John Hynes about the overall effort.
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