ST. PAUL, Minn. — Wild captain Jared Spurgeon was ready and willing to hold court with the media after Saturday’s heart-stopping, 3-2 shootout win over the Sabres.
The only problem? The music — Cher’s “Believe,” a fitting selection by Marcus Foligno — was pretty deafening.
“Like our new speakers, guys?” Spurgeon said with a smile.
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Spurgeon then turned to goalie Filip Gustavsson, closest to the sound system.
“Gus, keep that on.”
The good vibes from the Wild’s latest win will linger for a week, with half the team heading to Cabo San Lucas for the bye week and All-Star break. They’ve won back-to-back games, regaining some of their mojo and their identity in the process. And, most importantly, they’re back in a playoff spot, just one point ahead of the defending Cup champion Avalanche for third place in the Central. The post-shootout celebration — from coach Dean Evason jumping and fist-pumping on the bench to players in a big group hug on the ice — befitted more than just a normal regular-season win.
There’s a reason for it. Just four days ago, the Wild were in a funk, having lost three straight games, and dropping out of a playoff spot. Evason scratched Ryan Hartman and demanded “absolute desperation” from the group on the two-game homestand. Crazy what a couple of wins will do.
“Just relax a bit,” goalie Marc-Andre Fleury said before taking a deep breath. “You saw this morning that we’re out of the playoffs, right? Not fun to see. A good win (Saturday) and a good two points. At least now we’ve got seven days to see ourselves in the playoffs. Then we get back to business.”
Fleury felt the Wild “owed” the Sabres one. Buffalo, one of the Eastern Conference’s biggest surprises, had put six goals on Fleury in their last meeting, a 6-5 overtime win on Jan. 7. The Sabres had won five straight coming in, and with superstar Tage Thompson and company, Evason warned his group that it wouldn’t end well if they got in a “run-and-gun” shootout with them. The Wild were far from perfect, including bad defensive zone coverage by the fourth line in Buffalo’s first goal, just two minutes in. An ill-advised Ryan Reaves blind back pass in the defensive zone helped tilt the ice the other way in the second.
Jack Quinn… hello pic.twitter.com/luM2TdKUSt
— Shayna (@hayyyshayyy) January 29, 2023
But the Wild didn’t give the Sabres many odd-man rushes. They limited Buffalo to one power play all night. Players were committed.
“I’m just glad we didn’t get away from our game, right?” Evason said. “It was close, it was tight. We made some mistakes, for sure, but guys were backing each other up and picking each other on the bench. We didn’t have the jump that I think we normally have so we grinded, which is how we’re going to win hockey games anyway. They put a little more emphasis on that and we get it done.”
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Freddy Gaudreau — whom everyone jokes is Evason’s favorite — epitomized that buy-in with a heck of an all-around game. It wasn’t just the filthy goal that sealed the shootout. It was his play — at both ends of the ice — on the tying goal by Spurgeon. Gaudreau helped clear the zone and then fed a perfect cross-ice pass to a pinching Spurgeon to make it 2-2 midway through the second.
“Amazing,” Spurgeon said. “I didn’t have to do much — just direct it in. He’s such an underrated player.”
Hook line and sinker for Spurgeon 🎣pic.twitter.com/94IAcv5caA
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) January 29, 2023
“There’s no secret with him — he just does everything right,” Evason said. “He doesn’t cheat anywhere. He’ll hang around and he’ll make sure that things are done right in our zone. Gets the puck going forward in the neutral zone and he has a skill set that a lot of people now probably know, but he has that ability to make plays and score goals, too.”
Evason said it seemed like every time Thompson — who has 34 goals — crossed the red line, it felt like he could score. And Thompson nearly did, hitting the post twice. “A couple good-luck posts,” Fleury quipped.
And a clutch clock.
With the final second winding down in the second period, Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin appeared to flip a rebound over the pad of a sprawling Fleury and across the line. The Sabres celebrated. The juiced-up “Hockey Day Minnesota” crowd went stone-cold silent. But officials quickly ruled that the buzzer had sounded just before the puck went in.
No goal. “A big break for us,” Spurgeon said.
Refs take Dahlin goal off the scoreboard due to clock dying before puck crossed the goal line pic.twitter.com/YrCvbjja2m
— SabresBuzz (@SabresBuzz) January 29, 2023
“I thought it was in,” Fleury said. “The horn was a little bit delayed, right? It was after the puck went in so I was like, ‘Ahh.’ A bunch of emotions right? Like, ‘Ahh.’ Then, ‘Yay.’ That was good.”
Fleury infamously taps and thanks the posts — in both French and English — after getting helped by them during a game.
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Does he do the same with the clock?
Fleury laughed.
“No,” he said. “Too far. I can’t rub.”
Fleury, starting his third straight game for the first time since early December, was fantastic again. There were several big-time saves, but none were more important than when he stoned Thompson on a wraparound with eight minutes to go in a tied game. Evason said it was a “debated” decision to start Fleury again over Gustavsson, who has been terrific for the most part the last couple of months. But they liked how the future Hall of Famer has been playing, and with the upcoming bye week, they felt more than comfortable putting him in for the third game in five days.
“He never stops competing,” Evason said. “It’s infectious, right? Our group feeds off that energy level, the commitment he has, the fun he has playing the game.”
It’s fair to criticize Evason for some decisions he makes, but he pushed the right buttons in starting Fleury. The same goes for sitting Hartman on Thursday. Hartman knew it was coming after taking another untimely penalty in Tuesday’s loss in Tampa. So much so that Hartman said he had trouble sleeping that night. He knew a benching was coming.
So when Evason and the coaches called him into the office Wednesday morning, it was a two-second meeting.
“Ryan Hartman gets it,” Evason said. “He walked through the door. We asked him if he needed to talk. He said, ‘No.’ And he walked out.”
Matt Boldy seemed to have gotten the memo, too, on being more aggressive offensively. Boldy, with four goals in his last five games, was held off the scoresheet Saturday. But Boldy was very dynamic. He commanded the puck and delivered a team-high-matching six shots on goal. He had two grade-A chances in the last four minutes alone. The final few minutes were indeed a flurry, from Kirill Kaprizov hammering away at two one-timers to Fleury making a glove save at the buzzer.
But once the shootout came, the Wild felt confident. Mats Zuccarello and Kaprizov scored on their attempts. So did Thompson. But Gaudreau sealed it with his slick move.
We give you…Freddy hockey. pic.twitter.com/sqKZVfzkZJ
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) January 29, 2023
The bench erupted, with Evason leaping into the air. Players mobbed Fleury — and Gaudreau — jumping around together as the crowd stood on its feet.
Evason said the playoff chase is “going to be crazy right to the end.” There has to be a sense of urgency once they return from the break a week from Monday, especially with three games in a four-night stretch.
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But it is games like this, and a response like this past week, that have Evason encouraged on how his group will handle it.
“It does show growth,” Evason said. “We talked about at the start of the year we were going to be harder on each other in those type of situations and push ourselves to get out of those type of areas. Yeah, we lost three in a row, but there was not a lot of panic. There was just steady moving forward and I think you’re right. I think it does show maturity with this group.”
(Photo of Freddy Gaudreau scoring past Sabres goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen in the shootout Saturday: Andy Clayton-King / Associated Press)