Russo: Wild shut down Avs' dominant top line; Greenway gets hat trick in Iowa

Eric Staal
By Michael Russo
Oct 28, 2018

Truth be told, the Colorado Avalanche played the night before at home, so the Gabriel Landeskog-Nathan MacKinnon-Mikko Rantanen juggernaut, a line that has combined for a ridiculous 24 goals and 55 points in 12 games, probably tired themselves out by absolutely dominating the Ottawa Senators during a 10-point evening.

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But nevertheless, it’s no easy task to slow this trio down, yet the Wild came within 42 seconds on Saturday night of becoming the second team in the NHL this year to completely shut the line out.

Landeskog ruined what would have been a perfect defending night for the Wild with a late power-play goal. But in the end, the Wild still did yeoman’s work in neutralizing the lethal threesome at even-strength and during an abbreviated Avalanche 5-on-3 to earn a big 3-2 home win.

“That’s probably the best line in the world right now,” said Mikael Granlund. “Just tried to play hard and it was a tough challenge.”

Coach Bruce Boudreau went to the Zach Parise-Mikko Koivu-Granlund line and the Jonas Brodin-Jared Spurgeon defense pair before the game and told them they’d be assigned to mostly play against the MacKinnon line.

They wanted the challenge, the coach said, and lived up to it while leading the Wild to a five-game winning streak, something the team only achieved once last season. Koivu’s line did a great job of getting pucks deep and not turning it over to the high-flying line.

Plus, “They clogged up the neutral zone really well,” Boudreau said after his 100th win as Wild coach. “They pursued. They didn’t allow MacKinnon, for the most part, to carry the puck from end-to-end and make those dazzling plays that he’s so used to making. And on the same token, I thought it could have been Brodin’s best game of the year. And both those guys can really skate, Spurgeon and Brodin, and they need to when they play against a line like that.”

It looked like it would be a long night for Brodin early when he couldn’t knock the 6-foot-4 Rantanen off the puck with all his might. He ended up taking a first-period hooking penalty. But the Wild’s penalty kill extinguished the second of six Avalanche power plays (the Wild’s penalty kill is 17 for 18 the past four games) and Brodin mended his game en route to a brilliant contest.

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He twice stick-checked MacKinnon to destroy chances and once knocked the electrifying center off the puck during a threat near the crease. In the second period, Brodin showed good awareness to glove a rebound off the glass out of harm’s way after the puck ricocheted back toward the goalmouth.

Then, Brodin capped his strong night with a 182-foot empty-net goal that sailed the length of the ice in the air.

This came after Matt Dumba took a tripping penalty. Avs coach Jared Bednar took the risk of pulling Semyon Varlamov for a 6-on-4 with 2:49 left. That would allow the Wild to take aim at the empty net without risking icing, and Brodin did just that six seconds into the power play after Eric Fehr’s faceoff win.

“I was just going for it when I heard Spurge talking to me. He said I got time, so I thought I can go for it,” Brodin said. “It’s PK, too, so it’s not going to be icing. I went for it and I got lucky.”

It was the second straight game the Wild scored a shorthanded empty-net goal. Granlund did it against Los Angeles on Thursday. But it’s not often a defenseman scores a shorthanded, game-winning, empty-net goal, but that’s what it became when Landeskog trimmed a 3-1 lead to 3-2 late.

Brodin became the fifth defenseman in Wild history to score shorthanded, the first to score a game-winning shorthanded goal.

Devan Dubnyk, who improved to 5-1-2 with a 1.96 goals-against average and .945 save percentage, made 30 saves.

It was a well-earned win for the Wild, who recovered from another slow start. They gave up the first goal for the seventh time in eight games and didn’t even record a 5-on-5 scoring chance in the opening salvo.

But two seconds after a second-period power play expired, Granlund roofed his fifth goal off Nino Niederreiter’s rebound to extend his point streak to seven games.

The Wild had something cooking now and would ultimately complete the rally to improve to a league-best 5-1-1 when the opponent scores the first goal.

The Wild began to take over the game in the second, registering nine consecutive shots at one point. In the third, they also skated well and really grabbed hold of the momentum when Dumba kerplunked Alex Kerfoot with a mammoth check.

The crowd of 19,093 roared.

Dumba wasn’t available after the game because he was getting treatment, but teammates raved about his stiff arm during his step-up in front of the blue line.

“It was a big hit,” Staal said after his 217th career multi-point game. “He caught him. Dums can do that. He’s one of those guys that’s big and strong. When he plays with a little bit of an edge and on that line, I think he becomes a better player and definitely creates some energy in the building and I thought we got a little — we were engaged all night — but it adds a little bit more animosity.”

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The Wild were suddenly churning, and Jason Zucker drew a power play by the Avs’ bench.

The Wild’s all-lefty power play has pretty much been garbage all season. The power play as a whole was 0-for-its-first-4 on this night and 3-for-30 this season at this particular juncture.

Assistant coach Dean Evason, who runs the power play, finally tweaked the all-lefty unit by taking Niederreiter off of it and putting right-handed Charlie Coyle on it.

Staal moved between the circles, and after Zucker in the right circle fed Granlund in the left circle, Granlund teed up Staal for a one-timer and his third goal of the season.

Why the tweak?

“It wasn’t working,” Boudreau said. “You can only go so long. Me and Dean talked about it between periods, so he had a chance to talk to the guys and tell them that we’re going to change the units up a bit so it wasn’t just thrown over the boards. They knew what they were going to do. And Granny was our catalyst all night long, so we wanted to start with that unit for that reason.”

It was an important win — the Wild’s second in the past six meetings with Colorado — for a variety of reasons.

First, the Wild now play seven consecutive games away from Xcel Energy Center, where they’re 32-6-10 since the start of last season, the fewest regulation home losses in that span, and tied for league-best 52 points with a 22-2-8 record since Christmas. They’re the only NHL team that has yet to suffer a regulation home loss this season.

Things are much different on the road, where the Wild are just 19-22-3 since the start of 2017-18, 25th in the league, and 1-2 this season.

“We were pretty focused on this game and not worried too much about the games ahead,” Dubnyk said. “This was a big one for us. (The Avalanche have) taken it to us over the last year-and-a-half. Being a division team, we needed this one. To get it in regulation was big. I said this morning and continued tonight, I feel like our game’s gotten better each game. We’ve put together more and more good minutes of hockey each night. That was the same tonight. We’ve just got to continue to do that on the road.”

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Second, Nashville, Winnipeg, Chicago and obviously Colorado all lost in regulation Saturday, so for a change, the league’s best division, the Central, didn’t all pile up points.

The Wild are 6-2-2. That would be good for first in the Pacific. Instead, it’s fourth in the Central.

Still, “It’s one of those rare nights where we actually pick up ground on teams,” Boudreau said.

Coyle strings some good games together

Look out, but Coyle has played three strong games in a row.

He looked good on a line with Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Read.

“I’m really happy,” Boudreau said. “I think center is his spot for the sole reason that he’s a big body that can skate. Sometimes on the wing any ex-center will say it’s easier to play wing because they don’t have to do the skating down low and then get up top that a center does. So when a center does it he gets into the game a little bit more.”

Greenway gets hat trick in Iowa win

The Wild gave rookie Jordan Greenway two games in a row to play for Iowa and lift his confidence. Saturday night in a second straight Baby Wild win over the Colorado Eagles, this one by a 6-1 score, Greenway notched his first professional hat trick on four shots.

“I was there (Friday) night, too, and he looked confident, he looked really comfortable,” GM Paul Fenton told The Athletic. “I haven’t seen the goals (Saturday), but when you’re looking at the scoresheet, you’re pretty happy that he’s been able to put some production on. Hopefully he comes back here and is able to apply it here at this level now.”

Greenway, who scored a playoff goal last season but is still looking for his first career NHL regular-season goal, is expected to be recalled Sunday and accompany the team for the Vancouver-Edmonton trip.

“It’s a confidence thing,” Fenton said. “He started out, he was really good in preseason and it just seems — he did fine, but he didn’t do anything that was exceptional. When he uses his size and speed and strength and the way he can hold people off, that’s when he’s going to be a very good player here.”

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Being patient with Kunin

Despite Luke Kunin having three goals and being tied for the Iowa lead with seven points in five games, Fenton said the Wild will be patient with Kunin after tearing his ACL last spring.

“Coming off a major injury, I think it’s important just to let him play. Just let him play,” Fenton said. “There is no rush. My experience, my history tells me, you let guys develop so when they come here you can put them in a position where they’re that much more comfortable and they’re ready to contribute rather than having them chink their way up the lineup.”

Suter honored with silver stick

With his wife, four children and mother, Diane, on the ice, defenseman Ryan Suter was honored before the game for his playing his 1,000th game Thursday.

Fenton said it was special to hand Suter the commemorative silver stick since he was the man largely responsible for drafting Suter seventh overall 15 years ago with the Nashville Predators.

“I have the draft picture from 2003 and looking at it and seeing how young he was and how young I was, wow,” Fenton said. “I said to his mother downstairs, ‘Remember that day we got to meet each other? I said, ‘I look a lot older now,’ and she said, ‘Please, don’t bring that up.’”

(Photo of Eric Staal: Brad Rempel / USA TODAY Sports)

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Michael Russo

Michael Russo is a senior writer covering the Minnesota Wild and the National Hockey League for The Athletic. He has covered the NHL since 1995 (Florida Panthers) and the Wild since 2005, previously for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Minneapolis Star Tribune. Michael is a four-time Minnesota Sportswriter of the Year and in 2017 was named the inaugural Red Fisher Award winner as best beat writer in the NHL. Michael can be seen on Bally Sports North and the NHL Network; and heard on KFAN (100.3 FM) and podcasts "Worst Seats in the House" (talknorth.com), "The Athletic Hockey Show" on Wednesdays and "Straight From the Source" (The Athletic). Follow Michael on Twitter @RussoHockey