The Minnesota Wild have been better on the road this season and they have another chance to show why on Wednesday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Wild opened a five-game trip Sunday night with a 4-2 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks to improve to 18-5-3 on the road.
The trip could be coming at the right time for the Wild, who are in a 3-6-0 funk.
“No one in this room or in the organization really has been happy with how it’s gone the last two, three weeks and this is the start of something,” Wild defenseman Jake Middleton said.
The Wild took a 3-0 lead into the third period at Chicago and withstood the Blackhawks’ rally before clinching the game with an empty net goal.
“I thought we had much more focus to start the game,” Minnesota coach John Hynes said. “I think the contribution throughout the lineup was good. Going into the game, we said there’s two teams that are going to try to win. There’s going to be surges and pushes in the game, and obviously that came in the third period, but the key is to find ways to win is what we talked about. I think it was a step in the right direction in a multitude of areas, and now we’ve got to keep building on it.”
“It’s more to our identity, how we want to play,” said Minnesota left winger Matt Boldy, who had three assists. “Be stingy. Be hard to get in the zone and obviously close down and get pucks out. So, a step in the right direction for sure.”
The Wild will be without a key player, however. Kirill Kaprizov will undergo surgery for an ongoing lower-body injury and is expected to be out at least four weeks. He missed 12 games before returning to play three, including Sunday. He has 23 goals and 29 assists on the season.
General manager Bill Guerin said on Tuesday that Kaprizov could probably still play but would be “at 60 percent.”
“So, I think the best thing to do is to shut them down right now for a little while, fix the problem, and then get them back at 100 percent,” Guerin said.
Minnesota won 2-1 at home in overtime on Nov. 3 over the Maple Leafs.
The Maple Leafs have been streaky. They won five in a row, lost three straight and won three in a row before losing their past two, including a 2-1 road loss to the Ottawa Senators on Saturday. That followed a 5-1 home loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Jan. 22.
“I thought our team played hard,” Toronto coach Craig Berube said after the game on Saturday. “We were ready to go. Thought we did a lot of good things, except score. There were a bunch of loose pucks around there. We just didn’t put them in. You play hockey like that, we’re going to win a lot of games. But in the end, we just didn’t score enough.”
Toronto played without John Tavares (lower-body injury), Matthew Knies (upper-body injury) and Max Pacioretty (upper-body injury).
Pacioretty took part in practice on Tuesday. Knies and Tavares skated before practice.
Tavares was injured during practice on Jan. 15. Knies was injured in the game against Columbus and Pacioretty was injured in the 7-3 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Jan. 18.
–Field Level Media
