Wild want the puck on Kirill Kaprizov’s stick
Kirill Kaprizov was a big reason the Wild were competitive in their best-of-seven, first-round playoff series against St. Louis last season, finishing Minnesota’s loss with seven goals and an assist in six games.
That’s a tall order to repeat, but the Wild will likely need more out of their young left winger to get past Dallas in this year’s first-round series against the Stars, which was knotted at a game apiece before the series moved to Minnesota for Game 3 on Friday at Xcel Energy Center.
Kaprizov scored on a deflection in the Wild’s 3-2, double-overtime victory in Game 1, but he didn’t make much of an offensive impact in Wednesday’s 7-3 loss in Game 2 at American Airlines Center.
Kaprizov, in fact, finished that game with more hits (5) than shots on goal (2). In two games, he has one point and just eight shots on goal.
“We need Kirill to have the puck a little bit more, probably, make them chase him a little bit more,” coach Dean Evason said after his team’s morning skate Friday.
After setting franchise records with 47 goals and 108 points in the 2021-22 regular season, Kaprizov was everything the Wild could have hoped for in the postseason, and if it wasn’t quite enough to lift Minnesota into the second round for the first time since 2015, it was a promising development for a team that had been missing the preternaturally skilled scorer that helps teams win in the postseason.
That proved to be the case in Game 1, and was part of what was missing in Game 2, which was essentially a total washout for Minnesota. The Wild fell behind 2-0 in the first eight minutes and never really played the heavy, tight and responsible game it favors.
The Wild also were missing its top two centers, Ryan Hartman and Joel Eriksson Ek, to lower-body injuries.
It all contributed to a quiet night for the Wild’s star sniper.
“He hasn’t had (the puck) as much as he would like, and obviously we would like, because we turn(ed) the puck over too much and they had the puck,” Evason said. “We were chasing them. We would like for them to chase us tonight.”
Special problem?
Special teams have played a major role in the series so far, and for a team that wants to play heavy, as the Wild does, it can be a tightrope — and the Wild averaged 33 minutes in penalties the first two games.
In Game 1, the Wild took a 1-0 lead on Kaprizov’s power-play goal, and the Wild killed off three late penalties on the way to their double-overtime victory. On the flip side of that, Dallas — whose power play ranked fifth (25 percent) in the regular season — was 5 for 11 (45 percent) with a short-handed goal after two postseason games.
“I think every coach, every team, talks about discipline and penalties. We talk about it every single day,” Evason said Friday. “There’s no more emphasis on it today than there was the last couple of days.”
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