Wild thankful for a winning November

Maybe December will be the tiebreaker month for the Minnesota Wild. 

The team got off to a rough start in October, starting with three losses in their first five games and ending the month on a 0-3-2 skid. They finished October 3-6-3. But a team meeting and improvements that started with a nearly unbeatable goaltending tandem in Filip Gustavsson and Jesper Wallstedt helped turn things around, and the Wild wrapped up one of the best Novembers in franchise history, skating to a 11-1-2 record.

The Wild went on a seven-game winning streak, which included two overtime and two shootout wins, from mid-November until the day after Thanksgiving. Perhaps their most complete game and exciting win of the season was a 3-2 shootout victory over the NHL’s top team, the Colorado Avalanche, on Friday afternoon. 

Injuries were an issue from the start of the season, but one notable return? Winger Mats Zuccarello. The Wild are 9-0-2 with him in the lineup this season, and he fed his buddy Kirill Kaprizov for the first goal of Saturday’s game against Buffalo. That gave Zuccarello 700 career NHL points (218 goals, 482 assists), becoming the first Norwegian player to reach the mark. 

“It doesn’t really mean anything right now, but one day when I retire, I’d probably look back and it’s a cool achievement,” Zuccarello said. 

Zuccarello wasn’t too interested in the round-number stat after Saturday’s game, however, after a 3-2 shootout loss to Buffalo, the last-place team in the Atlantic Division. The Wild had 1-0 and 2-1 leads, but Buffalo tied the game twice on a pair of flukey goals, including a shot that bounced off the end glass and out in front of the goal. Zuccarello tried to bat down the puck and ended up putting it into the Wild net. 

“It was an unlucky goal when I put it in the net,” Zuccarello said. “It wasn’t our best today, and we got a point, and we’ve got to move on.” 

The game ended the Wild’s seven-game winning streak, though they’re still on an 11-game point streak going back to Nov. 7. The Wild earned 24 points in November with its 11-1-2 record, the most November points in franchise history. 

That run has put the Wild back into third place in the standings behind Colorado and Dallas. After such a tough start and a hole to dig out of, the Wild responded well and got itself back into contention. 

The success starts from the net out, with Gustavsson and Wallstedt. Gustavsson made 30 saves in Saturday’s loss to end his November with a 5-1-2 record, 2.06 goals-against average and .923 save percentage. 

Wallstedt has been the talk of hockey lately, sometimes for his signature celebration, and more oftentimes for his remarkable statistics. He’s 7-0-2 with a 1.93 GAA and .938 save percentage, the latter two marks leading the NHL before Saturday’s games. He also leads the NHL with three shutouts, all in the last five games. 

On the forward lines, Kaprizov is putting up numbers like hockey fans expect out of a superstar. He has a seven-game point streak (7-2—9), scoring both Wild goals against Colorado on Friday to reach 201 career NHL goals. Check off a highlight-reel-worthy goal from the list as he accepted a pass from Ryan Hartman behind the net. His ability to finish off plays when Zuccarello feeds him have been a welcome sight, too. 

Kaprizov leads the team with 17 goals and 14 assists. 

Winger Matt Boldy is also shining in shootouts and in general play. He scored the deciding shootout goal on Friday, scored another beauty with his quick hands against Buffalo in the shootout, plus he put the Wild up 2-1 with 5:55 to play in the first period against the Sabres after he picked the pocket of Alex Tuch along the sideboards and went right to the net for the goal. 

Boldy has 15 goals this season, with 10 of those since Nov. 6. His scoring marks rank him among the NHL’s top scorers. He’s second on the Wild in scoring, behind Kaprizov, with 15 goals and 14 assists this season. 

With Thanksgiving behind them, the holiday season in full swing and a new month of December in front of them, the Wild start a four-game, west-coast road trip Tuesday in Edmonton. They’ll also face Calgary, Vancouver and Seattle before returning to St. Paul to face Dallas on Dec. 11.

Keeping up a pace of winning nearly every game, like the Wild did in November, is unrealistic. But if the Wild could find results somewhere in between October and November, it should remain in a good position. 

“I think that you get lessons out of everything,” said Wild coach John Hynes, after Saturday’s game. “We got taught some lessons in October. I thought there were some things in this month that we did. 
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“It’s the understanding what your game is and putting that same game on the ice night in and night out to truly win regularly over the course of a season.”

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