When the Minnesota Wild’s penalty kill was struggling earlier in the season, opponents’ power plays were often brief. In December, the Wild had a propensity for taking penalties, then allowing goals within the first 15 seconds or less of becoming shorthanded.
As the season wears on, the Wild’s penalty kill continues to struggle, and was ranked 32nd among the league’s 32 teams as of Monday after surrendering another man advantage goal in Sunday afternoon’s 3-1 home loss to Pittsburgh.
But if you really, really want to see a sign of progress — and are willing to get deep into the numbers — perhaps it is the more recent habit of the Wild being able to kill almost all of a penalty before falling just short. Evgeni Malkin of the Penguins scored on Sunday when Mats Zuccarello was within a few seconds of being let out of the box after getting whistled for interference.
“I mean, honestly, it’s getting ridiculous,” Wild forward Marcus Foligno said after the game. “Right at the end there, it’s a good penalty kill. Two guys are working their butts off. And it just seems like a quick little chip play and good tip on them by their top guys. But again, it’s just frustrating because you’re doing a lot of things right.”
Asked if the habit of killing off almost all of a penalty was a sign of progress among what has been his team’s most glaring weakness this season, Wild coach John Hynes offered a critique of an effort that he viewed as good but not quite good enough.
“Tonight we have an opportunity — what is it, 12 seconds left? — we do a good job on the forecheck, we have the puck; we’ve got to share that puck and get a clear. The puck’s gotta get out,” Hynes said. “That’s just the detail and finishing the job on it, and that’s the difference sometimes of getting the complete kill and not.”
Earlier in the season, Hynes had stressed the primary need for the Wild to stay out of the penalty box in the first place., and generally speaking they have done a good job of that. Averaging fewer than eight penalty minutes per game puts Minnesota in the NHL’s cleaner half, and on Sunday they were whistled for just two penalties.
They killed one off, and nearly killed the other. But in the end, as the Wild lost for the fifth time in their last seven games.
“Tonight that’s the part that bothers me the most, is we did a good job on the kill. We had everything right,” Hynes said. “They came in on the last entry. We had opportunities to clear it or share it, meaning pop it to someone else and clear it. We don’t do it, and then it winds up in the back of your net.
“That’s the detail on the kill. That’s the difference between being a good penalty kill and one that gets leaky goals at the end of a kill.”
It was a similar story offensively, where the Wild had plenty of chances to score but for the third time in their past four games, managed to put just one goal on the scoreboard.
“We’re getting opportunities, they’re not going in. We’re shooting the puck a lot more. We like that part of our game,” said Wild forward Ryan Hartman, who scored Minnesota’s only goal on a third-period power play. “Obviously, it’s a combination of a lot of things. It’s choosing the right times to shoot. Sometimes when things aren’t going in, you try to force shots, but I do like the way we’re delivering the puck to the net.
“We’ve just got to maybe get inside a little more and make it a little harder for the goalie.”
As for that recent propensity to kill off almost all of a penalty, Hartman wasn’t impressed.
“Doesn’t matter unless the puck stays out of the net,” he said.
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