Rookies can add great things to their teams come playoff time. And there are moments where you’re reminded they are rookies.
That was the case for defenseman Zeev Buium on Saturday, after he again showed flashes of the offensive brilliance that made him one of college hockey’s top players as a sophomore at Denver, and took a costly penalty that changed the direction of the game.
With Buium in the penalty box for four minutes, the Golden Knights tied the game, and Buium didn’t see the ice in overtime of the Wild’s loss in Game 4. But after the game, his coach wasn’t making a scapegoat out of the rookie, or anyone.
“I think just more of the situation of some of the guys that we were going with. I think that was the decision we made going through,” John Hynes said about Buium’s limited ice time, although he did play following the penalty. “He was fine after, like we put him right back out, when he got out of the penalty (box). I just thought when we get into overtime, we were going with the guys we went with.”
Wild captain Jared Spurgeon, who has played defense at this level for more than a decade, said that the penalty — which came when Buium inadvertently caught Vegas captain Mark Stone near his eye with a high stick — was unfortunate, but nothing more.
“Unlucky. He didn’t mean to do it,” Spurgeon said. “Nothing you can do. Nothing really to say other than support him.”
In all, Buium logged 13:33 in the game, and was a plus-2. Matt Boldy set a team record for time on the ice by a forward with 33:08, while defenseman Brock Faber played exactly one second less, at 33:07.
Assist from the seventh player
There is a running joke in hockey that attackers on a power play would never know when to release the puck, save for the crowd yelling “shooooooot” whenever there’s an opportunity to test the goalie.
But when the Wild got a vital man-advantage goal late in the second period of Game 3, the audience may have actually been helpful. Knowing that there were less than 10 seconds remaining in the period, Ryan Hartman could hear the crowd yelling for a shot as the puck was coming his way. So, he took a quick glance at the scoreboard just before the pass reached him and saw roughly four seconds with which to work.
Knowing there was no time for a fancy play, Hartman threw the puck toward the goalmouth where it glanced off Kirill Kaprizov’s chest and over the goal line for a 4-1 lead.
“They get it,” Wild coach John Hynes joked afterward. “The seventh man gets the assist on that one.”
Political appeal at the rink
In addition to the highlights, crowd enticements and advertisements shown on the Xcel Energy Center scoreboard between periods, on Saturday there was a QR code posted with an appeal for Minnesotans to contact their legislators and urge their support of public dollars to upgrade the 25-year-old arena.
Wild owner Craig Leipold and St. Paul mayor Melvin Carter testified before the Minnesota Senate and House earlier in the spring, detailing a request for nearly $400 million in state dollars for updates and upgrades not only to the hockey arena but to the adjacent Roy Wilkins Auditorium and RiverCentre convention facility.
A scan of the QR code took visitors to a website where they could sign up for updates on the renovation efforts, noting that the arena complex generates $383 million in local spending and draws 2 million visitors to St. Paul each year.
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