DALLAS – In a rookie NHL season that has already been filled with new experiences, Minnesota Wild defenseman Zeev Buium got two more “firsts” on Tuesday in North Texas.
While back-to-back games are common in college hockey, they’re usually at the same arena, or a home-and-home series an hour or two away, at most.
Tuesday’s game in Dallas – an eventual 5-2 loss to the Stars – was the second game of back-to-backs, involving a Monday night game in Minnesota, a late-night flight to Texas, getting into a hotel bed at around 3 a.m., then playing a road game 18 hours or so later.
“I’ve never done anything like that, but at the same time, I think it was a late game today. We had a lot of time to rest, and those are never an excuse to lose or not perform well,” said Buium, who had the primary assist on both Wild goals. “You’ve got to perform every day, so obviously it’s tough. But I thought we came out in the third, and that’s how we need to play moving forward.”
The second new experience came in the third period, with the Wild trailing 3-0 and in desperate need of a spark. The ignitor came in the form of fellow defenseman Jake Middleton delivering a bone-crunching hit – legally – to Stars forward Matt Duchene in the neutral zone.
The hit touched off a fight, and ended with Minnesota on a power play, which would produce their first goal of the night. But Middleton’s play, first with his shoulder and then with his fists, was the spark that lit the Wild’s push at a comeback.
“Me personally, I felt I got electrified by it,” Buium said of the hit, and the fight. “In college and juniors, I never really got to see anybody fight or no one really laid that big a hit. So to see that was pretty electrifying, and definitely got the entire group going and was the start of why our third period was good.”
Duchene left the game and did not return. On Wednesday, Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said the forward was listed as day to day with an upper body injury sustained as a result of the hit. In the postgame scrum, while happy with the win, the Stars’ coach was not enamored of Middleton’s play.
“I didn’t like the hit. I thought it was high,” Gulutzan said, thinking the officials could have whistled the Wild defender for head contact. “My history here is they usually run on the side of (being) more aggressive in their call there, but they didn’t. So they saw it differently.”
In fact, replays showed that Duchene was carrying the puck, making him fair game for a hit, and Middleton’s shoulder struck the Stars’ forward squarely in the upper chest, not the head.
While making no apologies for the play, Middleton expressed his wishes to see Duchene back on the ice soon.
“It’s a tough position because I know he doesn’t see me and I’m still trying to take the body on him,” Middleton said after the game. “I know he didn’t come back to the game. I hope he’s OK. There was no ill intent towards the hit. It was just kind of a perfect storm really the way it transpired.”
And for the Wild, it was the perfect spark they needed to get some fire back on the bench and ignite a rally, even if it eventually fell short.
Tarasenko seeking more
With the second assist on a power play marker that made Tuesday night’s game in Dallas a one-goal affair with around seven minutes remaining in the third, veteran Vladimir Tarasenko has now recorded four points in four games with his sixth NHL team.
But just a bit into his first season in Minnesota, the renowned goal-scorer admits he has to contribute more to the overall cause, especially with the Wild now going three full games without a five-on-five goal.
“We knew we would have a hard game. They always start hot here, and obviously myself and all of us need to find ways to play better on the five-on-five,” Tarasenko said. “Power play is nice, and thankful it’s kind of working now. But we need to improve our five-on-five game.”
While the question remains of what Tarasenko has left in the tank at age 33, as he approaches 1,000 NHL games, to go along with two Stanley Cups, on his resume, the Wild coach likes what he has seen so far.
“I see lots of good in this game. I think he’s a good player. I think he plays a winning style of hockey,” coach John Hynes said, vowing to work with Tarasenko during the two-day break between games in Dallas and Washington.
“Now that we have a few days in between, I know he’s gonna sit down and we’ll show some individual clips with him and try to help him,” Hynes said. “But I don’t think he’s too far off. I just think there’s maybe a couple things we can help him with and get his opinion on things and see if we can get it up and running a little bit quicker.”
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