LAS VEGAS — Just across the street from the Vegas Golden Knights’ home arena, amid the sights and sounds and sunshine that are everyday parts of life in this corner of the Nevada desert, is a rollercoaster. The cars, painted to look like taxis, dive and turn and wind their way around and through the New York New York Hotel and Casino.
The Wild’s season has been like that ride, with injuries to key players altering the team’s direction with sharp turns and dives, but Matt Boldy did his best not to notice. No matter what was happening around him, the right wing maintained an even keel and a mental resolve that is paying dividends in Round 1 of the NHL playoffs.
After leading the team offensively while playing all 82 regular season games, Boldy has averaged a goal per game in the first quartet of meetings with Vegas while making on-ice magic with linemate Kirill Kaprizov.
“Those guys bring it every night, whether the puck is going in or not,” Wild defenseman Brock Faber said. “They’re the hardest workers and the most skilled players. When you’ve got two guys who have both of those traits, they’re hard to stop and we’re hard to beat.”
Game 5 was set for late Tuesday night at T-Mobile Arena.
But as Boldy regains his chemistry with with Kaprizov, who missed months with a lower body injury, a telling of the season’s story would not be complete without acknowledging the doldrums of February and March, when Boldy went through a lengthy streak without scoring, and needed some real mental resolve to work through the on-ice challenges.
While putting pucks in the net will always be the primary reason that Boldy, 24, was a first-round pick in 2019, Wild coach John Hynes has seen myriad contributions that Boldy can make to the overall team effort, even in those times when he is not appearing in the game summary.
“I’ve just seen a guy that values winning and understands and believes that he can help the team win in multiple ways,” Hynes said. “Obviously, scoring and point production are one of Matt’s strengths, and something that he wants to do — and we need him to do. But if sometimes the puck doesn’t go in for you, I think what he’s learning now is the impact he can have on the team with how he checks and how he competes and his body language.
“When it’s not going right for him in that area, there’s no drop-off in his game.”
Originally from the East Coast, Boldly is the son of a small town police officer who played college football at Maine. After dabbling in Massachusetts high school hockey, Boldly got an invite to USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program in Michigan, where he was teammates with current NHLers like Jack Hughes, Cole Caufield and Trevor Zegras, among others.
After two years at Boston College and his professional debut, Boldy showed enough promise to be awarded a seven-year, $49 million contract that will have him in green and red until he is 29. With Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek out of the lineup for key stretches this winter, the spotlight switched to Boldy as someone expected, unrealistically, to take on the burden of all of the missing offense.
On nights when his work was not chronicled on the scoresheet, Boldy drew some ire from keyboard warriors, many of them noting his sizable contract. For his part, Boldy kept even keel, taking a business-like approach to the nightly effort to try to win games and keep the Wild afloat in the standings until they got healthier.
“It is what it is,” he would often say with a shrug.
“He’s a young player in the league, and you’re going to go through that as a young guy,” said Wild forward Justin Brazeau, who joined Minnesota at the trade deadline. “He’s done a really good job of just sticking with it. I don’t think his game has changed, whether he was going through those (challenges) or playing well. He’s stayed the same. Hockey’s like that sometimes.”
After lighting up the scoreboard in the series’ first three games, as Minnesota took a 2-1 lead, the combination of Boldy and Kaprizov was held to just one assist in the 4-3 overtime loss to Vegas in Game 4. But as has been his hallmark all season, Boldy has focused on the task at hand.
“You’ve gotta win four games; it doesn’t matter when or how. So, you know, just stay positive, keep going,” he said after scoring his team’s only two goals in Game 1. “Take the good and work on the bad, I guess, and go from there.”
With some important teammates healthy and by his side, there has been more good than bad for Boldy in these playoffs.
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