With the band mostly back together, the Minnesota Wild made the goal horn wail enough for their seventh straight win on Saturday.

Matt Boldy had a pair of first-period goals for the Wild, who were playing with a healthier lineup after five regulars returned. They put together enough defense over the final two periods to hang on for a 5-2 win over a determined Edmonton Oilers’ squad.

Ryan Hartman’s opportunistic goal in the dying seconds of the opening period was the difference maker. Vladimir Tarasenko added a third period insurance goal — his fourth in the past three games — as the Wild improved to 4-0-0 since last week’s blockbuster trade for Quinn Hughes. Tarasenko also set up Nico Sturm for an empty-net goal with 85 seconds left on the clock.

Filip Gustavsson was busy with Edmonton’s talented offense all afternoon, finishing with 28 saves and improving to 12-8-3 as Minnesota’s starter.

Boldy, who entered the contest with a three-game scoring streak, quickly made it four when he intercepted a puck from Oilers defenseman Mattias Ekholm at the defensive blue line. Sprung on a breakaway, Boldly’s crafty backhander slipped past the Edmonton goalie on the glove side less than five minutes into the game.

Near the midway point of the first, Oilers star forward Leon Draisaitl was whistled for cross checking and protested a bit too forcefully on his way to the penalty box, drawing a second minor for unsportsmanlike conduct.

There was nothing subtle or crafty about Boldy’s work on the extended power play, as he took a pass from Hughes and used brute force to blast the puck past Calvin Pickard, high on the stick side this time, doubling the Wild’s lead.

Edmonton got on the board a short time later via a nice redirection in front of Gustavsson, and tied the game before the end of the first, getting a power play goal as a result of a messy scramble of bodies in the Minnesota crease.

The tie was short-lived, as Hartman cashed in a pretty give-and-go pass from Jake Middleton with 7.2 seconds on the clock.

Edmonton did everything except score on a power play early in the middle frame, and the Wild got some important puck luck when a shot by Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard clanked the inside of the goal post behind Gustavsson, then sailed out of harm’s way.

Tarasenko, acquired in a trade with Detroit in July, had been relatively quiet early in his time with the Wild but now has five goals since returning from an injury in late November. He popped in a loose puck in the crease behind Pickard after an initial shot by Yakov Trenin.

Pickard finished with 32 saves for the Oilers, who had won four of their previous five games but are now 0-2-0 versus the Wild this season.

The Wild’s three-game, pre-Christmas homestand continues on Sunday evening, with the Central Division-leading Colorado Avalanche making their second visit of the season to St. Paul. The Wild won their first meeting of the season 3-2 in a shootout on the day after Thanksgiving.

Briefly

Teams that will compete in the 2026 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship — which begins Friday, Dec. 26, in St. Paul and Minneapolis — have already begun arriving in the Twin Cities, with members of Team Switzerland attending Saturday’s game. The Swiss team’s tournament opener is on Dec. 27 at Grand Casino Arena versus Team USA, the two-time defending gold medalists.

Related Articles

With better health, Wild suddenly facing a player surplus

Quinn Hughes shows he can eat minutes on defense when needed

Late rally in Columbus lifts Wild to sixth straight win

Blue line injuries mean Carson Lambos’ NHL debut

Danila Yurov finding comfort, and points, alongside fellow Russians

Matthew Lopez is America’s hottest playwright. He launched a seismic eruption in the theatrical world with his 2018 creation, “The Inheritance,” a seven-hour stage epic focused upon the evolution of gay culture in America and the AIDS crisis’ role in it. The ambitious project won every major award for a new play in both New York and London, and Lopez has followed it up with an acclaimed script for a 2022 musical adaptation of the film comedy, “Some Like It Hot.”

For the newest production on its proscenium stage, the Guthrie Theater has reached back to an earlier Lopez play, 2011’s “Somewhere,” a work that – while possessing much charm – nevertheless bears the marks of an author still trying to find his voice.

It’s what’s known as a kitchen-sink drama, in which family issues are hashed out within the claustrophobic confines of a conflict-filled home. And Lopez obeys most of the conventions of the form, save for one imaginative twist: The characters periodically break into dance numbers that hint at the liberation they seek.

While those interludes are engaging, I came away from director Joseph Haj’s staging of “Somewhere” feeling that there needs to be more passion in this tale of a family full of urban dreamers struggling to find their way into show business and out of poverty. It never achieves the naturalism necessary to make its realistic exchanges absorbing, nor the abandon that would give flight to its fantastical dance sequences.

We’re taken to 1959 Manhattan and the household of a Puerto Rican family that’s simply mad about musical theater. Mom is a Broadway usher, her oldest a dancer who played a small role in “The King and I” as a child, his sister studying dance and youngest brother taking acting lessons. While their musician patriarch is on the road, the eldest sibling has become the clear-eyed voice of discipline in the household who struggles with the strain of their hand-to-mouth life.

Yet it’s a family driven by dreams, and some hope arrives when an adopted brother who’s since fled the nest becomes an assistant to choreographer and director Jerome Robbins during his work on the stage and film versions of the musical, “West Side Story.” Could this story rooted in conflicts between street gangs of Puerto Rican and European descent prove a conduit for their ambitions?

While leaning on Robbins’ style for its dance interludes – kudos to choreographer Maija Garcia for deftly capturing his movement vocabulary and the performers for so ably executing it – the script’s structure seems more an homage to Tennessee Williams.

Mother Inez is as devoted to her delusions as a typical Williams heroine, and Maggie Bofill makes her quite engaging when she launches into one of Lopez’s humorous stream-of-consciousness monologues. But Preston Perez plays eldest brother Alejandro too close to the vest, keeping his inner life obscured, even holding too much in reserve during his inevitable act-two explosion. Yet it’s a demanding role, as it also requires spotlight-seizing dance skills, and Perez gracefully delivers on that account.

It feels odd to say that a show would be well-served by being both more realistic and more fantastical, but “Somewhere” probably would, as it’s driven by the friction between heartwarming dreams and harsh realities, and more palpable passion would help raise the emotional stakes for both the characters and audiences.

Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.

‘Somewhere’

When: Through Feb. 1

Where: Guthrie Theater, 818 Second St. S., Mpls.

Tickets: $94-$18, available at 612-377-2224 or guthrietheater.org

Capsule: A promising premise could use more passion to take flight.

Related Articles

Review: ‘The Wiz’ revival at the Orpheum is a must-see delight

Theater review: ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ rises again, rocks up the Ordway

Theater review: Let Penumbra’s ‘Black Nativity’ raise your spirits

Theater review: Fresh ‘Phantom’ reminds us why it became Broadway’s biggest smash

Review: History Theatre’s Winter Carnival musical tuneful but scattershot

On Thursday, Wild defenseman Carson Lambos made his NHL debut in Columbus, logged 10 minutes of ice time and was honored by his teammates in the postgame locker room with the “redwood” hat given to the team’s player of the game.

By Friday afternoon, Lambos was headed back to Iowa, sent down by general manager Bill Guerin — a sure sign that good news was coming on the team’s health report.

So on Saturday, before the Wild hit the ice versus the Oilers, when the home team announced the activation of defensemen Jonas Brodin and Jake Middleton and forwards Vinnie Hinostroza and Mats Zuccarello from injured reserve, it was as good as getting early presents for a team heading into perhaps the most daunting 48 hours of the season to date.

It wasn’t all good news. The team also placed defenseman Zach Bogosian on injured reserve and defenseman Daemon Hunt remains unavailable, but after putting together a six-game winning streak while playing with a patched-together lineup, the extra available bodies were certainly welcomed.

On Friday, Wild coach John Hynes had a sense the bulk of the seven players missing when they beat the Blue Jackets would at least try to make a go of things versus Edmonton.

“Obviously we’ve had guys out, and those guys are really pushing and excited to try to be able to get back in,” Hynes said. “Credit to the guys who have been in the lineup when other guys have been out. We’ve played the way we need to play, and everyone’s contributed.”

Indeed, when warmups started Saturday afternoon, five of the seven players missing in Columbus on Thursday – Brodin, Middleton, Hinostroza, Zuccarello and forward Marcus Johansson – were on the ice, much to the delight of the crowd, which was already in a festive mood. Johansson, who had missed the previous two games with a lower body injury, tested Edmonton goalie Calvin Pickard less than 15 seconds into the game

The good health meant Ben Jones, who had played in 14 of 17 games in the past month, was also sent to Iowa, while Tyler Pitlick and Matt Kiersted — who played in Columbus — were healthy scratches Saturday. But Hynes said the ice time those extras logged in the Wild’s on-ice system while the team was an injury mess could pay important dividends later in the season, when more injuries invariably are part of the picture.

“If you get players back in your lineup, that mentality doesn’t change. You want it to make the team stronger,” Hynes said. “If we get some players back into the lineup, then is slots things differently. But the way we play and the commitment level we play with, that’s the difference between winning and losing.”

Briefly

For a dozen seasons, from their start as a NHL expansion team until 2013, the Wild and Oilers were division rivals, playing in the old Northwest Division with Colorado, Calgary and Vancouver. Most notably, this led to many late nights for Wild fans, with Minnesota serving as the only Central Time Zone team, and all of their divisional road games starting an hour or two later than normal. And despite Edmonton making a run to the Stanley Cup Final in that era, the Wild generally had the Oilers’ number on the ice. Entering Saturday’s game, Minnesota had 64 wins, and 31 road wins, all-time versus Edmonton, which is the most versus any NHL opponent.

NEW YORK — At least 16 files disappeared from the Justice Department’s public webpage for documents related to Jeffrey Epstein — including a photograph showing President Donald Trump — less than a day after they were posted, with no explanation from the government and no notice to the public.

The missing files, which were available Friday and no longer accessible by Saturday, included images of paintings depicting nude women, and one showing a series of photographs along a credenza and in drawers. In that image, inside a drawer among other photos, was a photograph of Trump, alongside Epstein, Melania Trump and Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

The Justice Department did not say why the files were removed or whether their disappearance was intentional. A spokesperson for the department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Online, the unexplained missing files fueled speculation about what was taken down and why the public was not notified, compounding long-standing intrigue about Epstein and the powerful figures who surrounded him. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee pointed to the missing image featuring a Trump photo in a post on X, writing: “What else is being covered up? We need transparency for the American public.”

The episode deepened concerns that had already emerged from the Justice Department’s much-anticipated document release. The tens of thousands of pages made public offered little new insight into Epstein’s crimes or the prosecutorial decisions that allowed him to avoid serious federal charges for years, while omitting some of the most closely watched materials, including FBI interviews with victims and internal Justice Department memos on charging decisions.

Scant new insight in the initial disclosures

Some of the most consequential records expected about Epstein are nowhere to be found in the Justice Department’s initial disclosures, which span tens of thousands of pages.

Missing are FBI interviews with survivors and internal Justice Department memos examining charging decisions — records that could have helped explain how investigators viewed the case and why Epstein was allowed in 2008 to plead guilty to a relatively minor state-level prostitution charge.

The gaps go further.

The records, required to be released under a recent law passed by Congress, hardly reference several powerful figures long associated with Epstein, including Britain’s former Prince Andrew, renewing questions about who was scrutinized, who was not, and how much the disclosures truly advance public accountability

Among the fresh nuggets: insight into the Justice Department’s decision to abandon an investigation into Epstein in the 2000s, which enabled him to plead guilty to that state-level charge, and a previously unseen 1996 complaint accusing Epstein of stealing photographs of children.

The releases so far have been heavy on images of Epstein’s homes in New York City and the U.S. Virgin Islands, with some photos of celebrities and politicians.

There was a series of never-before-seen photos of former President Bill Clinton but fleetingly few of Trump. Both have been associated with Epstein, but both have since disowned those friendships. Neither has been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein and there was no indication the photos played a role in the criminal cases brought against him.

Despite a Friday deadline set by Congress to make everything public, the Justice Department said it plans to release records on a rolling basis. It blamed the delay on the time-consuming process of obscuring survivors’ names and other identifying information. The department has not given any notice when more records might arrive.

That approach angered some Epstein accusers and members of Congress who fought to pass the law forced the department to act. Instead of marking the end of a yearslong battle for transparency, the document release Friday was merely the beginning of an indefinite wait for a complete picture of Epstein’s crimes and the steps taken to investigate them.

“I feel like again the DOJ, the justice system is failing us,” said Marina Lacerda, who alleges Epstein started sexually abusing her at his New York City mansion when she was 14.

Many of the long-anticipated records were redacted or lacked context

Federal prosecutors in New York brought sex trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019, but he killed himself in jail after his arrest.

The documents just made public were a sliver of potentially millions of pages records in the department’s possession. In one example, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Manhattan federal prosecutors had more than 3.6 million records from sex trafficking investigations into Epstein and Maxwell, though many duplicated material already turned over by the FBI.

Many of the records released so far had been made public in court filings, congressional releases or freedom of information requests, though, for the first time, they were all in one place and available for the public to search for free.

Ones that were new were often lacking necessary context or heavily blacked out. A 119-page document marked “Grand Jury-NY,” likely from one of the federal sex trafficking investigations that led to the charges against Epstein in 2019 or Maxwell in 2021, was entirely blacked out.

Trump’s Republican allies seized on the Clinton images, including photos of the Democrat with singers Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. There were also photos of Epstein with actors Chris Tucker and Kevin Spacey, and even Epstein with TV newscaster Walter Cronkite. But none of the photos had captions and was no explanation given for why any of them were together.

The meatiest records released so far showed that federal prosecutors had what appeared to be a strong case against Epstein in 2007 yet never charged him.

Transcripts of grand jury proceedings, released publicly for the first time, included testimony from FBI agents who described interviews they had with several girls and young women who described being paid to perform sex acts for Epstein. The youngest was 14 and in ninth grade.

One had told investigators about being sexually assaulted by Epstein when she initially resisted his advances during a massage.

Another, then 21, testified before the grand jury about how Epstein had hired her when she was 16 to perform a sexual massage and how she had gone on to recruit other girls to do the same.

“For every girl that I brought to the table he would give me $200,” she said. They were mostly people she knew from high school, she said. “I also told them that if they are under age, just lie about it and tell him that you are 18.”

The documents also contain a transcript of an interview Justice Department lawyers did more than a decade later with the U.S. attorney who oversaw the case, Alexander Acosta, about his ultimate decision not to bring federal charges.

Acosta, who was labor secretary during Trump’s first term, cited concerns about whether a jury would believe Epstein’s accusers.

Related Articles

Today in History: December 20, Howard Beach racial murder

Implosion takes down a nearly century-old Mississippi River bridge

Tesla CEO Elon Musk recovers $55 billion pay package in Delaware court ruling

A California fisherman may have broken records by catching a 10.25-pound canary rockfish

What’s inside the released files on Jeffrey Epstein

He also said the Justice Department might have been more reluctant to make a federal prosecution out of a case that straddled the legal border between sex trafficking and soliciting prostitution, something more commonly handled by state prosecutors.

“I’m not saying it was the right view,” Acosta added. He also said that the public today would likely view the survivors differently.

“There’s been a lot of changes in victim shaming,” Acosta said.

Jennifer Freeman, an attorney representing Epstein accuser Maria Farmer, on Saturday said her client feels vindicated after the document release. Farmer sought for years documents backing up her claim that Epstein and Maxwell were in possession of child sexual abuse images.

“It’s a triumph and a tragedy,” she said. “It looks like the government did absolutely nothing. Horrible things have happened and if they investigated in even the smallest way, they could have stopped him.”

Associated Press journalists Ali Swenson, Christopher L. Keller, Kristin M. Hall, Aaron Kessler and Mike Catalini contributed to this report.