Quick thoughts on the game:
Top line buzzed a lot but good lord Heatley is a disaster in his end. He chips the puck off the glass more than Willie Mitchell did. His poor skating really hurts the team in transition. Good work by Parise and Koivu, who had a few nice shots as well.
Second line obviously was big, but the thing was they were scoring off the rush, which has just not happened this year. Two goals for Cullen off the rush and a pipe which led to the possession where Seto scored. And of course last game Zucker scored off his rush. That's great. That's exactly what the Wild need, a line that can move up the ice with speed and score.
Third line was very good tonight because Brodz and Clutter played very well. Brodz had maybe his best game where he was controlling the puck and starting to play a little bit of offensive game. Clutter had tons of opportunities and needs to get a smaller curve or cut the stick down or something because you're never going to score when you miss 3/4 of the shots you take. Butch was okay, not great.
Fourth line was invisible, as I said elsewhere Granlund didn't do much outside of turn the puck over horrendously on a PP. The line played fairly well defensively though, not a lot of minutes. Rupp and Mitchell had a couple nice forechecks.
Defense was kind of mixed up tonight, did Yeo shorten the bench and put Stoner and Prosser on a leash? Good idea IMO.
Brodin and Suter played excellent. I hope when the goals start for Brodin they don't stop. Would love to see Lidstrom 2.0 turn into an offensive machine as well. Suter did great as always with the puck but also stepped up and played a bit more physical.
Gilbert was kind of invisible for me, didn't stand out. Stoner was ROUGH. Suicide passes and turnovers galore. Defensively I thought he was okay, although sometimes he looks like he has no idea where he should be.
Spurgeon I thought was very good in the offensive zone and did see a couple mistakes defensively but hopefully he's getting better? He's been rough since coming back from injury. Anyways he is willing to shoot the puck and will step up with it on the PP, exactly what the Wild need. Prosser got blown up a couple times but didn't notice him much.
Backstrom, well I'm terrible at judging goalies outside of when they nearly pitch shutouts but he looked fine to me. He looks more aggressive this year but he wasn't quite as bad as a month ago when he was flying out of the crease.
As a whole I'm still seeing two problems with the team in their end which is hurting them:
1. The whole team gets sucked down too low in their end. The wingers are way too deep which gives the other team about 10' of room (which is like a football field for NHL'ers) to work the puck. It also hurts the breakout, as all the players are deep and facing the wrong way...when they do get the puck, because they are so bunched up, there's nobody to pass to, so it's either chip out of the zone along the boards or if the other team is tired and off for a change they can skate it out. We clearly have more talent on D and up front in terms of carrying the puck (I've seen a lot of good puck movement this year), but the positioning does not put them in a good place to succeed.
2. This zone coverage bit leaves gaps in coverage frequently. I will see plays where say the other team is cycling the puck out of the corner and carries the puck out and the Wild checker just abandons his man to go somewhere else. Flat out leaves the puck carrier. Why? There's no benefit to this. If there's a gap in coverage, someone else should fill it. You don't give the puck carrier that much space. They are better about picking up open bodies, but it still seems like it could lead to mistakes and goals.
Some people.
