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Five players who need to step up for Wild to turn things around
By DANE MIZUTANI | dmizutani@pioneerpress.com | Pioneer Press
PUBLISHED: October 31, 2019 at 1:58 pm | UPDATED: October 31, 2019 at 2:00 pm
ST. LOUIS — As Wild players slowly peeled off their equipment in the wake of another frustrating loss, they spoke with a confusing sense of optimism. Confusing because after Thursday’s 2-1 loss at Enterprise Center, Minnesota’s NHL team is off to its worst start since its inaugural season of 2001-01.
Hidden beneath the surface of the 4-9-0 record, coach Bruce Boudreau said, were sustained stretches of solid play. At some point, he added, the Wild will rattle off a handful of wins and get right back into the Central Division race.
“I think in defeat this was a really positive thing for us,” he said. “It’s not going to be easy, but if we can build off it, that’s what we want to do.”
It would help if some of the Wild’s struggling veterans started pulling their own weight.
“You give them enough rope, and show confidence in them by keeping them out there, (and hope) that eventually they’re going to pay it back and start scoring,” Boudreau said. “They are going to end up scoring, and when they do that, our balance, I think, will pay off.”
Here are five players who need to step up if the Wild are going to turn things around starting Saturday against the Blues at Xcel Energy Center.
5. DEVAN DUBNYK
There’s no way around it: Devan Dubnyk has been the second-best goaltender on the team this season, looking more like the backup than backup Alex Stalock. He has a 2-6-0 record to go with a 3.65 goals-against average (50th in the NHL, so far) and a .885 save percentage (49th). If the Wild are going to have any chance of turning things around, Dubnyk needs to look like a No. 1 goaltender again.
4. MATT DUMBA
It’s not that Matt Dumba has necessarily underachieved to this point; he’s still one of the top point producers on the team. It’s just that he hasn’t scored goals at the clip the Wild require. After teasing back in training camp that he was eyeing a potential 30-goal campaign, Dumba is nowhere near that pace — one goal in 13 games. Dumba would be the first person to acknowledge he needs to be more of a scoring threat from the blue line.
3. KEVIN FIALA
It’s not Kevin Fiala’s fault that former general manager Paul Fenton pegged him as a potential game-breaker. Nonetheless, that moniker is going to follow him for the rest of his career — at least while’s in Minnesota — and he’s looked like anything but. Fiala is without a goal and already has been scratched a couple of times because of irresponsible play. Fiala, 23, seems to have all the tools to be a dynamic player, but he made his NHL in 2014-15 and one can’t help but wonder if he’s ever going to figure it out.
2. MATS ZUCCARELLO
The Wild’s big fish in free agency, Mats Zuccarello has been a passenger so far. He hasn’t looked like much of a playmaker and has only one goal and two assists in nine games. To be fair, a lower-body injury clearly hindered his game early, and Zuccarello claims to be feeling “more comfortable with the puck” as of late, so maybe he’s on the verge of breaking out.
1. ZACH PARISE
Take away a fluke goal off his backside, and a rather meaningless empty-netter, and Zach Parise has one goal that he actually created himself. So far, the $98 Million Man has looked like an aging veteran fighting it in both ends. And while Parise, 35, thinks he’s getting close, talk is cheap; he’s making $9 million in the eighth year of a 13-year contract and needs to start playing like it.
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"The eternal fate of the noble and enlightened: to be brutally crushed by the armed and dumb."
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