Wildly reunite Kaprizov, Eriksson Ek, Boldy and adjust powerplay ahead of road trip

On By Littum

ST. LOUIS — With a 1-1-1 record over the past three games and the offense sputtering, the Minnesota Wild are reuniting a top line that was one of the NHL’s best when it was together last season.

Coach John Hynes had top forwards Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy together for practice Monday, and the trio is expected to skate together five-on-five against St. Louis Blues on Tuesday as the team opens a three-game stretch. road trip. The move comes with Eriksson Ek returning to training on Monday and Mats Zuccarello out for the long term.

“It’s exciting,” said Boldy, who is second on the Wild with 10 goals and 18 points this season and is one of only three Wild players — along with Kaprizov and Marco Rossi — to score a goal in the last three games. “It’s part of the long season. Guys are going to get hurt. Guys are going to play with different guys.

“We’ve seen that the last few games creep them up. So I’m excited to see some different looks and different combinations and try to see if they work.”

In a combined 374 minutes and 10 seconds of five-on-five play last season over 63 games, the Kaprizov-Eriksson Ek-Boldy line outscored opponents 31-18, according to Developmental hockey. The analyzes show that the line had a high shooting percentage. Shot attempts with the three on the ice combined were 451-344. They had a shooting percentage of 58.4 percent (236-168) and an expected goal percentage of 62.7 percent.

According to MoneyPuckat five-on-five for lines with at least 300 minutes, the trio had the league’s second-best projected goal percentage behind only the Edmonton Oilers’ line of Zach Hyman, Connor McDavid and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Kaprizov-Eriksson Ek-Boldy had the third best expected goals per 60 minutes, seventh best expected goals against per 60 minutes and eighth highest goal share of all forward lines.

The line also had the second highest goals per 60 minutes (4.64) trailing only the Detroit Red Wings’ Lucas Raymond, Dylan Larkin and Alex DeBrincat.

Why?

“We won puck battles,” Eriksson Ek said. “Getting that second, third, maybe sometimes fourth chance, just by winning games and creating those chances and keeping games alive. Those two players are going to find plays every night. So just try to give them the puck as much as possible. “

Boldy agreed, saying, “I’m just a big believer in pucks, getting second and third chances by winning games and getting pucks back. That’s our biggest thing and then the skill takes over from there.”

Like Zuccarello, Eriksson Ek was injured in the first period of Thursday’s 3-0 win over Montreal. He missed Saturday’s game with a lower body injury. The injury turned out to be much less serious than he originally thought, and it has been responding to treatment for the past few days.

“They all played fast — they played really connected,” Hynes said of last year’s Kaprizov-Eriksson Ek-Boldy line. “They played straight. All three of them are skilled players, but I thought coming up on the ice, there was straight play. There wasn’t a ton of east-west. If the play was there, they made it. But what what really made them effective was how tenacious they were in the offensive zone.”

That’s what Hynes wants the Wild to return to throughout the lineup. With Zuccarello injured, Devin Shore and Ben Jones were recalled from AHL Iowa, and Shore looks set to get the first look Tuesday in St. Louis on the fourth line with Jakub Lauko and Marat Khusnutdinov.

Rossi centered Marcus Johansson and Ryan Hartman, and Freddy Gaudreau centered Marcus Foligno and Yakov Trenin.

Hynes stopped practice once Monday and animatedly told the team to play with purpose and stop being so loose in the offensive zone.

As good as the Wild have been defensively this season, with the fewest five-on-five goals allowed per game at 1.35, they rank 28th in the NHL in goals expected.

That’s because they get so little depth scoring.

The one risk of filling a line with their best scorers on the road is that it will be easier for the Blues, Oilers and Calgary Flames to use their best pieces and defensemen against Kaprizov, Eriksson Ek and Boldy since they have the last shift. .

“I liked the chemistry in the lines today. I think there’s balance there,” Hynes said. “We talked about some things, about playing a little faster today. Some of the things we worked on and some of our offensive zone stuff, that’s where you need guys to get in sync, work in rhythm, but then you’ve got to have some other guys to score.”

Hynes also tinkered with his power-play units, which have been in a rut of late. After being top-five to start the season, the Wild have dropped to 13th.

Hartman replaced the injured Zuccarello on the top unit, and Declan Chisholm replaced Brock Faber, who nearly caused a shorthanded breakaway goal against Dallas with a sloppy defensive-zone drop pass. The second unit is now Johansson, Rossi, Gaudreau, Faber and fellow defenseman Jared Spurgeon.

“Just a little bit different look,” Hynes said. “With Zuccarello out, it changes the dynamic a little bit on the power play. Having a lefty up there (with Chisholm) could give the Bolds a few more options. I also think a lefty up top might be easier to get some pucks over to the left side. The power play has been a little out of sync and now we have some different guys that have been on and off. That’s why we did it. Fabes is still driving the top on the second unit.”

(Photo by Kirill Kaprizov, Matt Boldy and Joel Eriksson Credit: Matt Marton/USA Today)