DALLAS — The State of Hockey took a collective gasp when Marc-Andre Fleury led the Wild onto the ice on Wednesday night at American Airlines Center.
Never mind that Filip Gustavsson set a new franchise playoff record with 51 saves in Game 1 to lead the Wild to a 3-2 win in double overtime over the Dallas Stars. It was Fleury who got the nod for Game 2 with the Wild in position to take complete control of the playoff series.
The decision to start Fleury was questioned by many at the start of the game and by even more at the end of it as the Wild suffered a 7-3 blowout loss to the Stars. It’s the most goals the Wild have ever given up in a playoff game.
“Embarrassing on my part,” Fleury said. “I want to come in and give a chance to my team to stay in the game and win and that’s not what I did.”
Asked about the decision to start Fleury in the first place, coach Dean Evason pointed to the fact that the Wild have played both goaltenders all season long. He then defended Fleury by pointing to the fact that the Wild gave up way too many odd-man rushes in front of him.
“Nothing was on Flower tonight,” Evason said. “It was all on us.”
Though it’s not fair to blame the loss solely on Fleury — most goaltenders would’ve struggled with the way the team defended on this particular night — he couldn’t seem to make the big save when the Wild needed it most.
That’s something Fleury acknowledged in the locker room postgame.
“I gave up too many goals,” Fleury said. “I didn’t make any key saves in the game.”
That was on display early in the first period as the Wild got sloppy on a power play and allowed Stars center Roope Hintz to get loose on a breakaway. After racing into open ice, Hintz beat Fleury clean for the shorthanded goal to make it 1-0 in favor of the Stars.
The lead grew late in the first period as Stars winger Tyler Seguin carved out space in front of Fleury on the power play and made it 2-0 via a redirection.
As the first period wound to a close, Oskar Sundqvist helped the Wild cut the deficit to 2-1, cashing in after Gus Nyquist made a nice play to get the puck through.
Things started to get ugly in the second period as Stars winger Jamie Benn scored on the power play to stretch the lead to 3-1. Then, less than 90 seconds later, Stars winger Evgenii Dadonov cleaned up a rebound to make it 4-1.
“We can’t give up that many chances,” Mats Zuccarello said. “We’ve got to help our goalies out and Flower got no help today.”
Credit the Wild for battling back with the game getting out of hand. Marcus Johansson scored on a power play to cut the deficit to 4-2, then exactly 11 seconds later, Freddy Gaudreau scored to make it 4-3.
The comeback attempt ended there as the Wild allowed Dadonov scored on a redirection to make it 5-3 after slipping behind the defense. For good measure, Hintz made it 6-3 on a breakaway less than a minute later.
“That was not in our identity the first game and slipped into it the second game,” Jake Middleton of the shaky defense in front of Fleury. “We hung him out to dry a few times.”
With the damage already done, Hintz completed his hat trick in the third period to finalize the score at 7-3, sending the sellout crowd into oblivion in the process.
“We don’t win how we played tonight,’ Evason said. “We’ve had situations throughout the regular season that were the same when we didn’t play the way the Minnesota Wild play. We lost games. We lost tonight.”
As for the decision to start Fleury, as much as it might have been a case of the Wild trying to keep Gustavsson fresh after he played 92 minutes, 20 seconds in Game 1, it’s fair to wonder if the game would’ve been different if the Wild went back to him in Game 2.
“He played excellent that last game, obviously, and it was a long one,” Fleury said. “I wish I could have stepped up and give him a break and give him the win to keep going here.”
The strategy of playing both goaltenders is something Evason hinted at heading into the playoffs. How will he handle his goaltenders after the blowout loss?
“Same as we always do,” Evason said. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow and we’ll make a decision.”
Briefly
After scoring the game-winner in Game 1, Ryan Hartman missed Game 2 with a lower-body injury. In his place, Sam Steel skated between Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello on the top line.
