The Wild can’t seem to get this whole play-two-goalies thing right.
Given the opportunity to use the two goalies who split time down the stretch last season, the Wild decided to use Marc-Andre Fleury for five playoff games before throwing Cam Talbot to the sharks for a futile, series-clinching Game 6 loss to St. Louis.
On Wednesday, coach Dean Evason made good on an implicit vow to use two goaltenders this postseason and sent Fleury out for Game 2 in Dallas after starting Filip Gustavsson in Game 1, a 3-2 victory in double overtime Monday.
Gustavsson made a franchise postseason-record 51 saves in that win.
While it’s silly to think most any of us know more about hockey than Evason, his staff or general manager Bill Guerin, we all can recognize a man about to step on the wrong end of a rake.
How hard is this?
“Listen,” Evason said Thursday, “there was a lot made last night of our goalie change and whatever. Go back and watch all the goals and tell me which ones you want Marc-Andre Fleury to stop.”
There is a lot to choose from. The Wild lost, 7-3, to even their best-of-seven series at a game apiece going into Game 3 on Friday night at Xcel Energy Center, and Jamie Benn’s snipe from the left circle to make it 3-1 comes to mind, or Evgenii Dadonov’s rebound flip over Fleury’s prone body.
But, yeah, the coach’s point is well taken. The Wild played poorly in front of Fleury on Wednesday. They were out of position, spent too much time in the box, made weird decisions. It was a fire drill.
“That game was way too open for us to play in, and it bit us,” Evason said.
All true. On the other hand, as soon as it was reported via social media that Fleury was leading the Wild onto the ice for another late start at American Airlines Center, the palms of Wild fans from Bemidji to Burnsville simultaneously slapped their owners’ foreheads. The few that didn’t simply crossed middle and index fingers.
“We’ve done it all year,” Evason explained after the game.
Well, yeah, but the Wild did it down the stretch last season, too, and Talbot was actually better over that stretch. Yet it was clear that after acquiring him at the trade deadline, the Wild were gonna go with the future hall of famer with 60 postseason wins notched on his stick.
The Wild played a great game in front of Gustavsson on Monday, especially in their own end, but let’s be real — the young Swede was the primary reason the Wild stole a huge road win. The kid was amazing. Now we’re swapping goaltenders every game?
Hung out to dry on a short-handed chance in the first few minutes, Fleury was beat cleanly by Roope Hintz for a 1-0 Stars lead. It was a tough situation for Fleury, but teams don’t win in the postseason without their goalie making tough saves. Stopping it would have sent a message. And when the Wild clawed back to within 4-3 in the second period, the bottom dropped out.
In the leadup last week, Evason was peppered with questions about whether he would play both of his goalies in the postseason, but the query was somewhat dishonest. It was really a roundabout way of asking whether the Wild would go back to Fleury for the postseason.
Gustavsson has unquestionably been the Wild’s best goalie this season, and after Evason took the leap and started him for his first career playoff game on Monday — and he emerged wearing flying colors — it was natural to go with Gustavsson again for Game 2. By the end of March, it was clear Gustavsson was playing best in net, and after Monday, it was clear he wasn’t overwhelmed by the poseason intensity.
Wild fans were as sure Gustavsson would start Game 2 on Wednesday night as they were sure the sun would rise on Wednesday morning. It makes you wonder if the Wild feel like they have to play Marc-Andre Fleury because he’s Marc-Andre Fleury — or at least because they think he still has some pixie dust left in his blocker.
“It wasn’t one person that allowed the goals to be scored on us last night,” Evason said. “It was the Minnesota Wild.”
Again, that’s true. But why even test it? You play the best goaltender in the playoffs, period. Even if the other guy is a legend.
