LAS VEGAS \u2014 Minnesota Wild president of hockey operations and general manager Bill Guerin was largely panned earlier this week for paying a second-round pick to Nashville for fourth-line bruiser Michael McCarron.<\/p>\n
Well, if McCarron scores on more nifty redirections like he did Friday night, he\u2019ll be worth a first-round pick.<\/p>\n
McCarron became the 33rd player in Wild history to score in his debut with the team as the Minnesota Wild swept the season series with the Vegas Golden Knights 3 games to none with a 4-2 win at T-Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n
He also recorded his seventh career two-point game and seventh career game-winning goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt good to get a couple of points there, and it\u2019s not necessarily what I was brought in here to do, but (it) feels good to be rewarded,\u201d said McCarron, in his ninth year in the NHL.<\/p>\n
After Jake Middleton jumped to Danila Yurov\u2019s defense for a scrap with Keegan Kolesar, the Wild responded fast and furiously. The Golden Knights were done in by a bad three-minute stretch in the second period when a 0-0 game abruptly became 3-0, starting with a sloppy Noah Hanifin turnover that led to Mats Zuccarello\u2019s breakaway goal.<\/p>\n
Not long after, Zach Bogosian and McCarron scored 18 seconds apart \u2014 the second-fastest two goals in a game this season for Minnesota.<\/p>\n
Bogosian scored on a blast off Danila Yurov\u2019s rebound, then McCarron waved his stick at Brock Faber\u2019s slapper after a hard-nosed forecheck by the enormous McCarron.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust throw it there and let him make a play,\u201d Faber said. \u201cThat\u2019s obviously a big boy. And he showed he\u2019s got skill to go with it. He played great. That\u2019s a really big add for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vladimir Tarasenko scored a third-period goal for the Wild, Filip Gustavsson was sensational with 30 saves and John Hynes became the 43rd coach in NHL history to win 400 games.<\/p>\n
Hynes felt the Middleton fight was the turning point, but McCarron sure played well despite being overly critical of himself after the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can be a lot better in a lot of areas, maybe a little bit of nerves and just getting tired quickly out there, quick changes for me tonight,\u201d McCarron said.<\/p>\n
The victory came hours after the Wild added Bobby Brink and Nick Foligno in advance of the trade deadline, after the acquisitions in recent days of McCarron, Robby Fabbri and Jeff Petry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people we got are special people, too, not just players,\u201d Faber said. \u201cThey want to come in and help. They want to come in and play whatever role they\u2019re put in. They want to do it to the best of their ability, and they want to win. That\u2019s it. So it\u2019s refreshing when you get guys like that, who want to come in, want to make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Wild flew to Denver after the game and will play the Avalanche at 2 p.m. ET Sunday on TNT.<\/p>\n
Brink terrific in debut<\/p>\n
Not long after Brink rushed from the East Coast to Las Vegas on a game day, he made his Wild debut and got one heck of an opportunity on the second line. Matt Boldy moved from right wing to left wing, and Brink slotted in on the right side of the line with Joel Eriksson Ek.<\/p>\n
The former Minnetonka Skippers state champion, whose alma mater advanced to the state finals Friday, flashed speed and skill, had one shot and five others attempted.<\/p>\n
\u201cBit of a whirlwind, hectic morning, for sure,\u201d Brink, 24, said. \u201cGot the call basically when I woke up, and special call. It\u2019s obviously an honor to wear this jersey, growing up a Wild fan. So, you know, it was a special day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Faber also came to his defense after he was hit from behind by Jeremy Lauzon in the second period, earning 17 minutes of penalties after instigating a fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeventeen minutes in the box, that\u2019s a long time. I don\u2019t like doing that,\u201d Faber said. \u201cI feel like it\u2019s important that he knows that he\u2019s not super close with a lot of the guys yet, but we\u2019ve got his back. And getting traded like that is hard. And if I didn\u2019t do it, I felt like every guy would have.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey beat me to it,\u201d McCarron joked of Middleton and Faber coming to the defense of teammates. \u201cTough guy Fabes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gustavsson fires another gem<\/p>\n
Gustavsson continued his strong play since the Olympics by improving to 3-1. He has only allowed six goals in those four starts, including wins against Colorado and Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n
Gustavsson stopped Colton Sissons twice on first-period breakaways and several other Grade A chances to improve to 9-1-1 in his past 11 games. In 27 games (26 starts) since Nov. 16, Gustavsson is 19-3-4.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight away, if you stop those two, you\u2019re right into it,\u201d Gustavsson said. \u201cAfter that, I was just rolling. (My game) feels like it\u2019s been calm and I\u2019ve been in the right spots at the right times and not stressing out the rest of the team. That helps them just go forward and not (worry) about what they have back there.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the additions, Gustavsson said, \u201cWe got more tools now in our toolbox. We kept most of the core here and added some very skilled players and some hard-playing guys. And that just gives us more confidence from above. Billy\u2019s trust in this group and just adding some pieces there on the sides to get us even better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Petry understands his new role<\/p>\n
During a 16-year career with 1,039 regular-season games under his belt, Petry has mostly been an everyday defenseman. However, the 38-year-old understands the situation in Minnesota and is willing to accept his role as largely a depth guy on the right side behind Faber, Jared Spurgeon and Bogosian.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was communicated on the call,\u201d Petry said of his conversation with Guerin after the Thursday trade. \u201cThey obviously put themselves in a good position with the crew that they have. And whether that\u2019s me stepping in, playing a handful here and there, whatever the situation is, that\u2019s something that I\u2019m fully ready to (accept). Just excited to be a part of this and help the team in any way that I can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Petry played for Hynes and assistant coach Jack Capuano at the 2024 World Championship, so he feels he\u2019ll learn the system right away. In fact, in the press box Friday night, he planned to study by watching the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first person I see when I got here is Cappy, and he\u2019s like, \u2018There\u2019s a lot of things that we did in that world championships that are the same. There\u2019s a few differences. I\u2019ll sit you down, and we\u2019ll watch video. And you\u2019ve played the game long enough,\u00a0 it\u2019ll all come to you.\u2019 So, yeah, just gonna watch tonight, try to watch it upstairs, to get that overhead perspective and try to learn everything as quickly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Petry has played with Boldy at the worlds, as well as Vladimir Tarasenko and Fabbri in Detroit. He also works out in the offseason with McCarron in Michigan, where he was born when his dad, longtime big-leaguer Dan Petry, was pitching for the Tigers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2014 Minnesota Wild president of hockey operations and general manager Bill Guerin was largely panned earlier…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,7524,575,85],"class_list":["post-524790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-minnesota-wild","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}