ST. PAUL, Minn. \u2014 Minnesota Wild playmaker Mats Zuccarello looks like he\u2019s ready to come to the rescue after the team\u2019s power play scored only once in three games while he\u2019s been out with an injury, with the No. 1 unit providing no goals on 15 tries.<\/p>\n
Zuccarello practiced Monday for the first time since being elbowed in the face in Game 1 of the Wild\u2019s first-round series against the Dallas Stars series, and all indications are he\u2019ll return for Game 5 Tuesday night in Dallas. For the record, coach John Hynes said Zuccarello and Yakov Trenin, who was injured in Game 2 and also practiced Monday, are questionable and the team will see how they respond to practice.<\/p>\n
But during a practice that was only mandatory for power-play personnel, every player but Marcus Foligno and Zach Bogosian participated, and Zuccarello resumed his normal role on the No. 1 unit. He then essentially oversaw a meeting by the bench with the four other members of the unit \u2014 Kirill Kaprizov, Quinn Hughes, Matt Boldy and Joel Eriksson Ek \u2014 for five minutes.<\/p>\n
Zuccarello, who finished Game 1 with three assists \u2014 all after the elbow he took from defenseman Tyler Myers \u2014 wasn\u2019t available for official comment. Symptoms arose two days later, when he took part in the pregame skate for Game 2. After he reported that to trainers, he was placed in concussion protocol.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, he\u2019s a big part of our team \u2014 big, big part of our power play,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cI think he\u2019s the oldest guy on our team, so he\u2019s got a lot of experience, a lot of playoff experience, Cup Finals. Really well-respected, great guy. So obviously it\u2019s important to have him back.\u201d<\/p>\n
This could do wonders for Kirill Kaprizov, who for most of his six seasons with the Wild has had Zuccarello as a linemate. After scoring a goal and adding two assists in Game 1, he has no goals, three assists and eight shots in the past three games.<\/p>\n
But the power play is becoming more of an issue without Zuccarello. Vladimir Tarasenko and Bobby Brink didn\u2019t look to fit in. Zuccarello is often the brains of the operation and clearly spotted a few things while he was out of the lineup, talking it through during his individual meeting with his fellow No. 1 unit personnel. Often, Hynes said, it\u2019s little subtleties.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got a lot of experience and (is a) really smart player,\u201d Hynes said of the 38-year-old. \u201cKnows the game. It\u2019s nice to have him back. I think the combination of his experience, his hockey sense and his personality are all things that you always welcome back into the group.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hughes wasn\u2019t ready to divulge what was said and what\u2019s been going wrong \u2014 not wanting to reveal intel to the Stars in the heart of a tied series \u2014 but simply conceded the power play must be better.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of us have played in playoff hockey,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cWe all know that you\u2019re gonna need the power play to win. I think that if anything gives us confidence, it\u2019s knowing that it\u2019s 2-2 in the series. We\u2019re playing good hockey, five-on-five, and so are they. But if we can get our power play going, that might really help us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Wild are plus-6 at five-on-five in the series (9-3) and minus-5 on the power play (8-3). As Hughes said, that big of a swing would often lead to a 3-1 series, not 2-2.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we\u2019re playing good hockey, and obviously we need the power play,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
If Zuccarello returns to the lineup, it\u2019ll be interesting who comes out. Brink skated with the second unit, which makes it seem like he\u2019d remain in the lineup and move to the third line. If Trenin returns, two players would have to come out. Judging by Monday\u2019s practice, if both players return, Danila Yurov and Nico Sturm could come out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PAUL, Minn. \u2014 Minnesota Wild playmaker Mats Zuccarello looks like he\u2019s ready to come to the rescue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,7524,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-634665","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-minnesota-wild","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634665","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=634665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}