ST. PAUL, Minn. — Mats Zuccarello isn’t known for his flashy goal celebrations. The veteran winger is often self-deprecating after big games or goals, calling himself “lucky.”
But watching Zuccarello drop to one knee and deliver a primal scream after the game-winning power-play goal Monday night, you could sense just how much the 3-1 victory over the Los Angeles Kings meant to him. To the whole group.
“I think it was huge for all of us,” Zuccarello said.
“A game we really, really wanted to win,” Jon Merrill said. “You could see the emotion on everyone’s faces.”
The Minnesota Wild entered having lost four of their last five games and seven of their last 10. They dropped from third into the Central Division to the first wild-card spot in the Western Conference, and their hold on a playoff spot was getting a little more tenuous. Zuccarello admitted Saturday’s 5-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues was embarrassing. The players met as group after and didn’t mince words.
The message? Stick together. Trust each other.
“We just can’t fold,” Filip Gustavsson said.
Monday’s game was a perfect example of the resilience and spirit the Wild showed in soaring to the top of the league standings in the first couple months of the season. They’ve been in a serious offensive funk, with 15 five-on-five goals in the last 16 games (including none Monday).
So when the Wild fell behind five minutes in on — surprise, surprise — a power play goal, thanks to an extremely questionable call on Marco Rossi, it would have been natural to say, ‘Here we go again.’
“I think there’s so much noise and probably criticism and things of, ‘well you can’t score’ and it’s hard to play that way,” coach John Hynes said. “It’s the NHL. Every night is a hard night. You got to find ways to win, and just because you don’t, sometimes the scoring doesn’t come easy. It can’t take away from what makes us us. And I think that gets overlooked at times is how much of a team this group is. We’ve had a lot of adversity all year long. We continue to fight. We continue to play.
“Yeah, we have some bad games, we have some tough stretches, but there’s always a bounce-back. There’s always a response. To me, what we showed tonight was what makes us a really good team. We’ve got a hell of a hockey team.”
Merrill said the team talked Monday morning about just throwing everything they could at the red-hot Kings, who had won five straight and beaten Minnesota in both meetings this season by a combined 9-2 scoreline. They talked about playing for each other, having each other’s backs. And that’s what Merrill was thinking when he made his game-changing stop on what could have been a 2-0 lead on an Alex Laferriere shot in the first.
Ryan Hartman, who was terrific overall (including going 13-for-19 in the faceoff circle), tied the game on a power-play goal early in the second period. And the much-maligned penalty kill went 3-for-4. They did all the little things you need to do to win, even though those have been fleeting lately.
Gustavsson said each loss recently had felt like a “punch in the gut.” Hynes said, from the outside, every loss was like “the Earth was falling.”
“We’re human beings as well, you know. We care,” Zuccarello said. “So I think everything just — you feel like you’re playing worse than you are. Like those couple of games that we lost, I felt like we played good, we could have won. A couple of games we lost, deservedly. But it’s the NHL. Every given night, you’re playing a top team in the world. And when you go through stretches during the season when you’re not feeling yourself and whatever it might be, that’s why it’s nice and emotional to get a win here and there.”
The Wild were able to come through with the big goal when they needed it, as Zuccarello’s shot from the left circle with five minutes to go got through Darcy Kuemper. Zuccarello started the celebration before jumping into teammates’ arms.
When was the last time he celebrated a goal like that?
“I don’t know,” Zuccarello said. “I just felt my game was terrible. I couldn’t feel the whole game and bounce and then I get a goal. It means a lot for everyone in here, like when you lose like that and then everyone feeling a little like it doesn’t go the way that we want it to go. So I know I’m old but I can still be happy and emotional when we as a team play hard and we get a win that way.”
MATS ZUCCARELLO. HIS 100TH WILD GOAL. 2-1 #mnwild pic.twitter.com/D1NSzo2daI
— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) March 18, 2025
The save of the game
Gustavsson was good. So was Kuemper. But the top stop of the night might have been Merrill.
The Wild were already down 1-0 with about seven minutes left in the first when Alex Laferriere took an initial shot off the rush. He got to his own rebound and Gustavsson made a great, sprawling stick save. But the net, as a result, was wide open. As Laferriere was falling to the ice, he tried one last attempt, but Merrill raced into the crease and swiped the puck away from the goal line.
“A little bit of a breakdown, we were all kind of scrambling,” Merrill said. “We talked about coming into this game and doing whatever it took to get the win, playing desperate, being there for each other. That’s all I was trying to do is be there for Gus, and got lucky it hit my stick.”
JON MERRILL SAVES A SURE GOAL!! 😱 pic.twitter.com/okzVqjngNg
— NHL (@NHL) March 18, 2025
Had the Kings scored, making it 2-0, the game very well could have been over considering the Wild’s offensive struggles. Zuccarello called Merrill’s play a “game-changer.”
“Best save of the night,” Gustavsson said. “I got it on the blocker there and then I tried to pokecheck and I got it. And I was like, ‘Uh, here’s a goal.’ Then you see Jonny just coming there and saving the day.”
Riding the ‘Gus Bus’
Gustavsson started for the eighth time in the Wild’s last nine games, with Hynes continuing to rely on him down the stretch. The one start in that sequence for Marc-Andre Fleury was his final game against the Penguins on March 9. Part of that is schedule-based, as Minnesota hasn’t had a back-to-back since Feb. 27-28 in Utah and Denver. But Hynes also appears to trust Gustavsson during this difficult moment of the season.
“It’s fun playing a lot of games,” Gustavsson said. “The coaches have been good with us getting the rest we need between games. I had three shots before the first goal (Monday) and since I’ve been playing a lot lately, it still feels like you’re in the game, in the motion. And it’s easier to just have your game ready to go.”
Gustavsson played well against the Kings, making 28 saves, including many big ones with the game tied or to close out the game.
“There’s a lot of hockey, so you’re going to need both guys,” Hynes said. “The schedule right now lends itself, where you can go with Gus a little bit right now. Flower does a good job of staying sharp. We’re going to need both players. It’s kind of the long view. Here are some dates we think we’ll play Gus, or we’ll play Flower. But it’s always adaptable after each game — where is he? Where is the team? What we think gives us the best chance.”
🚌🚌🚌 pic.twitter.com/QVLyNnVDfU
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) March 18, 2025
The injuries mount
It’s getting pretty ridiculous now. Just as Jonas Brodin appears close to a return, the Wild got hit with another blow on the injury front as Marcus Foligno did not play Monday due to an upper-body injury. Hynes had indicated a couple players were “game-time decisions” for the game against the Kings, and this was the first game Foligno missed this season. Foligno has been one of the team’s best forwards overall after a couple consecutive summers of core surgeries. Hynes had no update on Foligno after the game.
As for Brodin, who has skated with the team this past week, it doesn’t seem like he’s far away from rejoining the lineup.
“It’s really with him day-to-day, how he responds,” Hynes said. “Every couple days we’ll know more and more with him.”
Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek haven’t skated yet, but both are progressing with off-ice rehab, Hynes said.
(Photo of Wild players celebrating Zuccarello’s goal: Brad Rempel / Imagn Images)
