DALLAS \u2014 One game doesn\u2019t make a series, but the Dallas Stars learned Saturday during a humbling 6-1 defeat to the Minnesota Wild that this isn\u2019t the 2023 Wild.<\/p>\n
Kirill Kaprizov isn\u2019t playing hurt. Matt Boldy isn\u2019t still trying to learn how to function in the playoffs. Quinn Hughes isn\u2019t a Canuck. Brock Faber isn\u2019t two games into his NHL career. And Jesper Wallstedt isn\u2019t a minor leaguer.<\/p>\n
But the biggest game changer for the Wild and potential series changer is the fact that Joel Eriksson Ek isn\u2019t unavailable for this series.<\/p>\n
In the 2023 Wild-Stars series, the Wild, with almost no depth on their roster because of the cap mess from buying out Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, couldn\u2019t afford life without Eriksson Ek. He has his paws on too many things. He\u2019s their best all-around center at five-on-five. He\u2019s their net-front guy on the No. 1 power play. He\u2019s first over the boards on the penalty kill.<\/p>\n
So when he broke the outside of his left leg blocking Evgeni Malkin\u2019s shot with five games left in the regular season, it was a death blow.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Eriksson Ek did everything in his power to try to get back. It was supposed to be a two-month injury, yet 15 days later, after skating for a week, Eriksson Ek was convinced he could play Game 3 in a series that was 1-1.<\/p>\n
He lasted one shift \u2014 19 seconds.<\/p>\n
\u201cPainful,\u201d Eriksson Ek said during a conversation with The Athletic on Monday in St. Louis. \u201cBrutal.\u201d<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t talking physically. He was talking mentally.<\/p>\n
For a player who prides himself on never getting too high or too low, this was the lowest of the lows.<\/p>\n
As Eriksson Ek said after Saturday\u2019s Game 1 blowout, you work 82 games to play in the playoffs, not get cheated of going to battle with your teammates because of blocking a shot you do dozens of times per season.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou try everything you can to play, but couldn\u2019t do it that time,\u201d Eriksson Ek said. \u201cBut it\u2019s a new year, new season. So happy to be out there with the guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe in the cynicism of all the Wild\u2019s first-round exits, we all took for granted what not having Eriksson Ek meant to the Wild\u2019s fortunes in 2023. The Stars sure were reminded Saturday how important the workhorse of a centerman can be to the Wild.<\/p>\n
He scored two power-play goals on slot one-timers off passes from Boldy and Kaprizov. He had five shots. His Corsi-For percentage was 64 percent, according to Natural Stat Trick \u2014 second best on the team. He won 12 of 21 faceoffs. He logged 2 minutes, 19 seconds, on the Wild\u2019s 3-for-4 penalty kill.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, Ekky was good tonight,\u201d coach John Hynes said. \u201cI think we always see obviously, I think, the production that we all saw, but he\u2019s a tenacious competitor. He plays so many key situations for us, and he\u2019s a hard guy to play against. I was glad that he was able to come in and he was rested. He\u2019s got a lot of energy and things like that, and I think you saw the performance tonight from him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eriksson Ek has been beaten to heck lately, blocking shots, both with his legs and \u2026 his face. In the last meeting in Dallas, Eriksson Ek was hit with a high stick in the face, too. He played the second and third periods with a cage, but fortunately for him, X-rays were negative in Nashville, Tenn. Still, the Wild decided to scratch him the final three games so he could rest physically and mentally and freshen him for what they hope is a long playoff run.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a big, important guy for us,\u201d said Mats Zuccarello, who had three assists \u2014 two on Eriksson Ek\u2019s goals.<\/p>\n
Boldy, who emerged last postseason as a true star for the Wild, had two goals and an assist Saturday. But Friday afternoon, Boldy talked on and on about Eriksson Ek and just how much the hard-nosed forward has taught him about not being a perimeter player, especially in the playoffs. You have to get your nose dirty; you have to go to the net to score goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cI give a lot of credit to playing with Ekky over there for the last handful of years,\u201d Boldy said of his linemate. \u201cI think he\u2019s taught me so much about that. Demanded it from me, too. You play with a guy that\u2019s always in the trenches, it\u2019s hard not to be there with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wild fans know Eriksson Ek is a magnet for goalmouth scrums. His face, which has shades of yellow with all the bruising he has sustained lately, is a punching bag at times and was again in Game 1. But Boldy was right there with him.<\/p>\n
But unlike his early years, when Eriksson Ek attracted the opposing team\u2019s ire, he didn\u2019t have the production to go along with it; that\u2019s not the case anymore. His two power-play goals Saturday were beautiful and tone-setters, especially the early first-period one after Zuccarello took an elbow to the face from Tyler Myers. That early 1-0 lead allowed an admittedly nervous rookie in Jesper Wallstedt to settle into the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s an ultra-competitive guy, and that\u2019s where he wants to be,\u201d defenseman Hughes said of Eriksson Ek, whom he has previously said he used to despise playing against when he captained the Vancouver Canucks. \u201cThat\u2019s where he\u2019s good at. You don\u2019t have to tell him to go to the net. I\u2019ve really enjoyed playing with him. It\u2019s my job to get pucks down to him. Same with Kirill and Bolds and Zuccy, so he was right where he needed to be on a couple of those plays.<\/p>\n
\u201cKirill and Bolds, Zuccs, they make good passes into him. So, I don\u2019t know what our power play was running during the regular season \u2014 I think we were top-(three). But I think we expect to capitalize, and that\u2019s what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no doubt Eriksson Ek could be the Wild\u2019s X-factor to win this series. The fact he wasn\u2019t there in 2023 probably killed things before the series even began.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not the case this time.<\/p>\n
But Eriksson Ek was hardly getting too high after the big Game 1 win. It\u2019s just one win. But he was glad to be part of it after such a low three postseasons ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we played pretty good today,\u201d he said. \u201cNext game is a new game, so just have to do it over and over every game. We know they\u2019re probably not the happiest with that game. So I\u2019m sure it\u2019s gonna be harder next game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS \u2014 One game doesn\u2019t make a series, but the Dallas Stars learned Saturday during a humbling 6-1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5118],"tags":[147,5,161,38,5280,4,162],"class_list":{"0":"post-555928","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-wild","8":"tag-dallas-stars","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-minnesota","11":"tag-minnesota-wild","12":"tag-minnesotawild","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-wild"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116430923502928420","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}