Another total team effort helps Wild spoil Marleau's history-tying night

ST. PAUL -- A 16-year veteran of the National Hockey League who will turn 37 years old this summer, Zach Parise was a 13-year-old first-year bantam on Oct. 1, 1997, when Patrick Marleau made his NHL debut.
Marleau skated in his 1,767th game in the League on Saturday night at Xcel Energy Center, tying Gordie Howe for the most by any player in NHL history.
From a Wild fan's perspective, the most memorable thing about it will be the Wild's 5-2 victory over the Sharks. But there's no denying the historical importance of exactly what Marleau is accomplishing this season.

"One of the most respected guys in the League, I don't know if that's a record that's going to be broken again. At least it's going to be there for a long time," Parise said. "You have to have a lot of things go right, a lot of things go your way with your health. When you think about it, that many games - and unfortunately he's gone through two lockouts. He could be at 2,000 now. It's an incredible number."
Just how respected is Marleau? The entire Wild roster lined up to shake his hand at the conclusion of the game on Saturday night, in what may - or may not - end up being Marleau's final professional game at Xcel Energy Center.
It's incredible to think about just how long of a run that is ... a guy who has been an NHL player longer than Xcel Energy Center has been an NHL arena, and three years longer than the Wild has been an NHL franchise.

"There's a little bit of an age gap between us. To me, I can't even start to understand how you play that many games," said Wild forward Nico Sturm. "I think, what Zach just said, I highly doubt that record's gonna be broken any time soon with the game, how it's played right now, how fast and how physical it is, it's gonna be real tough to get to that number for anybody. I think it's incredibly impressive."
The second overall pick in the 1997 NHL Draft, Marleau's spectacular career in the League has spanned five U.S. presidencies and four different decades.
And as Parise noted, if not for two lockouts and a shortened COVID campaign last season, Marleau might be approaching the 2,000-game plateau.

Wild coach Dean Evason, who turns 57 years old in August, was finishing his own playing career in Europe when Marleau's began. Their NHL careers were less than two years away from overlapping.
"We talked about it after the game in the coaches room that anytime your name can even be mentioned in the same sentence as Gordie Howe, it's very very special," Evason, a former Shark himself, said. "And what he's done for as long as he's done it and how he's played the game, not on the perimeter, just in the dirty areas. I don't know him personally but everything you hear it's how team first he is. It's a wonderful accomplishment."
Both Parise and Sturm scored goals for the Wild to spoil Marleau's record-tying night, as Minnesota ran its record on home ice to 17-4-0 this season. The Wild has scored victories in downtown St. Paul in 15 of its past 16 games dating back to the end of January.
It now needs just 10 of a possible 26 points over the next three weeks to secure a spot in the postseason.
Accomplishing that won't be difficult if the Wild's line featuring both Parise and Sturm, along with Nick Bonino, continues to churn like it has over the past five games.
Since returning from the COVID-19 protocol list, Parise has been red-hot, scoring four goals in five games and nearly doubling his previous season total through the first 30 games.

Even nine stitches to the right side of his face, courtesy of an accidental Sturm high stick late in Friday's win, couldn't slow down the veteran forward.
"I saw my son this morning and he gave me a pretty weird look," Parise said of the giant zipper wound he's now sporting. "He was watching the game and saw it happen so he couldn't wait to see it in person. He gave me a pretty funny look when he saw it.
Parise said he wasn't sure what he could attribute his recent success to, simply crediting the overall play of the line itself.
"I think our line is getting good chances," he said. "We are getting hard working chances and rush chances. We have been playing really well without the puck. We aren't spending a lot of time in our zone and that makes the game a lot easier and all three of us are benefitting from that."

Combined with its sterling home record, the win on Saturday improved the Wild to 5-1-1 on the second half of back-to-back games this season, an impressive mark that has been crucial in Minnesota separating itself from the pack when it comes to securing - at the very least - third place in the West Division standings.
"I don't know why [we're having success in the second of back-to-backs] but I know we don't care what happened the game before," Evason said. "That's probably what feeds into that a bit is we don't care if we lost or if we won the night before or the game before. It's over and away we go. So our group has done from day 1, game 1 they did that. I think if you remember back in LA we were down and I think both games to start the year. It didn't matter. We just kept playing the game. Again, credit to first the leadership and then the entire group when the puck's dropped on any given night they go to work."

Parise was quick to credit the team's goaltenders for the Wild's success in said situations, and the bounce back effort of one of those goalies, Kaapo Kahkonen, is an under-the-radar development from Saturday.
Kahkonen allowed a franchise record nine goals his last time out, in the first of back-to-back games in St. Louis last weekend, and has been forced to sit on that performance for more than a week.
After an early tough goal against on Saturday night, the Wild scored three goals in a span of 72 seconds, an offensive flurry that helped settle Kahkonen down.
"He came right over to the bench. I don't know if it was a timeout or whatever but Bob Woods said he come over and goes that's my bad goal for the night. It didn't rattle him," Evason said. "He just went about his business."
He'd allow only the one goal until the final three minutes of regulation when the Sharks scored moments after a power play had expired.
Kahkonen, who finished with 26 saves on the night, has now won each of his past five games on the road, allowing an average of fewer than two goals per outing in those contests.
"I was more focusing to just going out to battle for every single puck," Kahkonen said. "A couple times there, I felt like I was doing almost too much trying to battle, but I think that was the way for me to come back from that embarrassment last time in St. Louis. Just try to battle and fight for every single puck."

Armed with a three-game winning streak, the Wild will now play four of its final six road games of the season over the next seven days, beginning with a two-game set in Arizona on Monday and Wednesday.
A split of those games would be incredibly detrimental to the Coyotes' hopes of catching the Wild in the standings. A sweep would be absolutely devastating.
Minnesota leads Arizona by 12 points, and also has two games in hand.
"I think we gotta keep doing what we're doing, we can't get comfortable," said Wild forward Joel Eriksson Ek. "We battle hard and it's really important to get these games at home ... and have a little homestand like this, then go on the road. It builds up your confidence. We just have to keep pushing every day to get even better."
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Postgame Hat Trick: Wild 5, Sharks 2