Training Camp: Scrimmage Day

I began our conversation with new Assistant Coach, and power play guru, Jason King by suggesting Head Coach Dean Evason had set the bar at about 30% efficiency for the Wild power play this season with King running the show and if not, the blame was all his.

He laughed because he knew that wasn’t true. I made that up.

For many teams, off-season additions are all about on-ice additions but for the Wild, whose core remains untouched, one of the more interesting additions was hiring King after a long stint in the Vancouver Canucks organization including running that team’s power play.

With Brett McLean taking over the head coaching job in Iowa with the Wild’s American Hockey League affiliate, the opening worked for both team and coach who has already had his family settle into the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.

“It’s been great. This organization from top to bottom, everybody’s on the same page collectively, we know what our goal is, we know what the objective is. So for me to slide in with this group it’s been very easy for me which has been fantastic,” King said during a recent conversation.

The importance of the special teams is critical to success during the regular season and setting a foundation for not just making the playoffs but going on a long run. That point was reinforced emphatically when, in spite of solid regular season power play numbers (they were 15^th in the league with a 21.4% efficiency), the Wild was beaten soundly in the special teams battle against Dallas in the first round, a significant factor in the Wild’s six-game series loss.

“I hope I can come in and contribute just with the experience and knowledge that I’ve had for the last number of years in coaching, especially on the power play side of it,” King said. “We’ve got a great group of skill. We’ve got great personnel. Mac (McLean) has done a good job here for years with the power play. But to me we’re going to fine-tune a couple of little details I think we can add to the group.”

The special teams, and especially the power play, has been a particular focus during the first week of training camp. All players, even those who will be playing elsewhere in juniors or at the AHL level, went through power play practice to understand the framework of what and how King wants the power play to look like.

“We all know how important power plays are. Special teams are so important in the game now, especially once you get through the regular season into playoffs, it’s the difference in hockey games. So I think it’s the importance of the guys recognizing that, knowing that,” King said. “We’re big believers in, when you don’t have momentum power plays can get it for you, if you have momentum you know what? The power play’s job is to keep it.”

The results have been outstanding early on.

In the team’s first pre-season game in Denver they went 3-for-8 on the power play with a lineup that didn’t have the personnel that will likely be called on for most of the power play work at the NHL level when the regular season begins on Oct. 12 with a home date against Florida.

“It’s going to be a work in progress through camp for me especially to get to know the guys, get to know personalities, traits is a big thing. And trust,” King said. “We all need to be on the same page collective which I’m sure we are. Just talking to the guys early on everybody’s on the same page. It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be great. It’s going to be a great group to work with.”

Veteran defenseman Alex Goligoski was in Denver with the team on Sunday and it was his rising shot on the power play that led to a Jujhar Khaira power play marker in the third period that was critical to the team’s 4-3 win.

“He has a really good pedigree for running power plays,” Goligoski said of King. “He’s very detailed and you know he wants us to make plays and just play within the structure but be yourself out here. So I think it’s a great message.”

In many years of covering the game literally countless times the question of ‘what’s wrong with the power play?’ has come up in conversations at the rink and around the water cooler. It’s not just about talent or who has the biggest shot, although those are nice components. There’s a mindset that comes with a successful power play that in some way transcends the personnel.

The Wild’s success on Sunday in Denver illustrates that belief. Have a good plan and that’s the cornerstone.

“I think being consistent in message and your foundation is a big thing,” King said. “We’re big believers in if you have a foundation on the power play when things start to go a little sideways, which they do throughout the season, you always have that foundation to fall back on. And you know what? Sometimes you start to overcook it a little bit on the power play. Sometimes even when you get in those funks simplicity is the best.”

“No matter what happens, you’ve got to deliver pucks to the net. You’ve got to get bodies around the net. You need to be in that high traffic, danger area,” King explained. “The exciting part for our group is we have personnel, a group, you know what? They’re willing to go to the hard areas. For me watching from the outside and now being on the inside it’s a group that’s hungry to score goals. It’s just making sure we get pucks to the area especially when things aren’t going good, getting to the area where we can be successful.”

Evason was asked about the power play on Monday and he took the opportunity to remind people that although King is leading the way on tinkering with the power play, it is a collaborative effort.

“When we go into our meetings it’s not one guy talking about certain areas of our game so I just want to make that clear,” Evason said. “Because a lot of times I’ve been on the end of it as an assistant coach and you get a lot of praise you get a lot of heat, too. We’re a coaching team.”

Monday Scrimmage

From the get-go, in large part because the core of this Wild team is already locked in place, the mantra from Evason and the coaching staff has been, “play hockey.” There have been lots of small area games in the first week of camp and even when the group was in Denver, the rest of the team scrimmaged at TRIA Rink in St. Paul.

Monday marked another step along the way with a full scrimmage featuring referees which provided a real game feel to the proceedings.

It also marked the first real chance for King et al to try out the initial iterations of the power play in game situation.

The power play group worked out before the scrimmage and then went to work in the scrimmage.

The first unit will look familiar to fans as it features Kirill Kaprizov, Matt Boldy, Mats Zuccarello, Joel Eriksson Ek and Calen Addison. That was the unit that led the way at the start of last season on the man advantage.

The second unit features Marcus Johansson, Ryan Hartman, Frederick Gaudreau, Marco Rossi and Jared Spurgeon.

Pat Maroon and Marcus Foligno also got some looks with a mixed unit during the Monday sessions along with Goligoski.

“There’s a lot of pieces that we can put into place there,” Evason said. “We’ve got some pieces we can move around.”

“It’s our real first opportunity to have our guys so it was a little scrambly but the structure is now put into place. We’ve got the units that we feel that we’re going to start with and we will continue to work at it,” Evason added. “We thought it was a nice way to do it. We haven’t done it that way. It’s new for our groups. So, no, we were very happy. The whole day was competitive there was lots of pace to not only special teams but also the five-on-five.”

Ryan Hartman Feeling Good

Monday marked the first time since camp opened that Ryan Hartman has been available to talk to reporters. He was troubled by an upper body injury sustained before camp while working out but is ready for game action and will likely play in a pre-season game this week.

“I feel good. Feel back to normal,” Hartman said after Monday’s scrimmage. “I feel up to play for sure.”

Hartman said it was good to get some power play exercises in against penalty killers.

“We have some new stuff we’re tweaking and working on just to clean some things up but overall it’s good to get that work in early,” Hartman said.

Hartman said he isn’t worried about getting more ice time with the second power play unit this season.

In fact, if the first unit is successful, that will be the best outcome.

“Hopefully they score right away. That’d be the best case scenario,” Hartman said. “But we’re ready whenever.”

Hartman got married late this summer.

“It felt like the summer went by really fast because you have that one thing circled all summer. It’s so late in the summer that after the wedding and the trip afterwards was over it’s like Aug. 20 and you’re near camp so summer felt very quick for me,” the center said.

There were 280 guests at the Hartman wedding.

“It’s a great celebration, a time you can bring, like I see some of my family not very much, I have some family in California, and they get to be all in one place,” Hartman said.

Dewar On Task

One of the more impressive stats coming out Sunday’s game in Denver was the fact that Connor Dewar won 14 of 19 draws.

Sometimes pre-season stats can be a bit off but Wild staff went back and checked the tape and Dewar was as advertised.

Evason was also impressed with Dewar’s compete level, something the coaches had asked him to focus on during the exit meetings last spring.

“We challenged him at the end of the year to make that part of his role on our hockey club as we’ve talked about. And yeah, he conducted himself very well in the circle, bearing down in all situations and did very well.”

The Roster Thins

The Wild made their first round of cuts after Sunday’s pre-season game, going from 60 players to 46. More will come as there aren’t any surprises expected when it comes time for the team to name it’s opening night roster ahead of Oct. 12. As of now the team is healthy. Among the cuts were three players who took part in Sunday’s game: Rasmus Kumpulainen, Riley Heidt and Hunter Haight. Heidt and Haight combined for three points in the win.

“There’s some guys that are obviously closer than others but it’s a nice opportunity for us to look at the Haights and Heidts and Kumulainen and how they conducted themselves in that atmosphere,” Evason said of three top junior prospects. “So, happy with the junior kids. And like you said we’ve got some people that are vying maybe not for a roster spot but a call-up spot.”

One player who is probably closest to being an NHL player without a real path to the Wild roster given the cap situation as well as the personnel already locked into spots is Sammy Walker who had two goals and an assist in the win over the Avs. That performance followed a strong showing in the rookie showcase the previous weekend.

“Just a real good start for him,” Evason said.

Walker understands the dynamics with the big club and he tries not to think about stuff that he can’t control but rather work on being consistently on top of his game and when he does get an opportunity with the big club to make a difference.

“You can play mind  games with yourself. I mean I try to just not think too much and go prove myself and hopefully I stay and if not just keep working,” Walker said.

Having gone through the process a year ago before a strong season in Iowa has helped Walker step seamlessly into a bigger role this camp.

“The first time around you just try not to get in the way and now you’re trying to play your game and show that, prove that you belong,” Walker said.