When the Minnesota Wild faced off with the Colorado Avalanche for both teams’ season opener on Thursday night, one could make the case that the Avalanche had the four best forwards in the match-up. But then something funny happened: The Wild blitzed the Avalanche 5-0. And this score might actually understate how badly Colorado was beaten.
So what happened? Was it one bad game from Colorado and one great game from Minnesota? There’s some truth to that, but there was also an intimation of change in the way Minnesota constructed its forward and defensive groups.
The unveiling of the third defensive pair for Minnesota may have come as a surprise. Mathew Dumba, a former seventh-overall pick from 2012 who has been unable to crack into what is a very good top four, played with the once hotly-pursued, college free agent Christian Folin. Meanwhile, on offense, Matt Cooke, who is strongly disliked by many, but does have some offensive facility and contributes complementary scoring in a bottom-six forward role, played on the first line with playmaker extraordinaire Mikko Koivu and scorer Thomas Vanek.
The ripple effect was that Cooke’s placement with Koivu and Vanek bumped Charlie Coyle down to the third line with Nino Niederreiter and Erik Haula. That’s a very deliberate spread of talent. On the fourth line, Jason Zucker, a second-round pick and well-known Minnesota prospect, manufactured some offense with his linemates, while the Mikael Granlund-centered line, flanked by Zach Parise and Jason Pominville, utilized their speed, passing, and aggressive-defensemen support to completely overmatch Colorado’s skaters.
It was four lines and three defensive pairings not all equal in skill, but all with the potency to create offense and retrieve pucks. All 18 players dressed had the chance to shoot gaps and create havoc with their speed. And for a team that lacks true elite talent like that possessed by Chicago and Los Angeles, this is a very, very, wise way to build a lineup.
On Thursday night, the Wild defense forced bad match-ups by attacking space and swinging the puck vertically and horizontally. Set up two defensemen below the goal line, push one out to the strong side, and fling a stretch pass up the weak side. Check. That’s what happened on Pominville’s goal, with Granlund speeding down the weak side on the rush, catching the area pass, and then unleashing a nice shot which Avalanche goaltender Semyon Varlamov did stop, but could not absorb. This allowed Pominville, the third-man trailer, to slam the rebound into the open net. (The loose puck would have been corralled by Avalanche defenseman Erik Johnson, but Parise made an adept play off the puck to tie him up.)
This was a consistent thread all night – high-low passing, skating into space, expanding play to the outside boards with the puck before collapsing/cutting into the middle with a conscious weak-side play. Parise found Jared Spurgeon and Ryan Suter this way when each defender exploited daylight.
The construct of a hockey roster used to be based around a formula that you wanted painters and plumbers. The players with skill were on the first and second, and the players who would grind were on the third and fourth. (The grinders would do the dirty work, provide energy, and nullify opposing teams’ skill players.)
The top-six forwards’ job was to rack up goals; the checking lines’ job was to shut down opposing scoring and wear down the adversary. On defense, conventional hockey logic said to match a puck-moving defender with a stay-at-home blueliner — then when one defenseman pinches, the other can stay back and protect against a clear path to the goal.
A confluence of factors have shifted the style-of-play dynamic – rule changes, improving safety, a focus on European hockey principles, analytics – and how the game is played is visibly changing. Playing 200-feet is a requisite for most impact forwards; all six defensemen should have some mobility and puck skills. It is not uncommon to see two defensemen pinch at the same time if they get in first on the forecheck, nor is it rare to see a forward as the last line of defense.
From the defensive zone to the offensive zone, teams want options. If either defenseman can skate the puck out on the breakout, that loosens the opposing coverage because the enemy defenders will want to pressure the puck carrier, and that opens up passing lanes in the neutral zone.
Each team has a vision of what position-less, five-men-unit attacks and zone exits look like, but keeping some semblance of structure is still important. Ideally, each player has changing responsibilities and duties; if the defenseman on the near side activates, the winger on that side may want to cover his point. Just like always. Ultimately, it boils down to: Can we have every player on the ice attacking? Not just attacking with the puck, but exploiting the opposing team when it is not properly spaced. Conversely, the puck-carrier must recognize the weak-side opening to achieve a fluid pace-and-space offense. The best teams execute high-level horizontal passing and, logically, this scrambles the defense because the puck moves quicker than opposing skaters.
Minnesota represents an important paradigm because, in their current lineup, the grinder and stay-at-home defenseman are gone. And this is slowly happening around the league. Often, the replacements are skilled players on entry-level contracts. Squeezing value out of players on the cheap is a necessity for serious Cup teams, and the Kings and Blackhawks have been two of the best at extracting maximum output from young players who are still honing the finer points of the NHL game. Minnesota is teeming with contributors on cheap contracts, although not all of them are replacing grinders and stay-at-home defenders. Granlund, Coyle, Brodin, Haula, Folin, and Dumba are all on their entry-level deals.
When Corey Sznajder executed his three-zones tracking project, an exciting component of his work was analyzing the spreadsheets to see which bottom-six forwards and third-pair defensemen had the most success on carry-in attempts and zone exits. A lot of the contenders had players who could achieve a zone entry and manufacture shots. Why not backlog your supporting cast with skill if everyone is playing two-way hockey anyway? Instead of a third-pair defenseman slinging a puck into traffic up the boards, what teams had fifth and sixth defensemen who could rush the puck and wait for the first-pass lane to open up?
Minnesota preached a puck-possession mantra at the beginning of last season, and so far their decision not to pigeonhole players as top-six forwards or top-four defensemen (or else they are stashed in the AHL or juniors) has put them ahead of the curve. Minnesota plays Colorado again tonight. Hockey’s future is in your living room.
