Consistency, thy name is not synonymous with any team in the NHL. The three-game sweep starts in St Paul, where the Wild have settled down and now won their sixth straight, a bit of consistency, against the Vancouver Canucks who are anything but consistent after beating the Penguins, 5-0.
The Wild skated off with a solid 5-3 win.
Devan Dubnyk was solid in net again and backstopped the Wild with 22 saves for the win.
Minnesota now finds themselves within three points of the final wild card spot held by the same Canucks.
“There was a lot at stake for both teams,” Wild coach Mike Yeo said. “But for me, it was just making sure, a playoff-like game, keeping your emotions and being able to keep your focus and I thought we did that well.”
Nino Niederreiter, Jordan Schroeder, Kyle Brodziak, Jason Pominville and Ryan Suter scored for the Wild who have some fire in their bellies to make a push.
“With all the chances and shots and attempts I’ve been getting lately, it hasn’t really gone my way. It was almost like someone put a spell on me,” Pominville said. “It was nice to move it around on that power play, get a look. Great play by [Vanek].”
In San Jose, the Sharks have again failed to show consistency, this time losing to the Calgary Flames, 4-1.
Calgary got goals from Mason Raymond, Lance Bouma, Jiri Hudler and David Jones for the win.
With the win, the Flames moved ahead of the Vancouver Canucks and the Sharks in the standings.
“It means a lot just because we’re neck-and-neck with them in the standings,” Flames captain Mark Giordano said. “These points are huge. They’ve all been really tight games. Obviously they’re a great team, and they’re a team we’re going to battle with right ’til the end it looks like. To come out with eight points against that team, that’s obviously a huge positive.”
The Sharks are now 1-3-1 in their five games and have no traction at all after a streak of solid play.
“It’s always frustrating when you lose, especially when a team continues to beat you,” Sharks forward Joe Pavelski said. “It’s not fun. You always expect more out of each other.”
The level of inconsistency in San Jose is baffling.
“They earned the points,” Sharks coach Todd McLellan said. “They came into our building and beat us and each time was very much carbon copy, low-scoring games where we had opportunities. We made enough mistakes where they could capitalize.
“They in turn made some mistakes, but we didn’t capitalize. We in turn have to look at our net intensity and what we’re doing with the puck. The difference, not only tonight but in the series, was they took advantage of mistakes and we didn’t.”
In Newark, the issue of consistency or lack thereof was on display with the New Jersey Devils mustering 14 shots in a 2-1 regulation loss to the Edmonton Oilers.
Ben Scrivens picked up his first road win making 13 saves for the Oilers.
“I don’t think we were being outplayed to the extent of causing our own headaches,” Scrivens said. “The Devils are good in transition and wait for you to make mistakes and then capitalize. We took steps forward by not defeating ourselves, by not making any unforced errors.”
Fourteen shots on goal for a Devils team hoping to close a gap in the Metropolitan Division?
“We certainly didn’t get enough shots as far generating offense,” Devils general manager and co-coach Lou Lamoriello said. “We weren’t winning battles, whether it was fatigue, I’m not an excuse person. [Edmonton] came in and we gave them an opportunity to win and they took advantage of it.”
Cory Schneider had 22 saves in the loss for New Jersey who might have been more competitive or at least more offensive if the power play was working.
“It’s a problem when you don’t win; you look at everything microscopically as far as what’s going on so you can pull out any individual thing and say it’s a problem, but there are 60 minutes in a game and power-play and penalty-kill are a part of that,” Lamoriello said. “You have to kill and cash in and we didn’t do either and didn’t help our chances. You also have to do it 5-on-5.”
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