Brian Murphy: Wolves and Wild fans, sharpen the carving knives they handed you
The boys are back in town. Scrape off the permafrost and fire up the grill.
I’ll take my Karl-Anthony Towns roast medium well, please. And my Dean Evason blackened to a crisp, thank you very much.
Timberwolves and Wild fans, find a table and pour some more whine. Or sharpen your carving knife, cut into some real red meat and dissect these contradictory first-round playoff teams.
Here they are again in purgatory for different but all-too familiar reasons, about to consume our precious time and treasure this weekend with the sword of Damocles hanging precariously over each club’s credibility.
The indifferent Wolves trail top-seeded Denver 0-2 entering Friday’s homecoming. Unless they actually engage the Nuggets and staunch the bleeding, visitation for the 2022-23 season will be Monday morning at Target Center.
In lieu of flowers, the fanbase requests donations be made to the Washington Wizards benevolent fund for carpet-bagging executives. Unless team president Tim Connelly has more draft capital to burn through in Minnesota before the Wizards reach out about their open general manager job.
Meanwhile, the confounding Wild are in a more enviable spot as their series against the Stars shifts to the Xcel Energy Center. At least on paper. Splitting the first two games in Dallas is textbook Stanley Cup playoff strategy.
But I can’t seem to find the chapter about bolting your best goaltender to the bench after a star-turning performance in Game 1 because of Eddie Shore’s that’s-the-way-we’ve-always-done-it ethos.
Piss on Eddie Shore!
Evason may think he’s the smartest person in the room, but he’s just a stubborn mule at a microphone. Evason shunned Filip Gustavsson and his 51 saves in a heroic double-overtime victory and tapped Marc-Andre Fleury to be ventilated during the Wild’s ghastly 7-3 loss in Game 2.
Stealing home-ice advantage from Dallas gave the Wild a stack of house money with which to play. But they blew it on a future hall of fame goalie who hadn’t played in eight days and a lackluster team performance that reeked of complacency.
This is destined to be a long and brutally competitive series, so getting Fleury into a game makes total sense. After all the Wild spent most of the regular season rotating him and Gustavsson with spectacular results.
The timing, though, was totally botched. Worse, it was an unforced coaching error that exposed Evason and his dressing room to second-guessing and unnecessary noise that only compounds the angst suffocating a franchise that hasn’t advanced past the second round in 20 years.
Evason starting Fleury over Gustavsson feels like “Goodfellas” when Billy Batts trolled Tommy DeSimone to “go get your shine box!”
It’s all fun and games owning the peanut gallery until you’re bleeding out in a trunk in the middle of nowhere.
Fleury is not the reason the Wild lost Wednesday night. Relentless turnovers, breakaways, odd man rushes and a porous penalty kill led to the onslaught. But the wilting Flower is also one of the reasons they didn’t win in April. Again.
In six playoff starts for the Wild, Fleury is 2-4 with a 3.71 goals-against average and .884 save percentage. Apologize for Minnesota’s poor play in his appearances the last two years, but it’s not illegal for the three-time Stanley Cup winner to steal a game at some point.
Evason dug in his heels postgame about his decision to start Fleury, who dutifully plunged on his sword and accepted blame after matching his career-high of seven goals allowed in a playoff game.
He was hung out to dry throughout the night but was awful when failing to stop the shots he had to. Fleury looked like a maskless Gump Worsley in the second period trying to poke check Bobby Hull in black in white when Roope Hintz beat him for the second of his three goals.
By then, it was 6-3. Good night.
Give credit to Evason for not pulling Fleury between the second and third periods. Both needed to marinate in those 20 minutes of reckoning.
Meantime, back in Denver, the Wolves hit rock bottom early in Game 2 and grabbed a pickax. After losing the series opener by 29 points, they fell behind by 21 in the first half.
Towns, the franchise cornerstone and self-styled leader, had no field goals in the opening 24 minutes but contributed four turnovers and three fouls.
Minnesota furiously rallied in the third quarter and actually took the lead with seven minutes left before folding. Make no mistake. This is Anthony Edwards’ team as his 41 points and alpha male presence showed yet again.
Towns in two games? He's 8 of 27 from the floor with nine turnovers, burnishing his no-show postseason resume.
Rudy Gobert’s wonky back was much better, but his reliability remains suspect. As does the true value of the trade in which Connelly dealt five players and four first-round draft picks to Utah for the mercurial 30-year-old big man.
The Wolves are notorious for self-inflicted wounds in management and public relations, but they can’t even avoid drama when forces conspire to make them look perpetually dysfunctional.
The Wizards are in the market for a new general manager and Connelly’s name has been floated as a possible candidate. The Baltimore native started his career interning with the Wizards before being promoted to director of player personnel.
Not even one year into his tenure in Minnesota, Connelly’s legacy is latched to the Gobert deal, which ultimately could bear fruit. Or be another disaster that haunts the franchise for years
Connelly stepping over women and children for Target Center’s last lifeboat after gouging ownership for a five-year, $40 million contract and leaving the draft cupboard bare would be peak Timberwolves ineptitude.
The Wolves owe fans a Game 3 victory to justify their unrequited loyalty and sleep deprivation with all these 9 o’clock tipoffs. After no-showing for seven of the series’ eight quarters, have the decency to show up before being inevitably eliminated by the aspirational Nuggets.
As for the Wild, it is high time they leverage the cauldron of chaos known as Xcel Energy Center, reward their ravenous fans and seize control of a winnable series.
Never mind bad puck luck, untimely injuries, poor officiating or tough matchups. Just win a damn series. And the next one for a change.
Leave 2003 in the ash heap of history and turn 2023 into the coming-out party the state of hockey has waited for since that great corner bar on West Seventh opened more than two decades ago.
Sip from that big silver chalice instead of pouring one more out for a lost season.
