Rangers crush Wild in opener as Dean Evason criticizes 'awful' defense
All the hype entering the season and the Minnesota Wild got routed at home by the New York Rangers 7-3 Thursday night in the season opener for both teams.
Minnesota went down 3-0 in the first period and despite peppering shots on goal they couldn't get enough by all-world goalie Igor Shesterkin to keep up with the Rangers.
A power-play goal by Mats Zuccarello midway through the second period cut the deficit to two, but the Rangers responded and took a 4-1 lead into the third. That's when the Wild and Rangers traded punches, with both teams scoring twice in a span of 2 minutes, 2 seconds.
Matt Boldy scored both for Minnesota in the back-and-forth period.
Marc-Andre Fleury allowed seven goals for the Wild, equaling the most he's allowed in a game in his Hall of Fame career. To be fair, the defense in front of Fleury was "awful."
"Our complete defensive game was awful," said Wild coach Dean Evason.
Two goals from Matt Boldy were promising but the Rangers' offense was too much for Minnesota in a 7-3 loss for the Wild.#WildBreakaway presented by Luther Kia of Bloomington. pic.twitter.com/cJzwCFoIUu
— Bally Sports North (@BallySportsNOR) October 14, 2022
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.