Wild coach sends another message by benching Ryan Hartman

First it was Matt Dumba and now Ryan Hartman is being sent a message by Dean Evason.
Wild coach sends another message by benching Ryan Hartman
Wild coach sends another message by benching Ryan Hartman /

Dean Evason has tightened the leash on his Minnesota Wild and the latest example is Ryan Hartman getting benched for Thursday night's game against the Philadelphia Flyers after a string of bad penalties by the veteran forward. 

The decision to make Hartman a healthy scratch comes on the heels of veteran defenseman Matt Dumba being benched for two consecutive games after his stretch of poor play. The message: Nobody is safe. 

In Tuesday's 4-2 loss in Tampa Bay, the Wild found themselves down 3-2 after Steven Stampkos scored with under six minutes left in regulation. Forty seconds later Hartman was called for hooking. Even though Minnesota killed the penalty, it killed two minutes of valuable game time and the Wild couldn't muster enough to tie the game and force overtime. 

Hartman was hard on himself afterward, saying he "felt like I let my team down." Evason wasn't feeling sorry for him. 

“He should be hard on himself,” Evason said. “It’s stupid. Absolutely stupid.”

If the playoffs started today, Minnesota would be watching at home because they're in ninth place in the Western Conference, one point behind eight place Calgary and one point behind Colorado for third place in the Central Division. 

The defending champion Avalanche have won six straight while the Wild have dropped three in a row. With 36 games left on the schedule it's not time to panic, but Evason is clearly sending a message to his team that if players don't perform like professionals they'll be watching from the press box as a healthy scratch. 


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Joe Nelson
JOE NELSON

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.