The Minnesota Wild entered this playoff series with a true shutdown duo. As talented as Matt Boldy and Joel Eriksson Ek are on the offensive side of the puck, they play a solid two-way game. They’re big, strong, skilled, and win puck battles on the regular.
Forget the Wild’s hulking fourth line. If John Hynes wants to erase a line on the opposing team and get some goals for good measure, the Boldy/Eriksson Ek combo is his best bet.
As Minnesota comes home for Games 3 and 4, Hynes gets an opportunity to show off his skills as a tactician. Dallas must put their players on the ice before each face-off, which gives Hynes the ability to set matchups throughout the next two games. That allows him to try to engineer favorable situations for scorers like Kirill Kaprizov. Just as importantly, he gets to decide which line he’ll use Boldy and Eriksson Ek to stifle throughout the game.
The question is which line to use for that. Even without Roope Hintz and Tyler Seguin, the Dallas Stars are deep in scorers. 40-goal-scorer Wyatt Johnston and Mikko Rantanen are on Dallas’ top line, and 40-goal-scorer Jason Robertson and skilled veteran Matt Duchene are just behind them on the depth chart.
It’s a pick-your-poison situation if you’re in Hynes’ shoes. However, after the first two games, Robertson’s line emerges as the clear answer of who to throw Boldy and Eriksson Ek at.
Marcus Foligno fired shots at the Stars’ play at 5-on-5 after Minnesota’s Game 2 loss. “They’re looking to play five-on-four,” he told the media. “I mean, that’s their game. They can’t hang with us five-on-five.”
In a lot of ways, that’s borne out over the first two games. Minnesota out-scored Dallas 4-2 at 5-on-5, and they kept most of Dallas’ best players in check, with one exception: Robertson.
Robertson, Duchene, and Mavrik Bourque have played 19 minutes, 43 seconds together at 5-on-5. In that time, they’ve held a 12-to-5 lead in scoring chances, per Natural Stat Trick. Without the Robertson line on the ice, the 5-on-5 scoring chances are dead-even in the scoring chance department: 24-to-24.
Looking at how Glen Gulutzan set his matchups, it seems he was targeting the Kaprizov line and the Jonas Brodin–Jared Spurgeon defense pairing. Both make sense. Robertson’s biggest weakness is his speed, but that problem is mitigated when facing 30-somethings in Ryan Hartman, Mats Zuccarello, Vladimir Tarasenko, Brodin, and Spurgeon.
Putting Robertson head-to-head against Kaprizov also forces the Wild’s superstar to defend. Robertson is the best player on the Stars in terms of grinding down opponents on the cycle. His offensive-zone possessions can be long, with defenders having to chase his 6-foot-3 frame all over the zone.
Kaprizov’s generally a good defender, but that’s not the same situation for his linemates. Robertson doesn’t even have to score to succeed against Kaprizov’s line. In fact, he’s played Kaprizov to a scoreless draw through 10-and-a-half 5-on-5 minutes. But every second Kaprizov’s in his own zone defending is a second Kaprizov isn’t terrorizing the Stars’ defense.
It’s worked. The Wild have generated zero scoring chances in Kaprizov’s head-to-head minutes against Rantanen. The Stars have five.
The good news is that Kaprizov can (and has) exploited one of Dallas’ top lines. Kaprizov has out-chanced Rantanen by an 11-6 margin. Until Rantanen and Johnston can prove they can slow Kaprizov, there’s no reason for Hynes to stop attacking Rantanen.
The bad news is that even with Hynes’ preferred matchups, Minnesota might not have a true answer to Robertson. Eriksson Ek lined up against Robertson for five minutes, and in an admittedly minuscule sample, Robertson held a 4-to-0 scoring chance advantage. But that’s the best answer Hynes has at his disposal, and he has to match his best shutdown line with Dallas’ most successful line and see what happens.
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