Bruce Boudreau discusses tinkered lines, the Wild's lack of physicality and Devan Dubnyk's play

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If you didn't see today's loco article on Bruce Boudreau's disastrous move to Minnesota, please give my article a read here.

On Saturday, the final dress rehearsal so to speak for Thursday's opener in St. Loueeeeeeeeeee is against the Winnipeg Jets.

You can tell the season is closing in because Boudreau's game face is slowly but surely coming into fruition.

"What is taking time to get used to a little bit is we're nowhere near as physical as the teams I coached in Washington and Anaheim, so it's a little bit of a different tactic," Boudreau said Thursday. "I'm trying to find sort of a halfway medium that they become more physical but don't get out of what they're good at. Like, I can't make them into a bunch of Alex Ovechkins hitting everything that moves.

"But at the same time, if we can get into their face a little bit more, it'll go a long way."

So, today, following a long video session to show the players that you "can't play the game without making contact with people," he conducted a bigtime battle practice and said this is only the beginning.

As for the lines, Boudreau likes the look of the Zach Parise-Eric Staal-Charlie Coyle line and so far wants to keep Mikael Granlund-Mikko Koivu and Nino Niederreiter-Erik Haula as tandems. But he's trying to find proper fits for right wings Jason Pominville and Chris Stewart and left wing Jason Zucker.

Pominville moved to the Koivu line, Stewart to the Haula line and Zucker to the fourth line with rookie Joel Eriksson Ek and rotating wingers Zac Dalpe and Christoph Bertschy.

On Zucker's camp: "I like parts of it, but he was instrumental in both goals against [in Colorado]. But he always finds a way to get at least one good scoring chance a game. I just think we can get him to be a little more complete. I think he's the kind of guy that has always thought if he didn't score he wasn't valuable, and I think he can be valuable and do good things without scoring. Scoring will be the natural part of it."

He said Zucker has the capability of moving up and he's still experimenting.

On changing things: "[Former coaches Mike Yeo and John Torchetti] did different things than I do. Mike did a great job. This team was well coached, but different drills, different probably ideals a little bit, and some of these guys have been here a long time and they have to change a little bit. It's the same [with Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf] when I got [to Anaheim]. Those kind of guys had been with Randy [Carlyle] for the previous five years. Now all of a sudden everything was changing. You have to find trust in a new coach again. It took a little while. In Anaheim, it took 2 ½ weeks before the team started to turn around and believe in it."

-- On voicing his concern about the depth and fourth line, and if they have to make a move: "I don't know what Chuck has in mind to be quite honest. The reason I've voiced concern is I've always been a four-line team and try to roll four lines as much as possible. Over the course of a year, it keeps you consistent. If you end up being a three-line team, my worry is you overuse some of your players and come January or February they're a little tired or beat up and you go into a swoon."

Swoon? Never heard of it.

He loves Eriksson Ek and Tuch's future, by the way.

On Erik Haula: "I think he can be a third-line guy. He can skate. I don't think we've seen the best of him yet."

Lastly, on Devan Dubnyk, this was interesting.

He hasn't looked the greatest in practice and he has shown frustration at times on the ice.

Boudreau revealed that Dubnyk has been battling an injury or "soreness" for a couple weeks, something Boudreau said he only found out about Friday, "so obviously it can't be bad."