Wild's scoring output down, but they are finding other ways to win

Much was made on Sunday of Ryan Reaves wearing a Santa hat and beard while Kirill Kaprizov dressed as an elf as they tossed pucks and miniature sticks into the crowd before the Wild played Ottawa.

It was the last home game before Christmas, so the Wild played up the spirit of giving theme. We get it. Ho, ho, ho.

But they already have delivered enough good cheer to a fan base that, this season, has not been tormented by the high-wire act that last season's team was en route to 53 victories and a berth in the playoffs.

On Sunday, the Wild outclassed Ottawa 4-2 for their fifth consecutive victory. They are 8-2 over the past 10 games, thanks to disciplined hockey and strong goaltending by Marc-Andre Fleury and Filip Gustavsson. The Senators, with one of the league's best power-play units, were shut out in three chances on the man advantage. Kaprizov remains on a production bender, scoring a goal and adding two assists for a total of 42 points in 31 games. And Ryan Hartman returned to the lineup after missing 21 games to a shoulder injury.

It was nearly a state of emergency in the state of hockey a couple of weeks into the season when the Wild dropped three of their first four games while giving up 23 goals. The goalies weren't goalies, they were conduits for opponents' shots. And the defense in front of them wasn't doing them any favors. It made the trade of Kevin Fiala to Los Angeles look like a blunder by General Manager Bill Guerin.

But the current Wild have evolved and have settled upon a winning formula. They stopped trying to make plays that aren't there and are blowing fewer scoring chances. They have tightened up other areas of their game — especially the special teams — to make up for Fiala's absence. Adding a bruiser in Reaves has changed the way teams treat the Wild, just knowing he can deliver a big hit at any moment. Now Guerin looks like a genius.

They aren't as collectively dangerous on offense as they were a year ago. And it doesn't matter.

"I think it is our commitment to defense first and playing the right way," captain Jared Spurgeon said. "Nothing too fancy."

Every season stands alone. What worked one year can go haywire the next, and vice versa. The Twin Cities remain in postgame hubris after the Vikings came back from the largest deficit in NFL history to beat the Colts. The 2021-22 Wild spent much of that season storming back from deficits.

They were third in the NHL with 25 come-from-behind wins, 10 of those in the third period. It's a good trait to have, not doubt, but no one had any fingernails left after watching the Wild play last season.

The Wild are averaging 3.1 goals a game this season post-Fiala, after averaging 3.7 goals in 2021-22. There's still time for them to squeeze more scoring punch out of the roster, but their focus on defense has paid off.

"Instead of having to score five or six goals we can find a way to score three or four and keep pucks out of our net," forward Jordan Greenway said. "I think we're starting to find our momentum a little bit.

"You look at last year and some of the wins we had and the way guys played, we were scoring at crazy amounts. We had six. seven guys with career years. Not saying it was an anomaly, but if we don't have guys having career years we have to find out how to do it another way."

It helps that it has one of the top-10 lines in hockey, as Kaprizov, Sam Steel and Mats Zuccarello look unstoppable at times. Steel stepped in as the center on the line while Hartman recovered and has played so well, with six goals and seven assists in 24 games, that coach Dean Evason on Sunday kept that line intact while playing Hartman elsewhere.

The Wild enter holiday week on pace for a second consecutive 100-point season. And they haven't had to be the comeback kids they were for most of last season. Wild fans can schedule their manicures with confidence.