Kirill Kaprizov knows the Wild need more from him, with or without Mats Zuccarello

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But go two losses in a row without a goal in the playoffs when your team is trying to get past the first round for the first time in 11 years, and all eyes focus squarely on you when your name is Kirill Kaprizov. That’s the world the Wild superstar lives in, especially when he’s soon to be the highest-paid player in the NHL. That’s just a fact of life, and Kaprizov gets it. It’s why after Friday’s practice, he was sitting in his stall, waiting for reporters when they arrived in the locker room. He knew we’d want to hear from him ahead of what feels like it’s a must-win Game 4 on Saturday. “When your team win, it doesn’t matter,” said Kaprizov, who tied for fourth in the NHL in the regular season with 45 goals and tied for third with 19 power-play goals. “And when team (loses) and you don’t score or do something, it’s a little tough. But it’s playoffs. … It’s new day today and just try (not to think) about what happened in Game 3 and just keep moving (into) Game 4.” People were singing Kaprizov’s praises after a Game 1 victory in Dallas, in which he scored a goal and two assists in a 6-1 win and was all over the puck and had a plethora of scoring chances. Now, after two games in which he assisted on just one goal and had four total shots, people want to know what’s going on. Playing without injured partner in crime Mats Zuccarello, Kaprizov at five-on-five hasn’t been generating as many chances with usual center Ryan Hartman and a rotation of wingers, from Vladimir Tarasenko to Bobby Brink. He generated more the past two games during the sporadic shifts John Hynes went nuclear, so to speak, and opted for Kaprizov with Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy. But the Wild coach likes to have that option in-game in his back pocket, especially on offensive-zone starts or trying to rally from deficits — not load up with the trio all game, especially with how well Boldy plays with Eriksson Ek and Marcus Johansson. Zuccarello, who was injured on an elbow to the head by Tyler Myers early in Game 1, still finished that game with three assists. He wasn’t feeling right after trying to give it a go during the pregame skate before Game 2 and missed the past two games. He did skate on his own before the Wild practiced Friday and is questionable for Game 4. Brink remained on the line with Kaprizov and Hartman during Friday’s practice and was on the No. 1 power play in Zuccarello’s spot. “No matter who your linemate is, you have to try to complement each other,” Brink said. “Just try to be who I am. Play to my strengths. That’s how I’ll be successful. … You just got to be a pro about it. You change lines so much, change teams, you’ve got to be able to bring your game every night. That’s what it takes to be an NHL player. It’s not out of the ordinary to have a new linemate.” We’ve seen for six seasons, though, the chemistry Kaprizov and Zuccarello have together. They have their own set plays. Zuccarello delivers seam passes right in Kaprizov’s wheelhouse, not in his skates or behind him. So not having him on his Kaprizov’s line is definitely affecting him. Kaprizov and Tarasenko were completely ineffective together. Brink hasn’t set him up in Grade A areas. It also didn’t help in Game 3 that Hartman lost 16 of 21 draws. “Mats, it’s always tough to lose someone who play all season in the lineups,” Kaprizov said. “But it is what it is, yeah, and obviously Mats is a big part of us. We played together for a long time, but I hope he feel better later and come back in this series and just keep playing now.” Still, Hynes said, whether Kaprizov plays with or without Zuccarello, there’s a way his game must look for him to be effective. And he sees him straying from those areas over the past two games. “When Kirill is at his best, he’s playing a fast game,” Hynes said. “He’s skating. He’s moving his feet. He’s driving plays deep in the offensive zone and off the rush. He’s getting to the inside. He’s difficult to play against below the goal line. I think in those areas, when he’s at his best, that’s when he can do that. He’s a really threatening guy. And I think when he does that, he’s a dynamite player, right?” So, even though some passes haven’t been right on his tape, especially on the power play, Hynes planned to have a talk with Kaprizov to remind him of what he can do to be better. “I guess I would say this: The chemistry between the two, it is unique,” Hynes said of Kaprizov and Zuccarello. “But a lot of the time, even talking with Kirill, his style of game shouldn’t change, or it doesn’t need to change when he plays with Zuccy or not. I think when you look over the course of — let’s say they play 10 games together — some of those tic-tac-toe plays, they happen, but more often than not, the things I’m talking about happen that either open those plays up or those plays never happen, and there’s production in different ways. “And that’s the big thing is just understanding that he’s a threat in multiple ways. He’s a threat with Zuccy. He’s a threat without Zuccy. But whether Zuccy’s in or not, when Kirill’s playing the way that I described, he’s a factor in the game.” Kaprizov said, plain and simple, he needs to get more chances and score more goals, especially on a struggling power play that scored once in the past two games and none from his unit. At even strength, in the series, Kaprizov’s line has mostly gone up against Jason Robertson, Matt Duchene and Mavrik Bourque. The output has been fairly even overall, although more one-sided in Games 2 and 3 in favor of Duchene’s line and in favor of Hartman’s in Game 1. Kaprizov has had the better of the Thomas Harley-Nils Lundqvist pair, with his line outscoring them at 3-0 five-on-five. The Miro Heiskanen-Esa Lindell pair is being outscored 1-0, but Dallas has a 23-19 shot attempt edge in its minutes, and Minnesota a 47 percent expected goals rate, according to Natural Stat Trick. So it’s hardly like Kaprizov is being dominated. Still, he said, “I need to score some goals obviously. Our PP (is) a little struggling to score last two games. … We need to play on the power play a little better and score some goals. I think five-on-five, we play pretty good, like 50-50 game more. We have some chances, and Dallas have some chances.” That’s exactly what the analytics show. Kaprizov admitted that if the power play were running better — even if it weren’t scoring — he’d feel much better about his game. In other words, those puck chances and scoring chances, he feels, would lead to better play from him at even-strength. “Sometimes you don’t score on the power play and you have some chances. Then it’s easy to play five-on-five otherwise,” he said. “You give pressure, if you get some chances … you keep shooting. … If you have some chance and you start feeling more, then you keep going more. It’s what I say, we need to play better on power play.” Kaprizov said Thursday’s off-day was a good reset, mentally and physically. After getting home at 3 a.m. from the late double overtime loss Thursday morning and then talking to his family back in Russia, 12 hours ahead, he slept until noon Thursday. He got some treatment and relaxed to get his “body refreshed.” Hynes clearly expects a much better Kaprizov on Saturday for a Wild team that didn’t have a shot from the “house” last game, according to Sportlogiq, and is averaging 5.85 high-danger chances per 60 minutes at five-on-five in the playoffs. “I think, five-on-five, it’s not all about Kirill getting the puck (from his linemates),” Hynes said, trying to alleviate arrows being pointed at Hartman and Brink. “It’s also Kirill with the puck and how he’s playing when he has the puck. When he’s driving and being wide, he’s hard to contain. He’s tough down low. He’s getting to the net front. He reverse shoulders guys when he plays a driving game. “There are other times, where he’s obviously a trigger guy, and he can score. But he can score in multiple ways. It’s not all about Kirill scoring from passes from Zuccy. It’s Kirill scoring at the net front, rebounds, tips, driving the D wide, finding an F3 pocket in the O-zone. It’s high in the offensive zone with a release. There are multiple ways that he can score with or without. Zuccy.” Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms