Oscar Dansk, Wolves blank Manitoba for third straight victory
Dansk’s first two games this season didn’t go well, but he responded Saturday with a 25-save shutout.
After his first two starts of the season, Wolves goalie Oscar Dansk needed a night like Saturday’s 4-0 win over the Manitoba Moose.
“I think it was important, without a doubt,” Wolves coach Rocky Thompson said.
Dansk’s 2019-20 began with the Oct. 5 opener against Grand Rapids when he allowed eight goals on just 25 shots. Subsequently recalled by the Vegas Golden Knights to fill in for injured backup Malcolm Subban, Dansk’s next appearance was Monday at Philadelphia when he was beaten six times in 37 tries by the Flyers.
Dansk was then sent back to the Wolves, swapping places with Garret Sparks. Instead of more struggles like his first two outings, Dansk stopped 25 shots for the shutout and looked more like the player who was the Wolves’ primary goalie during last season’s playoffs and came within three wins of the Calder Cup.
“It definitely felt good,” Dansk said. “The funny thing is, I felt good for a long time. In practices, I felt like my game was pretty good but it was definitely nice to get that one.”
Thompson recognized how much Dansk’s teammates wanted to get him the shutout. After going up 3-0 on Jake Leschyshyn’s empty-net goal 16:02 into the third, Thompson said the Wolves on the bench wanted to “do this for him” after the game was effectively won.
“That’s why they continued to go out and block shots and play on the right side of the puck,” Thompson said. “When Oscar needed to, he made good saves and he looked solid in there and I thought he looked confident and that’s important.”
As a team, the Wolves are also showing improvement.
“It’s good. Just proves that we’re morphing into a nice team here,” Dansk said. “A good team game that we want to play that the management preaches. It means that we’re listening, which is a good thing. That’s good.”
Saturday’s win was their third straight, and the four goals are the second-most they’ve scored this season. With defenseman Zach Whitecloud (upper body) in the lineup for the first time this season, the Wolves were generating more offense from their blue line and not forced to spend as much time in their own zone.
“It was his first game in a while and I really liked his game,” Thompson said. “I really thought he helped our team.”
Tye McGinn picked up his 100th career AHL goal, Gage Quinney and Patrick Brown also scored, and Lucas Elvenes had two more assists. In general, Saturday was also a far cry from Wednesday’s win over Texas when Sparks was forced to make 39 saves in a 3-2 win.
“Just to keep building on it, as a team to get a win like that it’s always nice,” Dansk said. “It was a really solid team game for 60 minutes. Those are always really nice to get.”
Thompson echoed that.
“I thought we were on the right side of the puck for the majority of the night,” Thompson said. “That was a big step in the right direction considering how we played, particularly in the second period of our last game.”
NOTE: Leschyshyn’s goal was his first as a professional. His father Curtis played 1,033 regular-season NHL games and was a member of the 1996 Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche.