The pregame bike ride was scrapped.
Same with the warm-up with the team’s assistant athletic trainer and massage therapist Travis Green.
Frankly, there wasn’t time for Wild goaltender Cam Talbot to do much.
“It was pretty much get dressed, tape your stick and get the pads on,” he said.
Puck drop was pushed back to accommodate the Wild’s late arrival to Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., on Wednesday after a closure to the Holland Tunnel delayed the team’s bus trip from its Manhattan hotel by almost an hour-and-a-half and disrupted routines like Talbot’s.
But this curveball didn’t throw off the Wild’s calm, cool and collected netminder.
In fact, he was the Wild’s best player in a 3-2 shootout win once the team finally took to the ice in New Jersey.
“I’m sure [with] groins, hips, he’d like a little more warm-up action before the game,” teammate Nico Sturm said. “But he’s one of the most dialed-in guys on the team, so I wasn’t surprised.”
Talbot blocked a season-high 40 shots by the Devils, the ninth time in 13 career games he’s won when stopping at least that many pucks.
That the 34-year-old would be in store for his busiest game of the season after a bizarre lead-up might seem like a cruel twist, but the situation actually suits Talbot. The more challenging the circumstances, the more he seems to shine.
