Minnesota Wild head coach Dean Evason had strong words for Dallas Stars counterpart Pete DeBoer, according to reporter Michael Russo of the Athletic.
Evason was asked about DeBoer's comment that his team is anticipating and “ready” for the Wild to take lots of penalties. The Wild coach responded by pointing the finger back at the Stars.
The series is tied at one game each and will shift to Minnesota for Friday night's Game 3. Evason made it clear that he's following DeBoer's hints in his press conferences about penalties.
“We watch all the press conferences too,” Evason said, “and (DeBoer) mentioned that we were sixth in the league (at taking penalties) and…something like we're going to continue to do that.”
Evason raised questions as to whether or not the Stars' players are taking dives.
“We felt they had some bigger people probably go down pretty easy in that hockey game,” Evason added. “We've talked about this before, and it's a fine line because we don't dive. There are many times I would love to go in there and go, ‘You know what guys, let's embellish.'”
Stars defenseman Ryan Suter has been put on blast by NHL fans for multiple unnecessary crosschecks.
Dean Evason added that his team's star player, forward Kirill Kaprizov, has done everything he can to stay on his feet without falling, to the detriment of his health.
“I mean, you want to draw penalties because of how hard you're working and how gritty you are and whatever,” Evason said.
“But our superstar player, in Kirill, he takes a lot of abuse. He doesn't go down very often, probably got hurt (in Winnipeg) because of it.
“But we don't do that. That's not what we do. But yeah, there was some of that last night.”
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