Written By Tom Schreier
You would rather tame a tiger than paint stripes on a house cat.
— Wild defenseman Matt Dumba
In a March 2012 scouting report for The Hockey News, Minnesota Wild rookie defensemen Matt Dumba was described as an electric skater with a “very aggressive approach to the game.” During his time with the Red Deer Rebels and Portland Winterhawks of the WHL, Dumba was able to log big minutes, join the rush on a moment’s notice and “provide huge open-ice hits that change the momentum of a game.”
It wasn’t only The Hockey News that was hyping Dumba’s ability to change the game on a moment’s notice. Dustin Twin of The Hockey Writers wrote that Dumba was a kid with a warm, approachable personality that didn’t have the arrogance of a future superstar who had elite athletic ability, passed and carried the puck well, had one hell of a shot and, oh yeah, rocked his opponents with devastating checks. “Matt is known for his open-ice, high-speed collisions, and I’ve witnessed a few of them myself, and that aspect of his physical play cannot be overstated,” he wrote. “Those hits change the complexion of a game in an instant.”
Nearly 40 games into Dumba’s NHL season and Wild fans haven’t seen too many of these game-changing hits. There have been a few heat-seeking missiles launched from his stick, he’s made a few precise passes through the neutral zone and showcased his skating ability, but those highlight reel moments have only come in shades so far from the No. 7 overall pick in 2012. For Dumba, however, his focus is less on making a Top 10 play than it is on doing the little things right.
“There’s never going to be a mistake-free game, but if you can limit some of the little turnovers or the little things that have to do with positioning or stuff like that, it makes for a very clean game, and I think that’s what you want: A clean, hard game,” he said at a recent practice. “At the end of the day, there is going to be opportunities to make that play, that big play, so you just have to wait.
“It’s more about being patient now and picking your spots.”
Let it be known, though, that Dumba is not afraid to make a big play. Actually, better put, he’s not afraid to make an error on the ice. In fact, he finds little correlation between when he’s trying to make an aggressive play and when he makes a mistake.
“You make mistakes when you’re not focused in and you’re not dialed in on what the main goal is,” he says. “It doesn’t have anything to do with making a flashy play because there is time for that, and sometimes that’s the play you’ve gotta make. If there wasn’t any risk in hockey, then no one would score, so there has to be some type of playmaking out there, and it’s just when to do that and when it’s smart to.”
Dumba played 20 games with Minnesota before being sent down to the AHL in late November. It was his first stint with Iowa, and the 20-year-old defenseman had only played three minor league games to that point. He spent 2009-13 with Red Deer in the WHL, three games with the Houston Aeros — Minnesota’s AHL affiliate at the time — after the conclusion of the 2012-13 season, and then was called up for 13 games in 2013-14. He spent the rest of 2013-14 with Portland of the WHL, where he tallied 24 points and was plus-37 in 26 games.
It’s possible that Dumba got extended playing time in St. Paul this season because of the mumps outbreak in the Wild locker room that took out most of the team’s defensemen. Following his 12th game of the season, a Nov. 8 contest in Montreal, it looked like Dumba was headed south on I-35 to Des Moines. He had played at least 10 minutes in all but one of the games he had played in up to that point, but only had 7 minutes, 37 seconds of ice time at the Bell Centre. He had a few costly mistakes in that game that resulted in the Wild benching him for most of the game, including all of the third period.
“Jonas Brodins don’t grow on trees. The fact that he could step into the Wild at 19 years old was special,” wrote Michael Russo of the Star Tribune in a blog post. “Dumba has all the tools to be a real good defenseman, but he is too reckless at times and tonight characteristically tried to turn nothing into something, made a careless play and it led to a goal against.
“[Assistant] coach Rick Wilson benched him from there, so perhaps a stint in Iowa is coming for Dumba.”
The Wild eventually sent Dumba down after a Nov. 28 contest in Dallas. After producing 12 points in 17 games, he was recalled for a Jan. 15 game in Buffalo. He scored a goal in that game and got into a fight. Dumba, for one, felt the experience in Iowa was valuable.
“Just getting more ice time and going over video with the coach (AHL coach John Torchetti), just breaking it down one step at a time,” he says. “He just threw me out into all the situations, all the scenarios that go along with playing a 60-minute game, and it worked out really well. We went over the video and corrected some stuff and just tried to add a little here, a little there and I feel really good about my game right now so hopefully it gets going.”
In addition to more playing time and being able to play in just about every different scenario, Dumba was able to take more risks against inferior competition, leading to elevated point totals like he had in junior hockey. "A player like Dumba is down there playing power play and penalty kill, and he's able to play the big minutes against all the best players on the other team and get those repetitions and get those game experiences," said Wild general manager Chuck Fletcher, as quoted by Chad Graff of the Pioneer Press in a Dec. 28 article. "That's only going to help him down the road."
Wild coach Mike Yeo is OK with Dumba taking risks as long as his young defenseman is learning from his errors. “You have to be willing to make a few mistakes because you've got to try to make those plays," Wild coach Mike Yeo told Graff in that same article. "That's how your game develops."
For the most part, Dumba feels that he isn’t making the same mistake twice. Once he sees an error on film, he’s been able to correct it in the next game. “I’m feeling pretty good that once I learn the lesson, hopefully I try to correct that after with those little things, just like boxing out, little stuff in the D-zone that I think I’ve taken some big strides in,” he says. “And then just simplifying my game, that’s always been one of the big ones. It’s a pretty general term to do that, but it’s just something that I’ve tried to do ever since I was in junior, but I’m starting to feel more comfortable and just picking my spots a little better.”
Most young players say they want to simplify their game, but with Dumba it can be difficult because he has so many tools that he wants to use. He wants to join the rush; he wants to fire off a laser shot from the blue line; he wants to land a large, clean open-ice hit on an opponent in order to get his team going. “The main difficulty for me is just I want to make an impact, that’s the thing,” he says. “I wear my heart on my sleeve and I want to make a difference in the game, and sometimes the biggest thing you can do to do that is just making the simple play and not over-complicating things and not forcing things, so I’m learning that as well.”
But he has to wait, he has to choose his moments, and that can be the hardest part. “It’s a very general, everyone says simplify your game — simplify it, simplify it — that’s been the story since I was drafted,” he says, exasperated. “Well, you would rather tame a tiger than paint stripes on a house cat, I guess. I’m figuring out the little things, what I can do and what I can’t, and it’s all building and it’s all part of a process that has led me here and led to me being more comfortable on the ice and more confident.”
As much as the Montreal game might have been Dumba’s worst of the season, it was also one of the most meaningful ones. Dumba shares an agent with P.K. Subban, an All-Star defenseman with many of the same tools that Dumba has. He is a player that Dumba looks up to, that he wants to emulate. “I want to be myself, my own game, but someone I’ve always looked up to and is kind of similar is P.K.,” he said back in November, shortly after the Montreal game. “That’s a really high standard, but even at this age P.K. was in the AHL and he didn’t have as much trust with Montreal as kind of the opportunity that I’m getting right now, which is really cool.”
One of Subban’s greatest traits is that he embraces Montreal’s hockey-crazy atmosphere. He wants to be known; he wants to showcase his skills; he embraces the chaos. “He's a better player in Montreal than he would be in Nashville," former teammate Mathieu Darche told Sports Illustrated’s Michael Farber. "The attention."
Dumba is by no means an attention-seeking, me-first player, but he wants to showcase his skills, all of them, in front of a massive crowd at the Xcel Energy Center. “Yeah, honestly. I work so hard, and hopefully the fans and everyone realizes that that’s what we do, and that’s what I’m about, “he says. “I come to the rink every day, and hopefully I’m focused and working my hardest and doing whatever it takes, and there might be mistakes, but I’m not scared of that. The biggest fear is not making those mistakes, it’s not living up to that potential. I feel as though I have a lot of potential and I want to access that to my greatest ability, so it’s just trying to strive for that every day.
“There’s gonna be plays that (go wrong), but in the end you’ve gotta be able to live with those, move on and play. [On Sunday], Russell Wilson throws four interceptions in the first half, and comes out to play an amazing second half, so it’s just staying mentally focused, always believing in myself. I think if you have that confidence and that swagger, it goes a long ways.”
Dumba is a tiger, not a house cat. His talent and ability have gotten him to the NHL as a teenager, a rare feat for a defenseman, and now he wants to be an impact player. He wants to set up forwards with precise passing, blast slap shots past goaltenders from the point and land massive hits on opposing players, and the Wild appear ready to allow them to do so because, after all, they’d rather put a uniform on a player with high upside than one that’s just hanging on in the league.
One day Dumba hopes to make the impact that Subban does on a nightly basis, but for now he hides in the open, in front of 19,000 people, waiting for the right opportunity to pounce.