If you’ve ever purchased a large piece of furniture from the venerated or perhaps notorious Swedish furniture store IKEA and had to put together their furniture with their collection of Allen wrenches and distinctive pegs and other hinges you’ll understand when I talk about the confusing nature of their directions. The directions, do their best to try to illustrate the procedure but sometimes the illustration does not always seem to match the collection of the various pieces you have left over. You look at some of your pieces that look similar but are not quite like the ones that are shown and you wonder if you have it wrong knowing all too well if you can’t afford to screw up (no pun intended). I would say the Wild have to feel as though they are in a similar situation as they attempt to swap out pieces (various players) to try to find one that works with the rest of the whole piece of furniture (the rest of the team). The team sent down skilled and speedy Casey Wellman as well as the mobile blueliner Marco Scandella back to the team’s AHL affiliate in Houston (the toolbox). So the Wild have called up the rough and tumble Matt Kassian as well as the safe and steady Justin Falk as the big bad Philadelphia Flyers come to town. The Flyers have plenty of toughness through its lineup, from the scrappy (and yappy) Daniel Carcillo to the ever ornery Scott Hartnell to an enforcer like Jody Shelley meaning Kassian’s big body and most likely his fists could be in high demand. With the news that one of its tools in the goal scoring sniper category Guillaume Latendresse (out with a torn labrum and a sports hernia) is broken down and requires surgery the Wild felt obliged to go to the store for a gently used tool in the bargain bin (the waiver wire) in former Minnesota draft pick Patrick O’Sullivan (56th Overall in 2003). O’Sullivan was part of the trade that caused a big collective “ohhh” from the fans in Vancouver when NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced the exchange of a 1st round pick and O’Sullivan for Pavol Demitra. For a trip down memory lane you can watch it all over again here –> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLARiM9t1eY&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1
After having one solid season with the Kings, O’Sullivan has since bounced around the league making stops in Edmonton, and most recently Carolina (who put him on waivers). O’Sullivan has some offensive ability and there is hope he can somehow bring some scoring to the team in a very low risk maneuver as he is on a two-way deal that makes it fairly straight forward to dispatch him to the minors (after having to pass through waivers of course) if he doesn’t work out.
These are not the Broad Street Bullies of old, but as a team the Flyers are one of the most penalized teams in the NHL and are not afraid to rough up their opponents when they are not trying to overwhelm them with their potent offense. The Wild cannot afford to sleepwalk through a period or two as they have the last few games and expect to earn a victory this evening. Perhaps Minnesota can take advantage of the Flyers’ lack of discipline and its tough to think of them winning this game if they can’t find the back of the net on the power play. So will the Wild step up and show a better closer to 60 minute effort, or will they look as though they’re suffering from the ol’ Philly Flu?
It gets frustrating writing similar articles over and over. The Wild continued their maddenly familiar pattern of having a reasonable start, falling asleep in the 2nd and then trying to somehow mount a comeback in the 3rd. This strategy has not been very successful as of late, and another 2nd period let down where the Wild were outshot 12 to 3 may not have totally blown open the game but it put Minnesota on its heels enough that it felt it must go on the attack in the 3rd by pinching defenseman and to the Flyers credit they counter attacked well. The pinching led to odd-man chances the otherway, including a shorthanded breakaway and when the Flyers had their opportunity to capitalize they did and the result was a 6-1 thrashing. The loss really highlighted the fact the Wild lack of one or few go-to scorers in the lineup. Minnesota instead utilizes a score by committee method which makes for incredibly streaky and unpredictable play. You may get the support some of the time, but all to often the committee just doesn’t quite click and the result is a loss. Another way this painful fact can be seen is in the fact the team has only had one game where it has outshot its opponent all season (in Game #2 against Carolina). The Great One, Wayne Gretzky once said that you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take and all too often the Wild decide not to shoot. It doesn’t matter what level of hockey you’re talking about, when your offense is struggling the best cure is to just pepper the goaltender with shots and hope you get lucky and something can get by them and get your team back on a roll.
Too many times teams are able to just take complete control in the 2nd period and the result is Minnesota wastes lots and lots of time just trying to get the puck out of its own zone to say nothing of creating offensive pressure on the opposition. It lets the opposing goaltender off the hook and even the oppositions 3rd and 4th lines relish the opportunity to fire shots on goal while the Wild sit back on its collective heels. Minnesota had an ok start to the game; hustling well and battling well along the boards. Even physically, the Wild dressed a bigger lineup to better compete against the rough and tumble Flyers and got a nice boost from a terrific fight by rookie Matt Kassian who looks to be a very capable fighter after his fairly convincing win against veteran pugilist Jody Shelley. So if a fight can’t keep the Wild energized into the 2nd period what can? The Wild coaching staff certainly do not seem to know what to do at this point since it has happened the last 4 games in a row. One mantra of Wild Head Coach Todd Richards since he has took the reins a season ago has been the team’s “compete level” which he said so often in post-game press conferences some fans were nearly inspired to turn his espousing of this cliche to be the core of a drinking game. So at this point, why does this team’s “compete level” turn to trash in the 2nd periods of games? Part of the problem is the team may feel hesitant to make a big mistake in the 2nd period as the team seems to want to simply be “close” by the time they drop the puck to start the 3rd. The problem with this idea is that you can allow your opponents to build momentum, draw penalties which serves to shorten your bench and tire out perhaps your most important players so by the time they get to the 3rd period you are running on fumes and a comeback at that point is almost impossible. The other idea is a team feels it can relax and save itself for the 3rd period to make its big push. If this is true, its faulty in the fact the team simply does not have nearly enough firepower in waiting to really rely on just one period to win a hockey game. It needs to take goals whenever it can get them so it is not doing itself any favors by waiting until later to actually go on the attack, its only making its margin for error that much more finite.
The irony of Minnesota’s offensive problems is that the Flyers are a tremendous example of what Minnesota needs to do. I don’t mean take a lot of penalties like the Flyers, but offensively they have a very simple philosophy when it comes to sparking itself. They simply take every opportunity to either shoot on goal or at the very least put the puck near the goal and hope for a lucky bounce, ricochet, or to hit and opposing players’ leg and get a cheap goal. Philadelphia did this very effectively in the post-season last year and if the first initial attempt doesn’t work they keep trying until the puck creates a nice rebound where they quickly pounce on it for a goal. The Wild got its only goal in the game on a play like this when Patrick O’Sullivan attempted a pass and it hit the back of the leg of a Flyers defender and by Sergei Bobrovsky to cut the Philadelphia lead to 2-1 in the 2nd period. This was the truly missed opportunity. Instead of embracing this simplified offensive philosophy and just throwing pucks on goal and seeing what they can create the team tried to pretend it was a more skilled team than it was and it would get burned trying to be fancy. It doesn’t matter how the puck ends up in the back of the opposing net, it just matters that it does get there and Wild fans are not too greedy to turn their nose up at ugly goals. The Wild are not playing the up-tempo style that team management promised, but that doesn’t mean they have to sit back and play rope a dope through the 2nd period each night either.
While it might seem mean, Minnesota’s hopes rely heavily on the play of its goaltender and on this night Niklas Backstrom was not that good. He did have some good saves but he also gave up some fairly soft goals and for a team that is one of the bottom 3 offensively it cannot afford for Backstrom to be anything but great if it expects to win. Backstrom’s play has for the most part been exemplary this season, but last night’s play was akin to some of his play from a season ago where he struggled to stop pucks in that were coming off of odd-man situations. A perfect example of this was Andreas Nodl‘s shorthanded tally in the 3rd period. While Nodl made a fine shot, that is a save Backstrom must make to keep the Wild in the game and to get his team’s spirits up. Instead he gives up the shorty, the heads go down and the team is more or less crushed emotionally. It is very similar to a team battling back only to have their goaltender give up a weak goal, its simply demoralizing and while it may seem unfair to pile on to a goaltender’s disappointment over one let down a huge part of goaltender’s game is almost as much the timing of his saves as it is the fact he’s making the saves in the first place. Its precisely why a team usually gets a big boost if they can manage to survive a 5-on-3 unscathed. It frustrates your opponent and makes you feel that there is hope you can overcome adversity.
The Wild were clearly the underdog going into this game, but that still does not grant them a free pass for getting rocked the way it did against the Flyers. This was a premium game; people paid more to see this game than it will for many others and a 6-1 loss is the best you can do? The last premium game performance was against the New York Rangers, a game they got pasted 5-2. That doesn’t show much respect for the fans who you called “the greatest fans in the world” for 10 seasons. I know the sellout streak has ended, but does that mean you can not show up when you know the fans are shellin’ out extra dough to see you? When current Wild owner Craig Leipold owned the Nashville Predators, he told his fanbase once he’d refund his season ticket holders the increase they got if the team failed to make the playoffs. That season, 2002-03 the Predators failed to make the post-season and Leipold lived up to his promise and refunds were distributed. I am not criticizing Leipold, who by everything I’ve seen is an honorable owner and has done as much as can be expected of him to put a quality product on the ice. Something that could not be said for the previous ownership who put a bargain basement product on the ice despite the fact they were making money hand over fist. I understand its a business, but it felt like exploitation at the time and I said as much. Either way, perhaps the team should consider having the players pony up some of the dough to provide refunds to the fans when they put up a paltry effort in these premium games. Coaches can’t play and neither can the General Manager (Chuck Fletcher) or the owner, so its up to the players to provide effort and energy and if they want us to simply accept that they showed up at the arena than they do not understand the State of Hockey. This state makes you a hearty person, one who values hard work. We also know our hockey, and can tell the difference between a good effort on the ice and a poor one. If this was just a matter of Philadelphia being that incredible and us that poor we could understand that and maybe even accept it. But that is not the case. We have a level of complacency that we’ve been witnessing for quite a while and some fans are so sick of it they’ve stopped coming to the games. You cannot expect fans to shell out that kind of money just to watch a fair portion of the team simply go through the motions. We show up, we care, we cheer, we boo and we expect to see their hard work match the level of work we took in working our jobs / careers and see that it was time, energy and money well spent.
Wild Notes:
~ Wild roster tonight was as follows: Mikko Koivu, Andrew Brunette, Antti Miettinen, Matt Cullen, Martin Havlat, John Madden, Kyle Brodziak, Patrick O’Sullivan, Matt Kassian, Cal Clutterbuck, Eric Nystrom, Brad Staubitz, Justin Falk, Clayton Stoner, Nick Schultz, Cam Barker, Greg Zanon and Brent Burns. Jose Theodore backed up Niklas Backstrom. Robbie Earl and Marek Zidlicky were the healthy scratches while Chuck Kobasew is still out with groin issues and Pierre-Marc Bouchard‘s recovery again appears speculative at best.
~ The 3 Stars of the Game as selected by Let’s Play Hockey were: 1st Star Ville Leino, 2nd Star Andreas Nodl, 3rd Star Cal Clutterbuck
~ Attendance for tonight’s game was 16,516, which was a premium game that these fans paid extra to see.
Wild Prospect Report:
LW – Colton Gillies ~ Houston Aeros (AHL)
2010-11 Stats: 14G 2G 4A = 6pts 19 PIM’s Even
It has been a long and windy road for the Wild’s former 1st round pick (16th Overall in 2007). In his 3rd full year of playing professional hockey, Gillies has still struggled to find his groove. After his first opportunity at the professional level after what some would say was a misguided attempt by the Wild to keep him with the big club rather than send him back for another season in Saskatoon (WHL) Gillies was finally sent down to Houston under the premise he’d develop more given better ice time with the Aeros than playing a limited amount of minutes in roughly just 50% of games with the Wild. So at some point you’d expect to see the payoff, but so far the returns have not been all that promising. Last year in his first full year with the Aeros, Gillies had a very modest 7 goals, 20 points and 73 penalty minutes in 72 games. Hardly a breakthrough year. Once again, Gillies was sent down and the results still have to be considered modest at best. A year or so ago the team gave up on the idea that Gillies would morph into a power forward, and begin to publically state he could be a big-bodied checker who could use his speed and size (6’4″, 190lbs) to punish the opposition on the forecheck. Even this you may have to question as you see other Wild prospects who seem to have a greater upside than Gillies pass him up on the depth chart in Carson McMillan (200th Overall in 2007) who may not be as physically gifted as Gillies forecheckes better and has managed to be more productive on the scoresheet tallying 4 goals, 10 points, 26 penalty minutes and is a +3. I can understand a 1st round pick maybe feeling a bit disappointed about not being with the big club, but being unproductive at the AHL level hardly makes upper management to want to give you more chances. Time is running out for Gillies who has not come even close to justifying why the Wild traded a 2nd round pick just to move up 3 spots in the draft to pick Gillies. If Gillies fails to pan out, he would be the 3rd official 1st round bust for this team behind A.J. Thelen (12th Overall in 2004) and James Sheppard (9th Overall in 2006) which also includes a strong maybe in Benoit Pouliot (4th Overall in 2005) who so far seems to have revived his career with the Montreal Canadiens but was a near total failure for the Wild. It has been these high round failures that have really put the Wild at a distinct disadvantage the last few years as they have been more compelled to use free agency as the prospects simply have not been there to replace those players that have departed the organization.
F – Mikael Granlund ~ HIFK Helsinki (Sm-Liiga)
2010-11 Stats: 12GP 3G 8A = 11pts 4 PIM’s
With the aforementioned struggles the Wild have had in drafting quality talent with their 1st round pick, that means the organization has high hopes for its most recent 1st round selection Mikael Granlund. Granlund impressed Wild brass with a strong performance while the Wild were in Finland, and his totals are still on pace to be similar to what they were a season ago when the skilled forward had 13 goals and 40 points in 43 games. His terrific on-ice vision, hockey sense and deft stickhandling make him standout amongst his peers and are why the Wild are excited about what he could potentially create offensively. While its tough to judge precisely where he’s at playing in a league some compare to the American Hockey League while others say its slightly less competitive than that the facts are that he is a consistent offensive contributor playing on his team’s top line as an 18-year old competing against grown men which is fairly impressive by any standard. The Hockey News as well as Hockey’s Future rates Granlund as the Wild’s top prospect and I’m inclined to agree with them. He is generously listed at 5’10”, 180lbs and it will be interesting to see how well he does on a smaller North American-style rink.
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