Minnesota Wild (11-8-3) 25pts 3rd in the Central
2.82 Goals For Per Game (10th in the NHL)
2.09 Goals Against Per Game (2nd in the NHL)
18.5% Power Play (14th in the NHL)
82.8% Penalty Kill (16th in the NHL)
Top 5 Scorers:
1. #12 Eric Staal ~ 5G 11A = 16pts
2. #3 Charlie Coyle ~ 8G 7A = 15pts
3. #20 Ryan Suter ~ 4G 11A = 15pts
4. #22 Nino Niederreiter ~ 7G 7A = 14pts
5. #64 Mikael Granlund ~ 5G 9A = 14pts
Top 3 PIM’s:
1. #7 Chris Stewart ~ 29 PIM’s
2. #3 Charlie Coyle ~ 18 PIM’s
3. #24 Mathew Dumba ~ 16 PIM’s
Top Goaltenders:
1. #40 Devan Dubnyk (9-6-2) 1.66GAA .946%SP 4SO
2. #35 Darcy Kuemper (2-2-1) 3.36GAA .897%SP
Vs.
Calgary Flames (11-13-2) 24pts 5th in the Pacific
2.27 Goals For Per Game (26th in the NHL)
2.92 Goals Against Per Game (22nd in the NHL)
10.1% Power Play (30th in the NHL)
77.3% Penalty Kill (27th in the NHL)
Top 5 Scorers:
1. #67 Michael Frolik ~ 6G 9A = 15pts
2. #93 Sam Bennett ~ 5G 7A = 12pts
3. #27 Dougie Hamilton ~ 2G 10A = 12pts
4. #13 Johnny Gaudreau ~ 5G 6A = 11pts
5. #19 Matthew Tkachuk ~ 6G 4A = 10pts
Top 3 PIM’s:
1. #19 Matthew Tkachuk ~ 45 PIM’s
2. #93 Sam Bennett ~ 28 PIM’s
3. #29 Deryk Engelland ~ 27 PIM’s
Top Goaltenders:
1. #31 Chad Johnson (8-4-1) 2.06GAA .930%SP 3SO
2. #1 Brian Elliott (3-9-1) 3.31GAA .885%SP
Sports are a continually shifting force. Players, coaches, locations, success, buildings, owners, and the list goes on and on. Things never remain the same, except one thing. We as fans usually live in the past. We revel in past success and past failures. Our favorite player is often one from the past. For some of us, the past that we dwell in is from teams that we can’t stand. And sometimes this dislike converges with teams that we do like. Case in point. I am a Minnesota girl through and through. If I’m going to support a team, it’s going to be a Minnesota one. I do live in Wisconsin however, and have done so for 15 years. I graduated from Saint Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. So imagine how you would react when your alma mater hires a man who was a coach in one of the biggest Division-I hockey rivalries. This summer, it was announced that Saint Olaf hired former University of Wisconsin head coach Mike Eaves as their hockey program’s head coach. Suddenly, the Minneapolis Star Tribune is writing several pro-Mike Eaves articles in their pages. I suppose it helps that Saint Olaf is preparing (meaning raising money) to build an on-campus hockey arena, so that is newsworthy. Although as an alum, I’m a bit concerned with this push. They want to use it as a recruiting tool, which is odd. When I was a student, Saint Olaf didn’t offer any kind of athletic scholarships. It’s one thing if you don’t get a scholarship for a public university. It’s a completely different thing when you don’t receive a scholarship for a school when tuition, room (living on campus is required), and board is $54,000 a year. This is a school where academics mean everything, and sports have been an afterthought for so long. I’ll be curious how this experiment goes.
For Wild fans, this has been a week of facing the past. Tuesday night was a trip to Vancouver. If you’re a fan of this team and have been so from the beginning, you know games against the Canucks were something to mark on the calendar. You wanted the Wild to come out tough and make like miserable for the opposition. However the present hasn’t been kind to Vancouver. Yet the Wild fell flat. They started out great and then stumbled. It was very much like the recent bout with Colorado. Minnesota again needs to figure out how to play a 60-minute game. Fans were furious with how the team ultimately played Tuesday night. Many wanted head coach Bruce Boudreau to pull put the dreaded “bag skate” on the team. Instead of punishing the team, he actually put the team to work. They had long, involved practices focusing on what has been going wrong. The odd-man rushes that resolve in turnovers, bad penalties, and lines that just aren’t producing. Hopefully these focused practices generate results.
On Wednesday night, Calgary played host to Toronto. The Flames got on the board just nineteen seconds into the opening period with a goal by Freddie Hamilton. Now, it’s fun and exciting when that happens but the excitement continued to grow. Just 30 seconds after Hamilton’s goal, Kris Versteeg scored the Flames’ second goal of the night. Matt Stajan would round out the Flames’ scoring for the night just past the 15-minute mark of the first period. Calgary shut out Toronto, but they also did not score the rest of the night either. The Wild have had similar start to games recently, where they get up two goals, yet unlike the Flames, they were unable to close out the game. Sure, the Flames were playing the Maple Leafs, but the same can be said about the Wild. They’ve had games agains Vancouver and Colorado, which they should have been able to finish, but because of the issues that Boudreau has had to address in recent practices, they have failed. It will be interesting to see which version of the Flames and Wild fans will see tonight.
When the past comes to visit, how the present performs is all that matters.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
