Minnesota Wild (16-13-4) 36pts 5th in the Central
2.85 Goals For (11th)
2.79 Goals Against (22nd)
14.4% Power Play (26th)
87% Penalty Kill (4th)
Top 5 Scorers:
1. #11 Zach Parise ~ 13G 14A = 27pts
2. #29 Jason Pominville ~ 8G 18A = 26pts
3. #20 Ryan Suter ~ 1G 21A = 22pts
4. #26 Thomas Vanek ~ 6G 15A = 21pts
5. #22 Nino Niederreiter ~ 14G 3A = 17pts
Top 3 PIM’s:
1. #6 Marco Scandella ~ 40 PIM’s
2. #18 Ryan Carter ~ 32 PIM’s
3. #11 Zach Parise ~ 25 PIM’s
Top Goaltenders:
1. #35 Darcy Kuemper (11-10-0) 2.64GAA .901%SP 3SO
2. #32 Niklas Backstrom (5-3-3) 2.58GAA .901%SP
3. #33 John Curry (0-0-1) 3.81GAA .826%SP
Vs.
Winnipeg Jets (19-10-7) 45pts 4th in the Central
2.50 Goals For (23rd)
2.25 Goals Against (3rd)
15.2% Power Play (23rd)
84.9% Penalty Kill (8th)
Top 5 Scorers:
1. #16 Andrew Ladd ~ 12G 15A = 27pts
2. #26 Blake Wheeler ~ 11G 15A = 26pts
3. #18 Bryan Little ~ 14G 11A = 25pts
4. #33 Dustin Byfuglien ~ 8G 12A = 20pts
5. #55 Mark Schiefele ~ 6G 13A = 19pts
Top 3 PIM’s:
1. #33 Dustin Byfuglien ~ 55 PIM’s
2. #9 Evander Kane ~ 46 PIM’s
3. #26 Blake Wheeler ~ 45 PIM’s
Top Goaltenders:
1. #31 Ondrej Pavelec (10-8-5) 2.34GAA .913%SP 1SO
2. #34 Michael Hutchinson (9-2-2) 1.77GAA .939%SP 1SO
I guess it should come as no shock to anyone that the Minnesota Wild currently resemble your nearest Urgent Care clinic, especially at this time of year. For myself, when I was in college, I felt I could finally let my guard down after a long semester with the last week filled with exams and turning in research papers. The minute I would get in the car for the 2-hour drive home, the sniffles would start, and by Christmas Day, I was usually battling a cold of some sort. And for the first time since I had the dreaded H1N1 virus, aka swine flu, back in 2009, yours truly has succumbed to sickness. For me it started as nothing more than a slight cold with a runny nose. When I woke up yesterday, everything had settled in my chest and my ear was sore. So since I’m out of network with my insurance, I ventured over to the nearest clinic at Target where it’s much easier to pay out of pocket and actually quite affordable (well when it comes to health care). A short visit and a trip to the pharmacy for some antibiotics for the ear infection, I’m now back on the mend.
Now, I have the advantage of being on vacation, where hockey players do not. At this point in the season, they’re just getting close to mid-terms to use a school reference. There’s still a long push until the end of the season. For the most part, the Wild have been pretty fortunate when it comes to injury (knock on wood). Illness, not so much. We’ve seen the mumps (and I don’t think we’re finished with that one yet), norovirus, flu, other stomach bugs, colds, and now food poisoning in the case of Darcy Kuemper. To a small degree, I prefer illness over injury, because usually you get over an illness much quicker than an injury. Even during the height of our mumps outbreak, players were out a couple of games, got a new mumps booster, and then were back in the game. The flu isn’t as kind, and can easily knock you out a week or more. Kuemper in fact had one of the numerous stomach bugs and then got over it. Now, his latest bout was with something he ate. He felt pretty good at yesterday’s practice and is slated to be tonight’s starter in Winnipeg with John Curry serving as backup. In the land of stomach bugs, you can also add Niklas Backstrom and Jason Zucker as well. I for one definitely miss Zucker on the ice, so hopefully he gets healthy soon. With all the missing people who are sick, it certainly doesn’t help that the Wild are also without Mikael Granlund and Jonas Brodin. Granlund has an injured hand that was received during Saturday night’s game and Brodin is out with an upper-body injury.
With all the people sick and injured, the Wild were down to 11 forwards and six defensemen during yesterday’s practice. So, it forced the front office to call up a couple of players from Iowa. Traveling up to Winnipeg will be Tyler Graovac and Brett Sutter. Both are much needed. Graovac will hopefully add some much needed scoring. Graovac currently leads the Iowa Wild with 12 goals. This will be his first NHL game. Sutter will bring a much needed physical presence. We know the Jets will try to push the Wild around, and with the injuries to Granlund and Brodin, we know what they can do to us. Hopefully, Sutter can repay the favor. However, even with those two additions, it will not make much of a difference. Winnipeg will still out-muscle Minnesota and make life miserable. It will be an absolute miracle if we can manage to keep the game close without losing any more players to illness.
I’m not holding out much hope. In the meantime, I’m going to go get more sleep in order to combat my illness and let the antibiotics do their job. I for one look forward to the day when we can talk more about the game rather than who is sick or injured.
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