Game #76: Minnesota Wild at New York Rangers, Tuesday March 27, 2012 at 7:00pm (CST), Xcel Energy Center [GAME PREVIEW]

Welcome to the newest chapter in the 2011-12 Minnesota Wild.  For quite a while now, it’s felt like the Wild were the main character in one of those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books from when I was a kid.  When the season started off kind of slow, with an up and down pre-season, many felt we were headed in one direction.  Then something clicked with the team, and they decided they didn’t want to go that route and it looked like we were headed to the playoffs.  But like in the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, at some point another choice was needed to be made.  Of course no one ever chooses injuries to plague a your team, but those injuries have sent us down our current path.  How we officially end the season is yet to be seen, and there are many who believe that now that we’re on the path to position the team for a really good pick in the upcoming Entry Draft, is yet to be seen.  Honestly, I believe it’s the best place for the team at this point.

Of course it’s a bitter pill to swallow.  Tonight marks the first game of the season where the Wild are officially out of the playoff picture.  I know for myself, that before this point, even though we technically had a chance, I felt like the Wild have been out of the picture for weeks now.  No one wants to see your team on the sidelines during the post-season.  No team starts the season saying “let’s not go to the playoffs this year.”  But now that we’re at that point, it’s actually a relief.  With the roster that Minnesota has, even had they made it in the playoffs, it most likely would have been a first-round exit.  Sure, after multiple seasons not in the playoffs, a first-round exit would have been welcomed by some.  However, I don’t want my team to go to the playoffs just to find ourselves back on the sidelines after 4-7 games.  If we’re going to go through that emotional roller coaster, I’d rather have a team that is better built for post-season hockey and one that actually stands a chance of going further.

Now the Wild are faced with new choices in their “adventure.”  How they play the remaining 8 games does have an impact of the team’s future.  Now while it’s hard to watch your team lose night in and night out, at this point it is the absolute best thing for the team.  It’s hard for both casual and die-hard fans to endure.  There are season ticket holders, who have had their tickets for years, that are highly considering giving up their seats for next year.  To all fans, I would say “be patient.”  I know, I know, it’s difficult to do so.  But this is a case where we need to take several steps back in order to go forward.  Teams like Pittsburgh and Chicago had to bad for many seasons to become the star-studded, offensively-gifted teams that we see today.  Edmonton is going through the same rebuilding process right now.  With the talent that they’ve accumulated over recent years, they will become a force to reckon with.  Minnesota needs to rebuild, and I think it’s almost harder for fans because this our second go around for NHL hockey.  While the Wild haven’t been around that long, many of the fans were North Stars fans back in the day, and they’re still waiting for a Stanley Cup.  That is where the frustration and impatience comes from.  But now, we just need to see where we end up in the draft and just what sort of free agents general manager, Chuck Fletcher can pick up this summer.  Until then, we simply have to weather this current part of the adventure and wait for the ending of this story in July.

In the mean time, it simply feels like we’ve ended up in this (parody) “Choose Your Own Adventure” book:

Injury Report:

Minnesota:  Matt Cullen (finger), Mike Lundin (lower body),  Guillaume Latendresse (concussion), Pierre-Marc Bouchard (concussion, groin),     Niklas Backstrom (lower body), Justin Falk (leg), Matt Kassian (groin), Jared Spurgeon (concussion)    

NY Rangers:  Chad Kolarik (knee surgery), Michael Sauer (concussion), Mats Zuccarello (broken wrist), Steve Eminger (undisclosed)

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