Game Preview: Minnesota Wild vs. Arizona Coyotes 10/16/18 @ 7:00PM CST at Xcel Energy Center

Minnesota Wild (1-2-2)  4pts  7th in the Central

2.4 Goals For Per Game

3.4 Goals Against Per Game

18.8% Power Play

82.6% Penalty Kill

Top 5 Scorers:

1. #11 Zach Parise ~ 1G 6A = 7pts

2. #16 Jason Zucker ~ 3G 1A = 4pts

3. #9 Mikko Koivu ~ 1G 3A = 4pts

4. #20 Ryan Suter ~ 1G 3A = 4pts

5. #24 Matthew Dumba ~ 2G 1A = 3pts

Top 3 PIM’s:

1. #17 Marcus Foligno ~ 7 PIM’s

2. #15 Matt Hendricks ~ 7 PIM’s

3. #12 Eric Staal ~ 6 PIM’s

Top Goaltenders:

1. #40 Devan Dubnyk (1-2-1)  2.64GAA  .934%SP

2. #32 Alex Stalock (0-1-0)  3.10GAA .889%SP

Vs.

Arizona Coyotes (1-3-0)  2pts  8th in the Pacific

.5 Goals For Per Game

2.3 Goals Against Per Game

8.3% Power Play

90% Penalty Kill

Top 5 Scorers:

1. #15 Brad Richardson ~ 1G 0A = 1pt

2. #20 Dylan Strome ~ 1G 0A = 1pt

3. #14 Richard Panik ~ 0G 1A = 1pt

4. #4 Niklas Hjalmarsson ~ 0G 1A = 1pt

5. #16 Clayton Keller ~ 0G 1A = 1pt

Top 3 PIM’s:

1. #36 Christian Fischer ~ 8 PIM’s

2. #23 Oliver Ekman-Larsson ~ 6 PIM’s

3. #44 Kevin Connauton ~ 4 PIM’s

Top Goaltenders:

1. #32 Antti Raanta (1-3-0)  2.21GAA  .903%SP

2. #35 Darcy Kuemper N/A

Lines:

Arizona Coyotes

Panik~Stepan~Keller

Crouse~Strome~Fischer

Grabner~Richardson~Cousins

Perlini~Kempe~Hinostroza

Ekman-Larsson~Demers

Connauton~Hjalmarsson

Goligoski~Lyubushkin

Raanta

Kuemper

Minnesota Wild

Zucker~Staal~Greenway

Parise~Koivu~Granlund

Niederreiter~Fehr~Coyle

Foligno~Hendricks~Brown

Suter~Dumba

Brodin~Spurgeon

Seeler~Pateryn

Dubnyk

Stalock

Yes, today is one of those “well look at the bright side” kind of days. From the crazy internet issues we’ve had here for the past week to the Minnesota Wild, I’m working really hard at finding the “bright side.” Today will be my first full work day in a week, and even the partial day that I worked yesterday it was hard to find my flow. Yet while it will be an interesting day, my finding the “bright side” will be that fact that I’m getting paid again. Nothing worse than losing pay for things outside of your control. But it has literally been a week of reset modem/router, reconnect, get booted, and repeat. Thankfully, yesterday brought me a new router and a faster service and things so far, seem to be improved. But then it couldn’t really get much worse.

When it comes to the Minnesota Wild, we also need to find the “bright side.” Now mind you, I missed the first two periods of the game last night due to work. However, I had been getting score updates on my phone during work, so I knew the score was 3-2 Nashville at the time I could start watching. I will admit, the first thing that came to mind when I turned on the game was “hey, the shots on goal are virtually even.” That seemed like a decent enough accomplishment considering how bad the shots on goal were against Carolina. I asked my fellow fans on a message board that I hang out if things were any better. I got responses like “same ol'” but the one most telling was from a friend of ours:

No not really. Well, maybe the shots. They have 20 through 2 periods. Coyle and Niederreitter still invisible. Greenway needs to go to Iowa. He’s useless. Lots of standing around. No forechecking. The usual.

So the shots on goal were a step in the right direction, but many of the other problems that had been plaguing this team continue on a nightly basis. I have to agree that again this season, Charlie Coyle and Nino Niederreiter continue to be invisible. These are two players that desperately need to figure their sh*t out, and figure it out soon. In fact, that needs to happen for every player on this team. I mentioned baby steps when it comes to this team, to which my same friend gave this appropriate response:

But for a team that supposedly only needed “tweaks “ to get to the Cup, there shouldn’t need to be baby steps. These guys should have come out of the gate flying…

I would say it was the “out of the gate flying” bit that is the most concerning. This is a team that still can’t figure out how to play a full 60 minute game. From what I understand from my fellow fans, had I been watching, I would have wished I could have fast-forwarded through the first period. Yet this is not a problem limited to this season. This has been an ongoing problem for so long now, I honestly can’t think of a season where it wasn’t a problem. Yes, it’s great that this team found a way to pick up their game for the 2nd and 3rd periods, but we need this team to start out strong and not find themselves down a goal or two early in the game. Why would you want to continually put yourself in a scenario where you need to rally back for a chance to win? However, that’s the game this team continues to play. I just worry when they do figure out their woes in the first period, that those woes will simply be shifted to a different period. I guess as long as it’s not the 3rd period, I should count my lucky stars.

Now if you were going to play an opponent to make you feel better about yourselves, you couldn’t ask for more than a game against the Arizona Coyotes (the Buffalo Sabres would be a close second). I was looking at the stats this morning. As much as it’s easy to complain about the Wild’s scoring ability, shots on goal, or lack of playing a 60 minute game, it could always be worse. You could be the Arizona Coyotes with their .5 goals per game. Please take note of the decimal point, it was not a typo. Maybe to make it easier to read, I should do it a 0.5. But yet, it’s a HALF GOAL per game. With that kind of stat, I got curious and had to pull up Arizona’s results so far.

Dallas 3 – Arizona 0

Anaheim 1 – Arizona 0

Arizona 3 – Anaheim 2 (SO)

Buffalo 3 – Arizona 0

Man, that’s gotta hurt. I mean, it’s hard to be a Wild fan some days, but if I was a Coyotes fan, I would probably need professional help. I was going to go and take a peak at who the three goals came from, but then I had to readjust that thinking as one of the “goals” was a winning goal in the shootout, so the Coyotes have only two goals. Man, that has to be hard to build a season on.

If the Wild want to turn this season around, tonight would be the night. They need to come out swingin’ (okay, shooting) from the opening puck drop and never let up. This should be a very winnable game, but that presents its own problems, as we’ve also seen this team fail against teams that they should beat. I would prefer that the Wild actually give us something to be proud of instead of the broadcasters trying to sugar coat their failings into something positive. When this happens, not only do I think of the “bright side” Hockey Falls commercial, it also brings this one to mind as well.