Game Preview: Minnesota Wild vs. Colorado Avalanche 12/20/16 @ 7:00PM CST at Xcel Energy Center

Minnesota Wild (18-8-4)  40pts  2nd in the Central

2.93 Goals For Per Game (6th in the NHL)

1.93 Goals Against Per Game (1st in the NHL)

16.7% Power Play (19th in the NHL)

84.3% Penalty Kill (6th in the NHL)

Top 5 Scorers:

1. #12 Eric Staal ~ 10G 14A = 24pts

2. #3 Charlie Coyle ~ 10G 12A = 22pts

3. #22 Nino Niederreiter ~ 8G 12A = 20pts

4. #64 Mikael Granlund ~ 7G 13A = 20pts

5. #20 Ryan Suter ~ 5G 13A = 18pts

Top 3 PIM’s:

1. #7 Chris Stewart ~ 40 PIM’s

2. #63 Kurtis Gabriel ~ 24 PIM’s

3. #24 Mathew Dumba ~ 20 PIM’s

Top Goaltenders:

1. #40 Devan Dubnyk (15-6-3)  1.62GAA  .947%SP  4SO

2. #35 Darcy Kuemper (3-2-1)  2.97GAA  .907%SP

Vs.

Colorado Avalanche (11-18-1)  23pts  7th in the Central

2.17 Goals For Per Game (29th in the NHL)

3.20 Goals Against Per Game (30th in the NHL)

16.5% Power Play (21st in the NHL)

80.3% Penalty Kill (21st in the NHL)

Top 5 Scorers:

1. #9 Matt Duchene ~ 12G 10A = 22pts

2. #29 Nathan MacKinnon ~ 8G 13A = 21pts

3. #96 Mikko Rantanen ~ 4G 10A = 14pts

4. #4 Tyson Barrie ~ 2G 11A = 13pts

5. #17 Rene Bourque ~ 9G 3A = 12pts

Top 3 PIM’s:

1. #55 Cody McLeod ~ 38 PIM’s

1. #16 Nikita Zadorov ~ 35 PIM’s

2. #12 Jarome Iginla ~ 35 PIM’s

Top Goaltenders:

1. #1 Semyon Varlamov (6-12-0)  3.21GAA  .904%SP  1SO

2. #31 Calvin Pickard (5-6-1)  2.90GAA  .903%SP  1SO

Lines:

Colorado Avalanche

Landeskog~MacKinnon~Bourque

Grigorenko~Duchene~Rantanen

Comeau~Mitchell~Iginla

Martinsen~Soderberg~McLeod

Tyutin~Barrie

Wiercioch~Zadorov

Beauchemin~Gelinas

Varlamov

Pickard

Minnesota Wild

Parise~Staal~Pominville

Zucker~Koivu~Granlund

Niederreiter~Graovac~Coyle

Stewart~Cannone~Gabriel

Suter~Spurgeon

Brodin~Dumba

Scandella~Folin

Dubnyk

Kuemper

Sports teams like to make history. Records. Championship titles. Win streaks. And within the teams, individual players also like to make history of their own. Most goals. Most points. Most consecutive goals played. And the lists go on and on. Sometimes it’s enough to break a record within a team’s history. The Minnesota Wild aren’t often known for creating records. Well at least for the league. The record they held for sometime was for being the first team for coming back twice from a 3-1 deficit in the same playoff season. Of course the fact that particular feat was accomplished by a team in its third year of the existence, manned by NHL castoffs and fringe players made it that much more impressive. Of course the unofficial record by fans across the league (including those of tonight’s opponent), was that the Minnesota Wild were ruining the league with their defensive play. An assertion that has taken many, many seasons to get out from under the shadow. With changes of coaching, management, ownership, and players, this team has had the chance to re-brand itself. Even with the re-branding, we still see some of that past history on the ice.

So as we talk about history, we’re going to dive into more history. Way back on October 6, 2000, the oldest player to make his National Hockey League debut would do so. Prior to that date, Lubomir Sekeras had spent his entire professional playing career on Czech (both Czechoslovakia and Czech Republic) and Slovak teams. But on that night, he stepped on the ice for the first time for an NHL team that was making a debut of their own. With that debut, he became and has remained the oldest player to make his NHL debut. Tonight, the second oldest player in NHL history will make his NHL debut, and interestingly enough, again for the Minnesota. At 30 years old, center Pat Cannone will take to the ice in a Wild sweater. Who? What? Why? First off, he spent four years at Miami (OH) University. In those four years, he scored 45 goals, 133 points, and 83 penalty minutes. Prior to joining the Iowa Wild this season, he spent time with the Binghampton Senators and Chicago Wolves. In the 29 games he’s played this season with Iowa, Cannone has scored 4 goals, 12 assists and 10 penalty minutes.

Of course the question is how did we get to this perilous moment where we have to play an “aging” 30-year-old NHL “rookie”? To get that answer, you simply have to go back to the first two minutes of Saturday’s game against Arizona. We don’t have much for specifics, but Erik Haula is out with a lower-body injury. At this point, we have little to go one. We don’t know if it’s more of a day-to-day injury or if it’s going to be longer term. For the rest of the game, Bruce Boudreau was continually cycling his three remaining centers, Mikko Koivu, Eric Staal, and Tyler Graovac. Now Koivu and Staal are used to lots of ice time, but Graovac certainly saw his ice time increase. The Wild certainly cannot afford to keep with just three centers (nor would any team ice a team for a game with only three centers). We are getting closer to the needed return of Zac Dalpe, who has been cleared to play. However he’s been reassigned to Iowa for a training stint. So that still leaves Minnesota short a center, which is funny, because for a while it felt like you could easily trip over a Wild center. With the roster woes, this is how Cannone makes his NHL debut.

And if you think the center issue makes a fan a bit wary about the chances of the Wild to continue their win streak, Colorado is going to throw a bit of a wrench Minnesota’s way. Returning to the Avalanche lineup, is their goaltender, Semyon Varlamov. He has been out the past three week with a groin injury. He has been cleared to play and expected to start against the Wild. I’m hoping the Wild will open a shooting gallery on Valamov and test to see just how ready that groin is. I can’t say I’m particularly comfortable about the outcome based on the series record with the Avalanche this season. All I ask is that they don’t get blown out of the (frozen) water. But considering how things have been going this season, they’re probably due for an embarrassment. The fact that it could come at the hand of the lowly Avalanche, is a bitter pill to swallow.