Minnesota Wild (17-11-3) 37pts 4th in the Central
2.87 Goals For Per Game (18th in the NHL)
2.80 Goals Against Per Game (10th in the NHL)
21.59% Penalty Kill (6th in the NHL)
82.90% Penalty Kill (9th in the NHL)
Top 5 Scorers:
1. #12 Eric Staal ~ 12G 15A = 27pts
2. #16 Jason Zucker ~ 14G 11A = 25pts
3. #64 Mikael Granlund ~ 7G 13A = 20pts
4. #20 Ryan Suter ~ 4G 14A = 18pts
5. #22 Nino Niederreiter ~ 10G 5A = 15pts
Top 3 PIM’s:
1. #9 Mikko Koivu ~ 22 PIM’s
2. #12 Eric Staal ~ 20 PIM’s
3. #10 Chris Stewart ~ 20 PIM’s
Top Goaltenders:
1. #32 Alex Stalock (5-3-0-1) 2.61GAA .916%SP 1SO
2. #31 Steve Michalek N/A
Vs.
Edmonton Oilers (13-17-2) 28pts 7th in the Pacific
2.90 Goals For Per Game (15th in the NHL)
3.26 Goals Against Per Game (25th in the NHL)
18.39% Power Play (17th in the NHL)
72.11% Penalty Kill (31st in the NHL)
Top 5 Scorers:
1. #97 Connor McDavid ~ 12G 27A = 39pts
2. #93 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins ~ 12G 10A = 22pts
3. #29 Leon Draisaitl ~ 8G 14A = 22pts
4. #27 Milan Lucic ~ 7G 15A = 22pts
5. #19 Patrick Maroon ~ 8G 9A = 17pts
Top 3 PIM’s:
1. #27 Milan Lucic ~ 49 PIM’s
2. #44 Zack Kassian ~ 38 PIM’s
3. #19 Patrick Maroon ~ 34 PIM’s
Top Goaltenders:
1. #1 Laurent Brossoit (3-7-0-1) 3.22GAA .886%SP
2. #34 Nick Ellis N/A
Lines:
Edmonton Oilers
Lucic~McDavid~Puljujarvi
Maroon~Nugent-Hopkins~Cammalleri
Khaira~Draisaitl~R. Strome
Slepyshev~Letestu~Kassian
Nurse~Russell
Klefbom~Benning
Auvitu~Davidson
Brossoit
Ellis
Minnesota Wild
Niederreiter~Koivu~Granlund
Zucker~Staal~Mitchell
Eriksson Ek~Cullen~Coyle
Ennis~Winnik~Stewart
Suter~Dumba
Brodin~Murphy
Reilly~Prosser
Stalock
Michalek
Expectations. These are the things in life that bombard us on a daily basis for either good or bad. At our jobs, we all are expected to do certain things. In most fields, we have to meet with our direct supervisors for coaching sessions or at the very least you have an annual review. It’s the time to say hey, you’re doing a good job at this, but we need you to focus a little bit more on this. Good managers make this a positive experience. For myself, I learn a lot about my role, my company, and myself. However, sometimes what is expected of us can be overwhelming. I remember when I was in training when I first started with my current employer. We were in some live mentoring calls as well as classroom scenarios. When I got done with work that day, I completely broke down feeling like I had made the worst mistake leaving my previous job for this one. I felt like I was going to be completely unprepared for when I was out of the comfort of our training sessions or the mentoring ones where I had a veteran employee messaging me during my calls to help me. When I went back to work the next day I mentioned my breakdown to my trainer and his response was “you wouldn’t be here if we didn’t believe in you.” That went a long way to reassuring my fears. It also set expectations. I knew they would be there for me as long as I kept doing my job and striving to improve. And here I am, it has gotten me one promotion and a couple of decent raises in my time. Thankfully, the expectation have been realistic.
However in sports, expectations aren’t always so realistic. Teams and players set expectations for themselves and then the fans and media put additional expectations on them. Every team should have the expectation to be competitive on a nightly basis. Now whether or not you see that is another thing. In years when you know from the get-go that it’s going to be a rebuilding season, you just want to see them compete for 60 minutes and get wins when you can. That is definitely the case for the bottom 10 teams in the league. For the next ten or so teams, the expectation is fight every night just to make the playoffs. The rest of the teams are the ones who will jockey for playoff spots, hoping for home ice advantage and to get certain opponents, especially in the first round. They probably have the biggest expectations, and of course they have the ultimate expectation. They are expected by all parties to win the puck. They know it will be difficult and there’s a long road to get there, but the expectation is there.
And then there are the Edmonton Oilers. If ever there was a team that needed to take a seat (or lay down on the coach) and the psychologist’s office, it’s the Oilers. For seasons, the expectation was that they were again going to be at the bottom of the league and would be pushing for the first overall pick in the NHL Entry Draft. However, the expectation didn’t really match with the talent that they were able to acquire. Fans around the league would watch them wondering how could they continue to be at the bottom for so long. How long was it going to take to for their talent to mature and finally show up? Last season, we finally thought “hey, here’s the Edmonton Oilers everyone has been waiting for.” And for Edmonton fans, it had to be the longest, most frustrating wait ever. They finally got to see playoff hockey. Not only playoff hockey, but two rounds of playoff hockey. Edmonton beat San Jose (talk about another team with expectations) in six games and then played seven games in a losing effort to Anaheim. For a team that has been living in the cellar for as many seasons as they have, those 13 playoff games had to be very much a healing salve. However, it’s also created some serious expectations for continued success.
That appears to not be the case this season. From the heights of last season for the Oilers, they’re again back in first round draft pick range. They do have Ottawa (the Wild’s opponent on Tuesday), Buffalo, and Arizona behind them in the standings. It’s not a good place to be, because if you’re going to be bad, there should at least be some reward to it. Unless they manage to win the draft lottery (which isn’t completely out of the picture considering their history of winning it), they’re not at the absolute bottom. And I don’t see Arizona suddenly leap-frogging ahead of pretty much any of the team ahead of them. The only possibility would be Buffalo, but sometimes overtaking a team that it four points ahead of you is a challenge. So Edmonton is sitting there in bad company. But how do you go from making the second round (and almost winning) in the Western Conference Playoffs to being in 28th place in the league? Well losing your starting goaltender, Cam Talbot, for seven games doesn’t help. He was just activated from injured reserve yesterday. They have also been without Andrej Sekara since October 4, 2017 (32 games) and Adam Larson since November 30, 2017 (7 games). Drake Caggiula has also been in and out of the lineup, having missed 8 games for an ankle issue (3 games) or undisclosed reasons (5 games). In fact, the Edmonton Oilers have lost 72 man games due to injury. It’s hard to build consistency when you’re either without some of your key players for extended periods or you have guys in and out. The Minnesota Wild have certainly had their share of injuries to players like Zach Parise (31 games and counting), Nino Niederreiter (6 games), Jared Spurgeon (8 games and counting), Mikeal Granlund (5 games), Charlie Coyle (16 games), and now Devan Dubnyk (1 game and counting), however for whatever reason, the Wild seem better equipped to handle challenges. In fact, the Wild are at 75 man games lost to injury, 3 more than Edmonton. Probably the main difference is that the Wild have lost most of their skaters on the forward lines where Edmonton’s have been mostly to defensemen and goaltenders. That is a crucial detail. Imagine if we lost either Ryan Suter, Jonas Brodin, or Matt Dumba to injury in addition to Spurgeon. We don’t have solid defensemen to really make up the difference, especially considering the minutes they log. I know I don’t want to see more Gustaf Olofsson than I’m already seeing. All I can say is thank goodness for Ryan Murphy and Nate Prosser. And thank goodness that Alex Stalock is as steady as he is. He will certainly be tested these next few weeks.
As Wild fans, I think we’re fortunate to a degree. As Minnesota sports fans, we’re used to having our expectations unfulfilled. Edmonton fans are going to be disappointed considering how close to the sun they flew last season.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
