Minnesota Wild (19-17-3) 41pts 5th in the Central
2.92 Goals For Per Game (17th in the NHL)
2.82 Goals Against Per Game (8th in the NHL)
23.0% Power Play (8th in the NHL)
84.5% Penalty Kill (3rd in the NHL)
Top 5 Scorers:
1. #64 Mikael Granlund ~ 11G 26A = 37pts
2. #11 Zach Parise ~ 18G 17A = 35pts
3. #20 Ryan Suter ~ 4G 23A = 27pts
4. #12 Eric Staal ~ 13G 12A = 25pts
5. #9 Mikko Koivu ~ 6G 18A = 24pts
Top 3 PIM’s:
1. #17 Marcus Foligno ~ 27PIMs
2. #29 Greg Pateryn ~ 27PIMs
3. #36 Nick Seeler ~ 22PIMs
Top Goaltenders:
1. #40 Devan Dubnyk ~ (14-14-3) 2.63GAA .913SV%
2. #32 Alex Stalock ~ (5-3-0) 2.60GAA .903SV%
Vs.
Ottawa Senators (15-21-5) 35pts 8th in the Atlantic
3.15 Goals For Per Game (11th in the NHL)
3.98 Goals Against Per Game (31st in the NHL)
21.6% Power Play (12th in the NHL)
74.4% Penalty Kill (29th in the NHL)
Top 5 Scorers:
1. #61 Mark Stone ~ 19G 26A = 45pts
2. #95 Matt Duchene ~ 16G 24A = 40pts
3. #18 Ryan Dzingel ~ 15G 14A = 29pts
4. #36 Collin White ~ 10G 15A = 25pts
5. #89 Mikkel Boedker ~ 5G 19A = 24pts
Top 3 PIM’s:
1. #74 Mark Borowiecki ~ 67PIMs
2. #67 Ben Harpur ~ 47PIMs
3. #7 Brady Tkachuk ~ 44PIMs
Top Goaltenders:
1. #31 Anders Nilsson ~ (3-8-1) 3.09GAA .895SV% (Vancouver stats)
2. #35 Marcus Hogberg ~ (0-2-1) 3.68GAA .895SV%
Lines:
Ottawa Senators
Tkachuk~Tierney~Stone
Dzingel~Duchene~White
Boedker~Smith~Ryan
Paajarvi~Rodewald~Wolanin
Harpur~Ceci
Lajoie~Elliott
Borowiecki~Demelo
Hogberg
Nilsson
Minnesota Wild
Zucker~Staal~Granlund
Parise~Coyle~Kunin
Greenway~Koivu~Niederreiter
Foligno~Fehr~Brown
Suter~Spurgeon
Brodin~Pateryn
Seeler~Murphy
Dubnyk
Stalock
We’re going to take a little hockey detour today, with some talk of D-III hockey. Now usually, when someone decides to chat about college hockey, you’re pretty much guaranteed that it’s going to be D-I that’s discussed, but not today. What many of you fair readers might not be aware of, I am a Saint Olaf College alum. I earned my Bachelor of Music degree there back in the late 1990s. The four years spent on The Hill, were some of the best of my life. I’ll admit, I was quite the nerd back then. If I wasn’t in class or a practice room, I was probably back in my dorm room or the music library working on homework or sleeping. I didn’t have a car on campus, so for me to get into Northfield was more of an effort. There was a bit of a shuttle bus, but it wasn’t exactly convenient. My sophomore year, during January Term, some friends and I would go on over to the Northfield Arena to watch the occasional Saint Olaf hockey game. I remember that arena to this day. It was probably the coldest arena I’ve ever been in. I don’t think the heaters above the stands ever really worked properly. You hoped you never had to go to the bathroom, because you worried that your butt would freeze to the toilet set (yes, it was that cold). And I seem to remember the ceiling in the bathroom to be really low, as they were built in under the stands.
But that has all changed. When Saint Olaf hired former University of Wisconsin coach Mike Eaves, the team got a new sense of credibility. You have to realize, in the D-III world, traditional athletic scholarships do not exist, so attracting good players is difficult specially considering the cost to attend Saint Olaf. You are at that school for academic reasons, and just happen to play a sport. But having a coach like Eaves at the helm, certainly gave Saint Olaf and the MIAC in general a boost in credibility. Now that’s not to say that Eaves has completely turned around the fortunes of the men’s hockey team, but there certainly is a new air of confidence with the team. I believe the push for an on-campus ice arena happened right around Eaves’ hiring. Well that push became a reality, and last night the Saint Olaf Mens’ Hockey Team played their first game on-campus is their brand new arena. Sadly, they lost 4-2 to UW-Stout last night. Regardless though, it’s a beautiful facility on an already beautiful campus. The crazy part of this, is back in my senior year at Saint Olaf, the Board of Regents were proposing a major restructuring of the college. They were going to make major changes to the professor tenure process, eliminate some majors (social work comes to mind), and also eliminate some sports (softball, hockey, and wrestling are the ones that come to mind). It didn’t matter if you played a sport or not or if you were a student or professor or what you major was, the normally placid student population was pissed, and we staged a walk out. On the steps of Boe Memorial Chapel, was a mic and speakers, and students were given free reign to speak out against the changes. I can’t remember what the Board of Regents ultimately decided, but clearly the hockey teams still exist on campus, and they have a new home to show for it.
Minnesota hockey fans know the heartbreak of losing a team. We won’t dig deep into that emotional wound that still festers for some fans. But when you’ve lost a team or almost lost a team (for Saint Olaf), you tend to cling to your team, and support them no matter what. Sure, we grumble about the direction of the team, but you still love and support them. That’s how it feels with the Minnesota Wild right now. We went from the emotional high of the vast amount of wins from October and November to the occasional win now and then from December. I’m sure most people will point to the injury to Matt Dumba as to the reason for the current inconsistencies. For a while now, we get a win and then have to endure several losses in a row. The crazy part though, is that you get wins against good teams like Winnipeg and Toronto, but then they allow the mystique of Chicago to defeat them. And that is what has me concerned.
Today’s opponent is one of those teams where they can score, but they seemingly have the inability to keep the opposition from scoring. Of course the major reason for this problem has been Ottawa’s goaltending. They’ve had to play four different goaltenders this season. Now the Senators are one of those teams you can’t really trust, but one can imagine how much better their fortunes would be if Craig Anderson wasn’t out with a concussion. Now Anderson isn’t exactly perfect either, but I think they could have possibly been in the playoff hunt, or at least a Wild card spot, if he was still playing. Anderson’s stats are comparable to those of Devan Dubnyk, so things could have been different for Ottawa. But due to Anderson’s injury, Ottawa made a trade with Vancouver on January 2nd. Ottawa got goaltender Anders Nilsson and forward Darren Archibald for goaltender Mike McKenna and forward Tom Pyatt and a 2019 6th round pick. Nilsson wasn’t exactly the second coming of Roberto Luongo for Vancouver. Goaltending has been a worry for Ottawa for what seems like forever, heck they’re like the Philadelphia of Canada. But of course as Wild fans, we have to worry that they will make Ottawa look like a Cup contender even with questionable goaltending and make Dubnyk look like the 4th string goaltender.
I want to be optimistic and think that Minnesota can take this game. Yes they should be able to win this game, but whether they can piece together a win-streak is a major question. If they could beat Toronto, they should definitely be able to win in Ottawa as well. Heck, this is the kind of line up of road games where they could definitely turn this season around, even with the injuries. Looking ahead to the two games after today, I would like to think at least one of those is winnable as well. However Montreal will want to do everything it can to hold on to its wild card position and possibly even overtake Minnesota’s Tuesday opponent, Boston. If the Wild can play a solid sixty minute game, they should be able to win today and give themselves a boost heading into Montreal and Boston.
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