Minnesota Wild (18-16-3) 39pts 5th in the Central
2.92 Goals For Per Game (18th in the NHL)
2.81 Goals Against Per Game (8th in the NHL)
22.5% Power Play (10th in the NHL)
84.7% Penalty Kill (2nd in the NHL)
Top 5 Scorers:
1. #64 Mikael Granlund ~ 11G 25A = 36pts
2. #11 Zach Parise ~ 16G 16A = 32pts
3. #20 Ryan Suter ~ 4G 23A = 27pts
4. #12 Eric Staal ~ 13G 12A = 25pts
5. #9 Mikko Koivu ~ 4G 17A = 21pts
Top 3 PIM’s:
1. #29 Greg Pateryn ~ 23 PIM’s
2. #17 Marcus Foligno ~ 23 PIM’s
3. #21 Eric Fehr ~ 22 PIM’s
Top Goaltenders:
1. #40 Devan Dubnyk (13-13-3) 2.60GAA .912%SP
2. #32 Alex Stalock (5-3-0) 2.60GAA .903%SP
Vs.
Pittsburgh Penguins (20-12-6) 46pts 3rd in the Metropolitan
3.39 Goals For Per Game (5th in the NHL)
2.92 Goals Against Per Game (15th in the NHL)
25.9% Power Play (6th in the NHL)
84.4% Penalty Kill (3rd in the NHL)
Top 5 Scorers:
1. #87 Sidney Crosby ~ 17G 29A = 46pts
2. #81 Phil Kessel ~ 16G 27A = 43pts
3. #71 Evgeni Malkin ~ 12G 28A = 40pts
4. #59 Jake Guentzel ~ 16G 18A = 34pts
5. #58 Kris Letang ~ 8G 24A = 32pts
Top 3 PIM’s:
1. #71 Evgeni Malkin ~ 42 PIM’s
2. #6 Jamie Oleksiak ~ 35 PIM’s
3. #58 Kris Letang ~ 26 PIM’s
Top Goaltenders:
1. #30 Matt Murray (9-5-1) 3.14GAA .906%SP 2SO
2. #1 Casey DeSmith (11-6-4) 2.42GAA .926%SP 2SO
Lines:
Pittsburgh Penguins
Guentzel~Crosby~Rust
Simon~Malkin~Hornqvist
Pearson~Brassard~Kessel
Aston-Reese~Cullen~Sheahan
Dumoulin~Letang
Maatta~Riikola
Pettersson~Johnson
Murray
DeSmith
Minnesota Wild
Zucker~Staal~Granlund
Parise~Coyle~Kunin
Greenway~Koivu~Neiderreiter
Foligno~Fehr~Hendricks
Suter~Spurgeon
Brodin~Pateryn
Bartkowski~Prosser
Dubnyk
Stalock
What does the New Year bring? New Years resolutions, that very few of us manage to keep. If we’re being honest with ourselves. The most common resolution is going to the gym and/or losing weight. This is the time of the year where gyms and athletic clubs see a spike in new memberships and attendance. Let’s face it, making resolutions is easy to do, but difficult to follow up in. Heck, even the fact that you plunked down money for a gym membership isn’t enough of an incentive to keep up with that resolution for many. So with this reality in mind, let’s try something even easier. Let’s suggest three New Years resolutions for the Minnesota Wild in 2019.
Can we please draft some speed and scoring in the first round of the NHL Entry Draft? Throughout the Wild’s history, it has had a tendency in recent years to go with ‘safe pick.’ That is why the team drafted players like Joel Ericksson Ek, Filip Johansson, and Jonas Brodin. While these picks have some NHL skills, they often have the flavor level of a plain rice cake with nothing on it.
Such safe picks may yield a player that may use in the NHL, but like the plain rice cake, there is nothing to get excited about. Let’s face it, no one craves a rice cake, they only eat it because it’s “healthy” or “diet food” or it’s the only thing in the house to eat. The Wild need a shift in philosophy where they are more willing to take risks to find a game breaking talent.
The team needs to embrace speed. No matter how much this organization attempts to establish toughness in their lineup, they are only fooling themselves if they think we can compete in the current NHL with slower, lumbering tough players. And there’s a big different between actually being fast and thinking your fast. Remember when the Wild were a fast team and it was hard for other teams to keep up? That’s what we need to go back to.
Go back to your days as a kid watching Looney Tunes cartoons. The Roadrunner survived and always got the best of Wile E. Coyote, no matter what toughness or tricks he tried. Roadrunner’s speed got him out of trouble all the time.
3. Abstain from no-movement/no-trade clauses. I know these have become par for the course in the modern NHL, but they’ve truly become ridiculous. The Wild have painted themselves into the proverbial corner due to the large number of no-movement/no-trade clauses they have given their players. As much as cap space is helpful in order to make needed changes to your roster, so is flexibility. These clauses obligates teams to protect players they may not wish to protect in expansion drafts *cough Seattle cough*.
These players also often come with a big cap hit, and thus weigh you down so much, they become an anchor to the team and not in a good way.
So what so we need to look at heading into tonight’s game? Well first, the Pittsburgh Penguins are 8-2-0 in their last 10 games, and have won their last 5 games. Saturday, they destroying the Saint Louis Blues 6-1. As for that five game winning streak, our loss in Pittsburgh was the second of those five wins. Crazy part, we were also the second game in a back-to-back series. We lost that game 2-1, due to the Wild’s own mental lapses. Ever since their game with us, the Penguins have found their scoring touch again, but for the most part it’s been from their secondary scorers. If the Wild can avoid the costly mistakes, they should be able to stand tall against the Penguins. They’re not an invincible team, and I think that teams often give them far more respect than their due. Just because they’ve won the Stanley Cup multiple times in recent years does not mean you need to bow down before them and give them the win.
In fact, I would love to see a repeat of the Wild’s last game in Winnipeg. That was the first game in a long time, where the team seem to have an idea of how to actually play hockey. They kept things simple. I for one was pleased to see the skaters using their sticks in the passing and shooting lanes. Not only did it keep Winnipeg to the perimeter almost all night long, but it ended up in creating turnovers and odd-man rushes the other direction. That kind of game frustrated the Jets all night long and they didn’t really know what to do. While Winnipeg did pick things up a bit in the third period, the wind left their sails after Dustin Byfuglien was sent down the Jets tunnel with an ankle injury after an awkward hit with Luke Kunin. It’s being reported that Byfuglien will be out until at least the All-Star Break, which is a big loss for the Jets. I would not be surprised if Nashville is able to overtake the Jets in the standings. But yes, if the Wild can play a repeat of Saturday’s game, they stand a very good chance of winning tonight.
I can’t promise we see the front office make any chances to their status quo. It would be great if they did, but as Minnesota sports fans, we should be used to them doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different result, even though that tends to be the very definition of insanity. But then, that’s how I feel about resolutions in general. It’s insane to make them, hence why I no longer bother with them.
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