Minnesota Wild (16-11-3) 35pts 5th in the Central
2.9 Goals For Per Game (19th in the NHL)
2.9 Goals Against Per Game (14th in the NHL)
21.8% Power Play (6th in the NHL)
82.3% Penalty Kill (12th in the NHL)
Top 5 Scorers:
1. #12 Eric Staal ~ 12G 14A = 26pts
2. #16 Jason Zucker ~ 14G 11A = 25pts
3. #64 Mikael Granund ~ 6G 13A = 19pts
4. #20 Ryan Suter ~ 4G 13A = 17pts
5. #9 Mikko Koivu ~ 4G 11A = 15pts
Top 3 PIM’s:
1. #9 Mikko Koivu ~ 20 PIM’s
2. #12 Eric Staal ~ 20 PIM’s
3. #10 Chris Stewart ~ 20 PIM’s
Top Goaltenders:
1. #40 Devan Dubnyk (12-8-0-2) 2.73GAA .914%SP 3SO
2. #32 Alex Stalock (3-3-0-1) 3.09GAA .905%SP
Vs.
Toronto Maple Leafs (20-11-1) 41pts 2nd in the Atlantic
3.31 Goals For Per Game (5th in the NHL)
2.84 Goals Against Per Game (11th in the NHL)
22.2% Power Play (5th in the NHL)
82% Penalty Kill (13th in the NHL)
Top 5 Scorers:
1. #34 Auston Matthews ~ 13G 13A = 26pts
2. #43 Nazem Kadri ~ 13G 10A = 23pts
3. #21 James van Riemsdyk ~ 15G 7A = 22pts
4. #29 William Nylander ~ 5G 16A = 21pts
5. #44 Morgan Reilly ~ 4G 17A = 21pts
Top 3 PIM’s:
1. #15 Matt Martin ~ 30 PIM’s
2. #22 Nikita Zaitsev ~ 21 PIM’s
3. #51 Jake Gardiner ~ 18 PIM’s
Top Goaltenders:
1. #31 Frederik Andersen (17-8-0-1) 2.67GAA .922%SP 3SO
2. #35 Curtis McElhinney (3-2-0-0) 2.44GAA .925%SP 1SO
Lines:
Toronto Maple Leafs
Hyman~Matthews~Brown
Marleau~Kadri~Komarov
van Riemsdyk~Bozak~Marner
Martin~Moore~Nylander
Reilly~Hainsey
Gardiner~Zaitsev
Borgman~Polak
Andersen
McElhinney
Minnesota Wild
Zucker~Koivu~Coyle
Niederreiter~Staal~Granlund
Ennis~Eriksson Ek~Stewart
Foligno~Cullen~Mitchell
Suter~Dumba
Brodin~Murphy
Reilly~Prosser
Stalock
As a kid, whenever I heard the words ‘mirage’ I got the stereotypical vision of being lost and stranded in a desert, with no water, and suddenly off in the distance you spy a spring surrounded with palm trees. You stagger toward the sight of water, only to have one of two things happen. You either get to where you believe the water is, only to find more sand and no water or you keep seeing the image of water and palm trees, but never get closer. I have no idea where I first got this idea of what a mirage was, but I would venture that many of us have the same image in our minds when we think of the mirage. I could say we could easily change the location of the mirage, for example as Americans, we could put our mirage in Death Valley. Sometimes we envision the areas around the Egyptian pyramids. Other times we imagine them in the Sahara.
The main point, is what you see isn’t really what you see. It’s not just the idea of the mirage either. In the world of magic and illusion, there’s the concept of ‘smoke and mirrors.’ The idea that you use distraction to make your audience see something else when you’re setting up and performing your trick.
As Minnesota Wild fans, we have witnessed the mirage as well as smoke and mirrors I would say for much of the team’s history. If you’re complete honest with yourself, you need to do is go back to the 2o02-03 team. While that was a fantastic season to watch put itself into the history books, I would say it set the team and its fans up for a series of mirages over the years. That early success combined with the near misses in the Stanley Cup Finals of the Minnesota North Stars, have built us up for a want of success. We’re tired of waiting. And the sad thing is, the organization knows this.
They have definitely used these diversionary tactics over the years in an attempt to pull the wool over our eyes. Remember the first lockout shortly after the Cinderella season? The season after the lockout, then General Manager Doug Risebrough and other members of the front office then went ahead and raised ticket prices while saying the season was going to be an evaluation year. What? You’re going to make us as fans pay more money for a lesser product on the ice? Savvy fans were ticked. I know some fans who gave up their season tickets because of that. Risebrough used the word “evaluation” in an attempt to put a positive spin on a negative situation. It was one of those seasons were Risebrough was still trying to pay the least amount he could for players. When he managed to trade Patrick O’Sullivan for Pavel Demitra we thought we were finally moving in the right direction. But again, looking back, that trade was again a mirage.
Welcome to this season. Again, it has felt like the mirage version where you keep seeing the image of the palms and the water in the distance, but you never get there. One of the biggest examples I can think of was Devan Dubnyk’s three consecutive shutouts. I think some fans decided to finally breathe after the shaky start of the season. For myself, I was starting to wonder if the Dubnyk of previous seasons was finally back. There were still some moments of lapses during that shutout streak, but I know I was starting to feel better. There was our mirage.
However, like most mirages, you find out later that it doesn’t really exist. And then there is the mirage of another sort. With the recent injury to Dubnyk, we’re now going to see more of backup Alex Stalock. Now the question is who is going to be his backup. We don’t know what we’re going to see, but I know I’m not feeling super comfortable with what is going to be happening. But regardless of what we see, you need to be prepared to see the mirage. This team is really good at re-directing your attention especially when things aren’t so great. During Tuesday night’s game against Calgary, when Kevin Gorg interviewed Matt Cullen during the first intermission, you saw what really equates to “double speak.” Gorg had asked about the Wild’s flat start, and Cullen said that they started flat but by the time they got through a couple of rotations through the roster, things were much better. I know that was one of those moments where I was like “what are you talking about” because I didn’t see a team that really woke up until about 17 minutes in. In a fast game like hockey, with short shifts, it takes far less time that 17 minutes to get through the lineup two times. One of the few players on this team that we get a true honest interview out of, Jason Zucker, we usually only see during the good times because he’s too honest.
If you think things are bad when it comes to smoke and mirrors for Wild fans, Toronto fans have it far, far worse. I have no clue how they’ve managed all these seasons with failure after failure. Last season was definitely a change of pace for the team. They looked good early in the season, and they just continued to build on it. Of course it helps when you have a number one draft pick rookie like Auston Matthews on your team. Between him, Nazim Kadri, and James van Riemsdyk, they have no problem scoring. And let’s face it, when you’re scoring plenty of goals, it does help ease the pain. Sitting in 2nd place in the Atlantic Division certainly helps boost their morale, especially since they have been subsisting on mirages for many years. And of course one of the greatest mirages that they’ve been living on for decades is their ability to say “we’re an Original 6 team.” Sure, that’s a nice bit of history to have combined with their 13 Stanley Cup Championships, but that doesn’t do anything for now.
But that’s the thing about sports and its fans. We live in the past. We use that to distract us. It’s easier to live in the past some days than to live in and accept the now. We create our own mirages.
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