Minnesota Wild, NHL

Weekly Wild Whangdoodle: A Second Helping of Desert

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The Whangdoodle switched media and joined the WGOMPHBP for  a chat last week.  Check it out!

This week's schedule:

This schedule looks suspiciously like last week's schedule, except now all the games are in Minnesota.

Starting to see just a sliver of separation between the top half and the bottom half of the division. It would be good to add some points and really widen that split.

  1. Vegas - 33 points (21G)
  2. St. Louis - 31 points (25G)
  3. Colorado - 28 points (22G)
  4. Minnesota - 27 points (22G)
  5. LosAngeles - 25 points (23G)
  6. Arizona - 25 points (24G)
  7. Anaheim - 20 points (25G)
  8. San Jose - 19 points (22G)

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The Kirill Kaprizov Corner

On the rookie leaderboards, he's first in assists (13), second in goals (6), and first in points (19).

Players not Named Kirill

Cam Talbot had a rough week, going 0-2-1 while giving up 13 goals on 96 shots (.865 save percentage - not what you want).  In the three games Talbot started this week, opponents outscored their xG by 5.7 goals.

    • Talbot currently ranks 36th out of 61 goalies in the NHL in save percentage above expected (-.007)
    • Kahkonen ranks 27th in the same category (-.003)
    • If we look at Goals Saved Above Average, Kahkonen (2.93) is 17th and Talbot (0.08) is 30th out of 61.

So either Kahkonen is the better goalie right now, or playing goalie against Las Vegas is harder than against other teams.  I guess both could be true.

The Wild power play is ridiculously bad. The went 0 for 9 last week, with no goals in 16:15 of power play time.  That calculates out as 0.00 goals/60 minutes, which would be a rate that would put them last in the NHL.

The season long power play numbers are just as bad.

      • 3.0 G/60 min. is last in the NHL
      • 5.8% shooting percentage is last in the NHL
      • 6.8 xG/60 is 18th in the NHL

That last number gives us some hope that maybe someday the Wild will progress toward having an average power play. I'm not holding my breath.

The Wild have not given up a shorthanded goal yet this year, so the power play is ranked #1 in the NHL defensively.

Leaderboards

PlayerGPlayerAPlayerPts
Eriksson Ek8Greenway13Kaprizov19
Fiala7Kaprizov13Greenway18
Foligno7Zuccarello9Foligno14
Kaprizov6Suter8Zuccarello13
Dumba/Rask/Greenway5Brodin8Eriksson Ek12

48 thoughts on “Weekly Wild Whangdoodle: A Second Helping of Desert”

      1. Psst... Beau...

        Spoiler SelectShow

        1. Oh, hi.

          For some reason I read that had not allowed a single power play goal all season. Which I know is not true.

  2. Every time Fiala scores, you hope it's going to ignite one of those super-hot streaks of his. This could be the one.

    Wild up 1-0 after one. No power plays for Minnesota.

  15. So correct me if I'm wrong here, but in those 4 matchups, the Wild got 5 points to Vegas' 4? That's cool.

    1. Opponent Games Wild Pts Opp Pts Pts%
      Anaheim 4 6 2 75%
      San Jose 3 4 2 67%
      Los Angeles 7 10 7 59%
      Vegas 4 5 4 56%
      Arizona 2 2 2 50%
      Colorado 4 4 5 44%
      St. Louis 0 0 0 0%

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