All posts by Daneekas Ghost

NHL

Games 15-18 – Wild on the West Coast

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The Wild are on the road again!  Because of course they are.  After this road trip, the Wild will have played 13 of their first 18 games on the road. But relief is coming? They have to play 7 of their next 12 away from home, which feels at least a little bit more even.

As always, we need to point out how terrible the Wild have been on the road (Tuesday's game in Anaheim notwithstanding).

Before this road trip:

  • The Wild had been outscored 17-4 in the third period on the road.
  • They had held the lead in 5 road games at some point and were 1-4 in those games.
  • THEY GAVE UP 5 F****N' GOALS TO DALLAS IN THE THIRD PERIOD!
  • None of this is good.

So, naturally, they got behind against Anaheim and then calmly ripped off three third period goals to come from behind and win 4-2.

  • This team can play good hockey.
  • This team is not a good team.

The story of this season so far is just how true both of those statements can be at the same time.

The remainder of this road trip includes the only two teams in the conference with worse records than Minnesota (San Jose and Los Angeles).  Minnesota's record against teams currently below them in the standings sits at 2-0 (wins over Ottawa and Los Angeles).

Will this translate into wins? See the two bulleted points above and remember that they are both true and we'll never know which will be more true on any given night with this team.

NHL

Game 13 – Wild vs. Blues

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Game 12 Recap:

Assuming the Wild only quit playing hockey for that 1 period last night and not forever... Their road trip continues tonight as they face the defending Cup champion Blues.

The Blues (6-3-3) are winning half their games and losing half of their losses in overtime or the shootout, so they've racked up some points.

It's kind of odd that the Wild haven't had an overtime game yet. I'm calling it to happen tonight.

Here's a fun game -- look at the NHL leaderboard and calculate how many Wild players you'd have to add together to lead the league in offensive categories....

Points Leader Points Wild Players
Pastrnak 24 Staal (8)
Zucker (7)
Hunt (7)
Zuccarello (2)
Goals Leader Goals Wild Players
Pastrnak 12 Staal (4)
Zucker (4)
Hunt (4)
Zuccarello (0)
Assists Leader Assists Wild Players
McDavid 16 Dumba (5)
Greenway (5)
Staal (4)
Zuccarello (2)

 

Yeah - offense is not a strong point.

This game is on NBCSN, if you don't have anything else to watch tonight...

NHL

Game 12 – Wild vs. Stars

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Minnesota vs. Dallas in the battle of two teams trying to recover from really bad starts.

The Wild are back on the road again. They still only have one uninspiring win away from home. They've scored only 10 goals in 7 road games and have been shut out in both of their last two on the road.

Dallas started 1-7-1, then have won 3 of their last 4. They've really struggled to score at home (8 goals in 6 games), so don't expect firewagon hockey tonight. A divisional opponent without a dangerous offense? Sounds like a good one to win.

NHL

Game 10 – Wild v. Predators

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They won some games at home and looked pretty good doing it.

Their reward? A road game against Nashville.

Gross.

Injury update?

 

Nashville is 4-1-1 at home, and the Wild are not great so far on the road (1-5). So the deck seems stacked against Minnesota.

Brad Hunt continues to lead the Wild in scoring. Which is fine and normal and expected.

Apologies for brevity. The day got away from me.

NHL

GAMES 8 & 9 – Minnesota Wild v. More of Canada (at home this time)

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Two home games in a row!  Maybe this will be what the Wild need to start playing better hockey?  One certainly hopes so.

The Canadiens are fresh off a thoroughly dominating performance against the Wild in Montreal where they won 4-0 and crushed the Wild on scoring chances, shots on goal, and just hockey in general.  Boudreau started Stalock in that one, but I'm very doubtful that he's going to be the answer.

If we learned anything over the 3-game Canada trip, it's that the Wild are maybe a little better than the worst teams in the league (Ottawa), but really just can't hang with the good teams (at least for now).

I said in my first Whangdoodle of the year that the Wild need to weather the first 30 games where they will spend so much time on the road:

The schedule is brutal, but if the Wild are around 12-15 wins after that first 30 game stretch, they get a ton of home games over December, January and February (23 home games compared to 9 road games) and they may be able to make some hay there.

So far they are 1-5 on the road and 0-1 at home.  In order to truly say they "weathered" this first bit, they need to start winning some of these home games and figure out a way to steal some on the road.

I'm getting skeptical that this is a reasonable hope.  The HockeyStats that started the year maybe suggesting that the Wild were unlucky have started to stabilize around a different story (from MoneyPuck).

Welcome to the bad and boring quadrant.  If you choose expected goals instead of CORSI, the picture looks pretty much the same. The Wild haven't been lucky, but they also haven't been good.