All posts by Daneekas Ghost

Minnesota Wild, NHL

Weekly Wild Whangdoodle: What Now?

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Games this week:

The first Wild-Blues games this year were postponed due to the outbreak of COVID in the Wild roster.  One later meeting ended up getting pushed back due to Minneapolis curfews during the Chauvin trial and the protests of other police killings of black men.  Finally, the Avalanche had a COVID outbreak and needed to reschedule some games against St. Louis, so the Wild-Blues games got pushed back one more time and consolidated at the end of the season schedule.  So here we are. The Wild now have 9 games remaining, and 5 of them are against St. Louis.

It's been a strange season.

If the Wild win any one of those remaining five games against St. Louis, they will ensure that they finish above the Blues in the final standings, and can finish no lower than third in the division.

Current Standings:

RankTeamGPPtsMagic Number
1Vegas50740
2Colorado49700
3Minnesota50680
4St. Louis49536
5Arizona5250-
6San Jose5145-
7Los Angeles4944-
8Anaheim5239eliminated

The three teams at the top have all clinched playoff spots and now are only playing for the opportunity not to have to face one of the other two good teams in the West.

(Quick reminder - the first two rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs this year are series within the divisions. #1 in the West plays #4 in the West, while #2 plays #3 in the first round.  Once the four divisions each have a playoff champion, they will be seeded and continue with the semifinal and final round of the playoffs).

Given the huge disparity between teams 1-3 and teams 4-8 in this division, the #1 seed is a pretty enticing reward. However, Minnesota needs a lot of things to go right to be near the #1 seed when this all shakes out.

Relevant games remaining for the #1 seed:

COLORADO @ VEGAS (April 28)
VEGAS @ MINNESOTA (May 3)
VEGAS @ MINNESOTA (May 5)
COLORADO @ VEGAS (May 10)

Las Vegas - 5 other games (2 home, 3 away - 2 ARI, 2 STL, 1 SJ)
Colorado - 8 other games (4 home, 4 away - 4 SJ, 4 LA)
Minnesota - 7 other games (5 home, 2 away - 5 STL, 2 ANA)

Unless the Kings or Sharks get really hot really fast, I don't see how Minnesota catches both teams. Here's a scenario that puts the Wild in first place:

MIN -- 8-1 (81 points)
LV -- 5-4 (80 points)
COL -- 7-3 (80 points)

Las Vegas as a .500 team and Colorado dropping multiple games to San Jose and/or LA just doesn't seem likely. Not to mention a projected 8-1 record doesn't leave much room for error.

Kirill Kaprizov Corner

Scoring when he's the only Wild player in the offensive zone? Yep.

Doing horrible things to this Kings defenseman? Check

(Watch his hips on this goal.  Kaprizov convinces the D-man that he's going to try and cut to the middle by turning his hips without changing the direction he's moving. As soon as the defenseman slows to cut off that angle, it's a quick puck between the legs and turn on the jets to get to the net.  It's like the anti-Shakira move. It's so pretty.)

Somehow finding a literal acre of space to set up and bury this Fiala pass?  Check.

Leaderboards

PlayerGPlayerAPlayerPtsPlayerxGAR
Kaprizov23Greenway24Kaprizov43Kaprizov15.3
Fiala19Kaprizov20Fiala37Eriksson Ek11.7
Eriksson Ek17Zuccarello20Zuccarello 31Spurgeon9.3
Zuccarello11Fiala18Greenway30Sturm8.3
Foligno10Suter/Soucy16Eriksson Ek27Fiala7.9
2021 Twins Game Logs

Game 20 – Minnesota Twins v. Pittsburgh Pirates

33 Comments

Things are going well! Playoff spot has been clinched with plenty of season left, now it's time to get everyone in line for the postseason and ....

Hang on. I've got the wrong Minnesota team here.

(shuffles notes)

Ah! Here we are.

Everything is terrible! They'll never make the playoffs and there's not nearly enough season left for them to turn it around and play better.

Matt Shoemaker v. Wil Crowe

Winning this series against the Pirates would be a good place to start. To do that the Twins look to Matt Shoemaker, who has been bit by the home run early in this season.  Every run he has allowed so far has come from a home run, including a 3-run homer off Alcala that scored the two runners that were bequeathed by Shoemaker in his last start in Oakland.

5 home runs in 14.1 IP isn't really a recipe for success, but he's only allowed one other extra base hit.  So keeping the Pirates in the yard will maybe be an indicator of how this start goes.

Wil Crowe goes for Pittsburgh.  This will be the 5th appearance in his career (4th start).  He's pitched 9 innings in the majors and allowed 5 home runs and walked 10 hitters. In his lone appearance this year, he faced 5 batters. Two strikeouts, a single, two walks and two wild pitches.

Fangraphs says the following about Crowe:

[Crowe] works with below-average velo, he’s a below-average athlete, he’s had health issues ... and has now struggled during his first big league trial, at age 25/26. I wonder if his fastball will gain a few tick in relief, and I think it needs to based on how loose his location of it was in 2020.

Hopefully, the Twins can feast on Crowe.  And if they don't I guess I'll be ... eating ... crow?

(That was bad. I feel bad about that)

Minnesota Wild, NHL

Weekly Wild Whangdoodle: Hotel California

36 Comments

Trade Deadline News:

...

...

Games this week:

On the road to finish off the season series against all three of these teams. It doesn't look like any of these three are going to make the playoffs, so this is Minnesota's last trip to California until next year.

Current Standings:

RankTeamGPPtsMagic Number
1Vegas47700
2Colorado45660
3Minnesota47650
4Arizona484722
5St. Louis454618
6San Jose4741-
7Los Angeles4540-
8Anaheim4835-

5-2 win over the Coyotes

The power play was 3 for 3 in this one and is as good now as it was bad earlier in the year.  The power play shooting percentage has reached an inflection point and is moving toward the league average (the median NHL power play shooting percentage is 14%, the Wild season power play shooting percentage is 11%, and is 14% once you remove the first 10 games of the season).

Power play shooting percentage over the 5 games preceding this weekend - 31.3% (10 goals on 32 shots).

Two wins over the Sharks

The fourth line was the story here. Bonino-Sturm-Parise combined to score 6 of Minnesota's 13 goals this week.

Bonino had 6 points, Parise had 4, and Sturm got a goal and an assist.  It was amazing how much this line controlled play when they were on the ice.  Zach Parise had a really good couple of games, and immediately all the podcasts and Russo articles and everything rushed to recognize his fourth line contributions.

I'm interested to observe how Evason's doghouse works, because there are clearly players that he doesn't give the benefit of the doubt (Nico Sturm - who's been really good and still plays fourth line when he's not scratched).  Parise was in trouble with Evason earlier in the year and I wonder how long it will take to see Zach on the power play again.

Kirill Kaprizov Corner

Leaderboards

PlayerGPlayerAPlayerPtsPlayerxGAR
Kaprizov22Greenway22Kaprizov41Eriksson Ek11.5
Fiala17Kaprizov19Fiala32Kaprizov10.6
Eriksson Ek15Zuccarello19Zuccarello29Spurgeon7.7
Zuccarello10Suter16Greenway 28Brodin7.2
Foligno9Fiala/Soucy15Eriksson Ek25Sturm7.2

 

Minnesota Wild, NHL

Weekly Wild Whangdoodle: The Middle

18 Comments

Games this week:

With the two games just played against the Blues, the Wild have begun a three week stretch where they play only the middle part of the division. 5 more against St. Louis, 3 against San Jose, 3 against Arizona, and 1 against Los Angeles will take us into May.

This week all the games are at home (Wild have a 14-4 home record), so hopefully that bodes well.

Current Standings:

RankTeamGPPtsMagic Number
1Colorado43645
2Vegas42609
3Minnesota415316
4St. Louis424425
5Arizona4443-
6San Jose4240-
7Los Angeles4238-
8Anaheim4435-

Two-game split with the Avalanche

The season series with the Avalanche is all done.  The Wild went 3-5 with one of those wins coming in overtime.  I think that's a pretty reasonable outcome for Minnesota - hard to expect much more than that against a team that's as good as Colorado.  Goal differential across the season series was +6 for Colorado (31-25).  The Wild just weren't able to shut them down the way they do just about every other team.

OpponentGA/GGF/G
Colorado3.883.13
Rest of the Division2.382.91

The power play really took off in this two-game set (6 goals on 20 shots), and showed how a successful power play can really help a team be competitive.  The Wild scored 6 power play goals in two games, compared to the Avalanche's 3, which made the first game (a 5-4 loss) look better on the scoreboard than it was, and helped make the second game an 8-3 laugher instead of a much closer contest.

I'm trying not to draw too many conclusions from that super-fun explosion of goals on Wednesday night, but I will note this: Colorado's goaltending is almost completely dependent on Grubauer. They just traded to add Devan Dubnyk, which changes very little in this regard. If Grubauer is bad or unavailable, the Avalanche are a much easier team to play against. Keep that in mind if Minnesota-Colorado happens in the post-season.

Two losses to the Blues

The Wild have not been as good on the road (10-9-3 road record). And considering how badly they got blown out in Friday's game (losing 9-1), they really shouldn't be able to complain about missing out on points.  But ... giving up the tying goal in the final minute, and the game-winner in the final seconds of OT hurts quite a  bit.

Kirill Kaprizov Corner

If you wanted to, at the :03 second mark of this video, you could get really mad at the NHL for deciding that cross checks to the back away from the play are never ever penalties. Or you could admire Kaprizov's ability to find space (both Colorado defenders skated by him while he was down and apparently forgot about him?)

Or both. I can't tell you what to do.

Here he is again, sneaking behind an Avalanche defenseman to find just a touch of space and score.

Even when they notice him, he still manages to find a way to make it work.

He's going to win the Calder trophy as rookie of the year.  He remains first in rookie goals and points. He's got the most ice-time of any rookie forward, he's third in power-play points by rookies even though the Wild power play wasn't allowed to score for the first half of the season.

He's great. Tune in just to watch him. I'm telling you what to do, because I can.

Leaderboards

PlayerGPlayerAPlayerPtsPlayerGAR
Kaprizov16Greenway19Kaprizov35Foligno7.3
Fiala14Kaprizov19Fiala26Kaprizov7
Eriksson Ek13Zuccarello16Greenway24Rask6.7
Zuccarello8Suter14Zuccarello24Eriksson Ek6.6
Rask / Foligno7Soucy / Fiala12Eriksson Ek20Soucy6.3

 

2021 Twins Game Logs

Game 9: Twins v. Mariners

21 Comments

Matt Shoemaker v. Chris Flexen

All three series the Twins have played have split the first two games. They've managed to win the rubber game in the first two series, and turn to Shoemaker to try to keep that pattern going.

Last time out, Shoemaker got quite a bit of run support, and only allowed 3 hits over 6 innings, so I say let's do all of that again and see how it goes.

Flexen is the first right-handed starting pitcher the Twins have seen this series. So far (in ~200 PA) the Twins are a little less successful at the plate against righties (.242/.333/.453) but an .786 OPS certainly isn't a bad thing, just less than their .854 OPS against lefties (~100 PA).

Further reading?

I thought this story about scouting during COVID and Flexen's journey from the KBO back to the major leagues was pretty interesting.

First Monday Book Day

First Monday Book Day: Ghost Story

16 Comments

I actually had a long solo drive this past weekend for the first time in a long time. Took the opportunity to listen to the first 5 hours of the audio book of The Upstairs House by Julia Fine.

The narrator in the book has a new baby and an unfinished dissertation on children's literature. She is very ambivalent about both of those things. The result is that Margaret Wise Brown's ghost (author of Goodnight Moon and Runaway Bunny) has moved in upstairs.

There's just a touch of horror, and I'm not exactly sure where the story is going in the final third. I'm almost reminded of Victor LaValle's The Changeling, which is maybe my favorite horror fantasy novel, so that's a good sign.

Minnesota Wild, NHL

Weekly Wild Whangdoodle: 20 Games Remain

30 Comments

20 games remain. The end of the season approaches!

Minnesota went 2-1-1 last week, opened a wider lead on the bottom of the division and inched closer to second place in the standings. If they keep having weeks like that, it's going to be a low-stress end to the season.

This week the Wild get 2 games at home against Colorado (Monday & Wednesday)  and 2 on the road in St. Louis (Friday & Saturday).  The games against the Blues might be the more important ones.

Everyone (and by everyone, I mean internet commenters) loves to talk about measuring up against the best teams and getting blown out by the Avalanche caused a fair bit of consternation when it happened a couple weeks ago. But those two games, as disheartening as they were, had almost no effect on the Wild's position in the standings.

The Blues are currently in 5th place (tied with San Jose), so every win against them reduces the playoff magic number two-fold. I'd rather sew up a playoff spot early and rest players.  Winning games against St. Louis is the way to do that.

Kaprizov continues to be amazing. Tune in just to watch him. That's an order.

Current Standings:

  1. Colorado - 54 points (37G)
  2. Vegas - 50 points (36G)
  3. Minnesota - 48 points (36G)
  4. Arizona - 41 points (38G)
  5. St. Louis - 38 points (37G)
  6. San Jose - 38 points (37G)
  7. LosAngeles - 34 points (36G)
  8. Anaheim - 29 points (39G)

Wild Magic Number - 29 points (both St. Louis and San Jose)

2021 Twins Game Logs

Game 3: Twins @ Brewers

60 Comments

Michael Pineda v. Adrian Houser

It's been over 600 days since Michael Pineda took the loss in one of his starts (July 16, 2019 vs. the Mets). You can argue that number is inflated by the general lack of games over that time period, but that wouldn't be any fun.

But in a general sense, Pineda has been incredibly consistently good as a Twin.  In his last 20 starts here's the distribution of runs allowed:

  • 0 starts with 0 runs allowed
  • 8 starts with 1 run allowed
  • 5 starts with 2 runs allowed
  • 5 starts with 3 runs allowed
  • 1 start with 4 runs allowed
  • 1 start with 5 runs allowed

His record is 9-2 in those 20 starts and he's got a 3.17 ERA. Perhaps more importantly the Twins record in those games is 16-4.

Adrian Houser had trouble missing bats last season, and all the projection systems at FanGraphs seem to anticipate that he will be almost perfectly average (4.30 ERA/FIP, 8.0 K/9, 3.0 BB/9).

Minnesota Wild, NHL

Weekly Wild Whangdoodle: Playoffs?

17 Comments

The Wild have essentially made the playoffs (more on this below) and unless there are some really big surprises out there (like a goaltender injury or two for Las Vegas or Colorado), they aren't going to catch either of the top two teams in the division. So, with 24 games left in the season jammed into 6 weeks, head coach Dean Evason has to ask himself whether the team is playing for regular season success or a post-season run?

Will they make the playoffs?

Yes.

St. Louis - 13-8
Arizona - 13-7-1
Los Angeles - 16-8
San Jose - 17-5
Anaheim - 18-2

  • To miss the playoffs, two of those teams would have to hit those marks, so it won't take much for the Wild to nail down at least the 4th spot in the division.

Will they catch Las Vegas or Colorado?

Colorado is three points ahead in the standings, while Vegas is four.

Head-to-head games remaining:

4 games between Minnesota and Las Vegas (2 this week)
2 games between Minnesota and Colorado
2 games between Las Vegas and Colorado

It's probably a little early to throw in the towel on the idea of catching one of these teams, but the games this week might go a long way to making the decision. A couple of wins this weekend might give those thoughts of home ice in the first round some more oxygen.

But, if the Wild lose ground to Vegas, it might be time to spend the remainder of the season working to ensure that they are in the best position to make some noise in that first round matchup.

What to do?

To me, that means rest.  All of these teams are going to be put through a gauntlet here over the next 6 weeks. Lots of back-to-back games, lots of travel. When playoff time comes around, it's very possible that success will be determined by who can send out the most complete team.

I would start resting one or two regulars when there are back-to-back games. Maybe not this week, but going forward, let Dumba rest his ankle for a three day weekend every once in a while.  Have Kaprizov take a Monday or two off down the stretch so he's not dinged up.  Brodin, Spurgeon, Eriksson Ek, Fiala, Foligno (once he's back) - all these guys are going to be needed in a playoff series in a big way. They aren't needed to add more standings points in a game against San Jose in the middle of April.

The Wild need 10 or 11 wins to lock up a playoff spot. (Their magic number is currently 19, but it's safe to assume LA/Arizona/St. Louis will lose at least a few games).  They would need a lot of good results to catch Vegas or Colorado (their magic number for Colorado is 25, for Vegas is 26.5).

This isn't the year that the Wild are going to dominate the division and find the easiest road through the playoffs by playing low seeds.  The really good results of the first half have put them in a place where they can be pretty secure in what the playoff picture looks like.  Now Dean Evason should take advantage of that and focus on maximizing his team's chances in the NHL's second season (you know, the one that leads to the Cup).

This week's schedule:

Welcome back to late night hockey!

The Sharks remain on the very outside of the playoff picture, but they keep not winning, so their opportunities are dwindling.  San Jose has  a winning record against the other two California teams, but is 3-12-1 against MIN, COL, LV, ARI.

Las Vegas has withstood Colorado's latest charge and remains on top of the division for now. They are still a very good team getting some very good goaltending.

  1. Vegas - 47 points (32G)
  2. Colorado - 46 points (33G)
  3. Minnesota - 43 points (32G)
  4. St. Louis - 38 points (35G)
  5. Arizona - 37 points (35G)
  6. LosAngeles - 32 points (32G)
  7. San Jose - 30 points (33G)
  8. Anaheim - 28 points (36G)

===================================================

The Kirill Kaprizov Corner

There's the point in this clip (right where it goes into slow motion) where you can see the defenseman has no idea what Kaprizov is going to do. Cut to the middle? Use him as a screen? Go wide?  So the Blues D-man decides to slow down and close the gap on Kaprizov to take away the middle of the ice.  He gets closer, but Kaprizov just steps on it and flies around him, gets off a quck shot that Binnington doesn't square up to and finds the net.

It's so good.

On the rookie leaderboards, Kaprizov's first in goals (11), first in assists (16), and first in points (27).

Kaprizov is tied for 10th in the NHL in even-strength points (25).

Leaderboards

PlayerGPlayerAPlayerPtsPlayerGAR
Kaprizov11Kaprizov16Kaprizov27Foligno6.9
Eriksson Ek11Zuccarello16Zuccarello21Brodin6.0
Fiala9Greenway15Greenway20Rask5.8
Foligno7Suter11Foligno16Kaprizov5.7
Rask7Brodin10Eriksson Ek16Eriksson Ek5.6

I added GAR (Goals Above Replacement - from Evolving Hockey) to the leaderboards. It's a touch over 5 Goals / Win, so the Wild have seven 1+-win players so far this season.  Can you name the other two players above 5 GAR?

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Minnesota Wild, NHL

Weekly Wild Whangdoodle: Off Days

26 Comments

Well, that sucked.  The Wild were flying high (some people even crowned them as good at hockey) after beating up on Arizona and Las Vegas. And then they got steamrolled by Colorado. Two games and a combined score of 11-1 not in Minnesota's favor.

Ouch.

The problem, it turns out, was that Colorado's first line is full of really good players and the Wild just didn't have an answer.  So it felt like the Avalanche could score at will. The good news here is that those games are over and Minnesota only meets Colorado for 2 games of their remaining 27.  So there's some time to maybe figure out a better strategy.

Speaking of the remaining 27 games, the Wild schedule really settles into a pattern here after this week.  Minnesota gets a three day weekend with no games in the upcoming weekend, and that will be the last time this season they get two days off in a row.  There are 7 sets of back-to-back games in the last 7 weeks, so we're going to see a lot of hockey if we so desire (hopefully hockey that looks like two weeks ago more than this past weekend).

This week's schedule:

The Ducks are bad and getting worse.  Playing them at home should be the perfect palate-cleanser after that bitter pill in Colorado.  Anaheim has struggled to score all year, but have been pretty good at keeping the puck out of the net. If the Wild can score some goals, they should be good here.

Thursday is the first game against St. Louis all season. The Blues have been hurt by injuries and bad goaltending, but have capitalized on a soft schedule to maintain their place in the top 4 of the West. If the Wild have any thoughts of getting home ice in the playoffs, they will need to win a good number of the 8 remaining games against St. Louis.

  1. Vegas - 43 points (29G)
  2. Colorado - 40 points (29G)
  3. Minnesota - 37 points (29G)
  4. St. Louis - 37 points (31G)
  5. LosAngeles - 32 points (30G)
  6. Arizona - 31 points (31G)
  7. San Jose - 26 points (29G)
  8. Anaheim - 24 points (32G)

===================================================

The Kirill Kaprizov Corner

It was a slow week for highlights in general. Colorado did a pretty good job of limiting Kaprizov and Zuccarello and everyone else.

On the rookie leaderboards, Kaprizov's first in goals (10), first in assists (15), and first in points (25).

Kaprizov is in the top 15 in the NHL in even-strength points (23).

Players not Named Kirill

The injury list has a couple important guys out for now.

  • Foligno is still out - the Wild miss the defensive winger, and that series against Colorado might be a strong argument for Foligno as team defensive MVP.
  • Dumba hurt his ankle(?) in game one and was missed as well. He's had a really solid season, which was nice to see.

Leaderboards

PlayerGPlayerAPlayerPtsPlayerGAR
Eriksson Ek11Kaprizov15Kaprizov25Eriksson Ek6.8
Kaprizov10Greenway15Greenway20Foligno6.6
Fiala9Zuccarello15Zuccarello20Brodin6.1
Foligno7Foligno/Suter9Foligno16Kaprizov5.4
Rask7Brodin/Parise9Eriksson Ek16Soucy/Rask4.8