Well hello again, hockey fans! Welcome to Week #3 of Your Name Is Wild!
For those of you who are new to the column, here's the scoop: The NHL season is a long, tedious journey. We decided that this season we would ask TCDroogsma of the blog Wildly Biased to stop by each week and give us an update on our local squad.
Droogsy, what'd we miss?
Well hello again, Wild fans. Thanks for stopping by for Week #4 of Your Name Is Wild.
Our beloved hockey squad went into this week spinning their wheels. A four game trip through the Atlantic Division earned the Wild 3 out of 8 available points and brought with it more questions than answers. Who's going to score? What's wrong with the PK? Are the Wild too thin in goal? Is Mike Yeo starting to feel the heat?
That last question was really beginning to gain some steam. The Blues & Avalanche are fighting it out for the division lead, the Blackhawks are a sleeping giant, and the Wild are struggling to beat teams like Nashville & Buffalo. That 1-2-1 trip through the Atlantic left the Wild at 3-3-3 for the season. If the Wild couldn't do any better than treading water against Nashville & Carolina at home things could get ugly.
So let's break this down:
The Week That Was
Tuesday 10/22 - Wild: 2 Nashville: 0
Remember a couple of weeks back when I was breaking down the Wild's loss in Nashville and I mentioned that the Wild & Predators always seem to play bizarro games? Tuesday's victory was the exception that proves the rule.
Wild coach Mike Yeo has built this Wild team around speed, defense, puck possession, and solid goaltending. So far this season the Wild has proven that they are capable of playing that game with one huge flaw: they fail to turn those first three attributes into goals. Tuesday night they dominated the Predators for much of the game, peppering Preds goalie Pekka Rinne with 28 shots while holding his team to just 16 shots of their own. The Wild's strong play finally paid off when Rinne failed to hold on to a Clayton Stoner shot and Justin Fontaine, playing on the first line, buried the rebound.
Unsurprisingly, despite the statistical domination, the outcome was still very much up in the air until the final minute. The Wild were unable to beat Rinne again, but finally sealed the victory when Jason Pominville put away an empty netter .
Wild Player Of The Game: Josh Harding - Hards pretty much wins this one by default. He stopped all 16 shots he faced to notch his first shutout of the year (with no small amount of help from Jared Spurgeon, who swept a puck of the goal line with under a minute remaining to preserve the victory). Harding played well, but wasn't challenged much.
Impression Of The Game: The win (over a division rival) lifted the Wild over .500 on the season and alleviated a ton of pressure from Mike Yeo. The win came with a price, though, as prized sophomore defenseman Jonas Brodin took a puck to the face, breaking his cheekbone and knocking him out of the lineup for the foreseeable future. Two points is two points, but this was a boring, frustrating game in which the Wild's biggest question mark (why can't this team score?) remained unanswered.
Thursday 10/24 - Wild: 3 Carolina: 1
After lugging themselves over the .500 mark, the Wild welcomed the Carolina Hurricanes to town. With the lockout last season the Wild & Canes hadn't faced each since the 2011-12 season, meaning that neither team really know each other too well. Throw in a semi-conservative game plan due to the loss of Brodin & Keith Ballard (meaning both Mathew Dumba & Nate Prosser were in the lineup on defense) and the two teams combined to play a peculiar, disjointed game. Fortunately the Wild came out of it with two more points in the bank.
Things got weird quickly in the first period. The Wild came out with pop-guns firing, sending 5 shots at Carolina goaltender Cam Ward. After stopping those shots Ward lunged to his right to try to stop a Mikael Granlund shot that ended up missing the net. Something popped in Ward's leg and he was unable to continue, giving way to backup Justin Peters. Rolling into the game ice cold, Peters promptly gave up goals on each of the first two shots he faced. Nino Niederreiter broke through first, roofing a sexy Mikael Granlund pass. All-American Boy Zach Parise added to the lead three minutes later, deflecting a Jared Spurgeon shot past Peters.
The Wild & Hurricanes traded jabs for the second period with only the Canes landing a blow in the form of Alexander Semin's power-play goal. The real story of the second period, however, was Josh Harding suffering an injury. At some point during the period Harding strained his leg, grimacing in pain and moving gingerly during stoppages.
(Quick Goalie Sidenote: I said it several times during Harding's stretch of hot play: Every time it looks like Harding is going to grab the #1 goalie role on this team he loses it because he gets injured rather than cooling off. That's exactly what happened during this second period. We've all seen this movie too many times.)
Niklas "The Scientist" Backstrom returned from his own injury to pitch a shutout for the third period. The St. Paul faithful, lethargic Tuesday night despite the Wild victory, finally came to life with Backstrom's reemergence. When Dany Heatley finally scored his first goal of the year, an empty-netter to clinch the victory, the Xcel Energy Center was downright giddy for the first time in a couple of weeks.
Wild Player Of The Game: Ryan Suter - Suter had the secondary assist on Parise's goal, but that's not why I'm giving him the POTG status. Mike Yeo & Chuck Fletcher have built a team that relies on controlling the puck & the pace. When Jonas Brodin (and earlier, Keith Balalrd) went down, the Wild were able to continue dictating the style of the game because Ryan Suter is just that good. They leaned on him against Nashville when they played most of the game with only five defensemen. They leaned on him again when they moved Jared Spurgeon up to be his defensive partner. Mathew Dumba & Nate Prosser received a lot of credit (all of it deserved) for stepping into the lineup and handling business, but they can't handle their business if Suter doesn't roll with the punches and continue dominating.
Impression Of The Game: The Wild finally erased the negativity surrounding their ugly road trip. The Canes are not a particularly good team, but neither were the Sabres, Preds, & Panthers. This time the Wild outplayed their opponent and were justly rewarded. The score makes this game seem much closer than it actually was. Positivity abounds as the Wild head to Chicago for a Saturday night showdown with the Blackhawks.
Saturday 10/26 - Wild: 5 Chicago: 3
Before I get into this one I feel like I should mention a few things:
1. The Blackhawks are not at the top of their powers. Maybe it's Stanley Cup hangover, maybe it's just too early in the season, but for whatever reason the Hawks aren't quite "there" yet.
2. There's almost nothing quite so "Minnesota Sports Team" as viewing a regular season game against a team that thrashed you in the playoffs as a "rematch." Minnesota teams always win these inconsequential "rematches," causing their fans to sound like idiots bragging about the victory.
3. I hate Chicago. The Blackhawks and their fairweather fans can all go fuck themselves.
Now that we've cleared that up: fuckin' A, boys! The Wild rolled into Chicago and, in addition to thrashing the defending champs, managed to make it back out of the city without losing anybody to a bullet wound. That, my friends, is a win/win.
The Wild didn't dominate this one, but they certainly went toe-to-toe with the champs, scoring the first two goals of the game as Backstrom held down the fort. When the Hawk did manage to land a blow of their own (in the form of a Bryan Bickell goal), the Wild responded immediately by abusing golden boy Nick Leddy and burying a goal to restore the two-goal lead.
The Wild scored 5 goals in this one, matching their season-high. The mantra over the last couple of weeks was that the floodgates were going to give eventually. I don't think anybody expected this game to be the one where it actually happened (though, in hindsight, it's Corey Crawford). Suck it, Chicago.
Wild Player Of The Game: Mikael Granlund - Granlund entered the game playing very well, tied for the team lead with 5 assists and raising some questions about what would happen when Charlie Coyle returned to the lineup. Two assists (and one awesome high-stick of pretty boy Patrick Sharp) later and Granlund ended the game with the nickname "Finnish Jesus." Nothing will endear you to the fanbase quite like sticking it to the Blackhawks. The fact that he was able to steal Nick Leddy's pass and then make Leddy look silly on the ensuing assist (pictured above) was enough to make people shut the fuck up about the Nick Leddy/Cam Barker trade for at least a couple of days. Well done.
Impression Of The Game: I don't blame the Wild fanbase for letting this one go to their (our) heads. Consider:
Last season the Wild went into Chicago to try to end the Hawks points streak. Devin Setoguchi scored first and the Wild looked like they may be giant slayers. Within the hour the Hawks had scored four goals and sucked the life out of everybody involved.
Drawing the Hawks in the playoffs Cal Clutterbuck scored the first goal of the series, causing us all to collectively buy what the Wild were selling. The Hawks dominated the rest of that game and eventually won when Johnny Oduya made the greatest pass he'll ever make.
So, when the Wild got the first couple of goals on Saturday night I think we were all a bit tentative of being burned a third time. However, the Wild came through. I mean, how often do I even get to type that sentence. It may have been the textbook "inconsequential rematch," but the Wild won it.
The Wild started the week 3-3-3 with their coach on the hot seat. They ended it 6-3-3 and thrashing their divisional rivals. I think it's safe to say that it was a good week to be a Wild fan.
The Week Ahead
Monday 10/28 - Chicago at Wild
The second half of the home-and-home brings the Blackhawks and their filthy, filthy fans to St. Paul. What else is there to say?
Friday 11/1 - Montreal at Wild
The first of November brings with it welfare checks and the Habs' only visit to St. Paul. If I remember correctly the last time the Candiens visited St. Paul was the last game of the 2011-2012 season and P.K. Subban scored his only career hat trick. Much like the Hurricanes game this week the Habs are an unfamiliar opponent. With three days off between games, however, Mike Yeo should be able to draw up a plan.
Sunday 11/3 - New Jersey at Wild
My memory is even more slippery here, but I believe the last time the Devils were in town was one of those wonky games where both teams used both goalies. This one was especially significant because the Wild chased future Hall-Of-Famer Martin Broduer after something like 10 minutes. While nothing is official it's very likely that this game will be the last chance the St. Paul faithful get to see Martin Brodeur in person. It may also be their last chance to Jaromir Jagr as well, though that's probably a good thing, as his career resurrection isn't doing his legacy any favors.
The Big Picture
Listen, we have years and years of blog posts that should show you how I always expect the worst when things are going well. The Wild have been routinely outplaying their opponents for two weeks now and they're finally beginning to get some of the bounces. If anything it's beginning to look like that three game losing streak two weeks ago is going to turn out to be the anomaly.
Regardless, this week is no cake walk. The Blackhawks may act like they don't care much about any game this early in the season, but I'm certain that some of the guys in that room won't take a beating like Saturday's lying down. Mike Yeo's hot seat should be nice and cool for a while now, but this week features three winnable home games. Best to take advantage.
For more of TCDroogsma's hockey ramblings be sure to give him a follow on Twitter (@WildlyBiased). He can also be found writing about the Wild in greater detail on his hockey blog Wildly Biased.
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