The Minnesota Wild are in a familiar position again this year as they are fighting for the final wild card spot in the NHL Playoffs. Most teams, cities, and fans would be more than happy with the fact that their team is competing every year in a professional sports league. However, the scene is a little different in Minnesota. You see, ever since the Minnesota Wild opened their checkbooks and signed Zach Parise and Ryan Suter each to 13 year contracts worth nearly $100 million dollars each, everyone was bought in. Even ESPN, said after the signings, that the Wild were instant contenders and favorites for the NHL Finals for the Stanley Cup Championship Trophy. The Minnesota Wild went out and continued to build the team by bringing pieces like Jason Pominville, Thomas Vanek, and Goalie Devin Dubnyk. Everything was looking right.
For sports fans in Minnesota, the actions being taken by the Minnesota Wild were refreshing. There finally was an owner who wanted to compete, and he wanted to compete now. The refreshing part is that the owner was willing to open the checkbook and spend. As much as I like to find a great deal and be thrifty, there is no place to be thrifty in professional sports. Especially when the majority of professional sports team owners are each worth billions. So here we go, or so we thought.
While the Minnesota Wild have made the playoffs in each of the past three seasons, it is usually as a wild card team, which is not what the fans, the team, and the owner had in mind. The major problem with this is that when you come into the playoffs as a low seed, then your first round is massively challenging by having to face a number one or two seed, which is usually a division champ or the best team in the conference. Now the one team that the Minnesota Wild is tired of facing in the playoffs is the rival Chicago Blackhawks. The past two seasons have ended with the Chicago Blackhawks knocking the Minnesota Wild out of the playoffs. Two years ago, it was in the first round. Last year, it was in the second round, which hurt worse. And then there is this year...
The 2016 version of the Minnesota Wild has looked similar to the 2014 and 2015 versions of the team, which is loaded with talent, appears to have good chemistry, but there is something definitely wrong. First of all, just after the first of the year of 2016, the Minnesota Wild went into a massive slump. They were losing many games consecutively, and not even really being competitive. There have been massive losing slumps that plagued the previous two seasons, which contributed to the poor seeding for the playoffs. It happened again this year, and the owner had enough. This year's losing streak was long, the power play was almost nonexistent, and it was time for a change. Mike Yeo, the Wild's Head Coach for the past several seasons, was let go. The inability to score a goal on a team that was so loaded with talent was unacceptable, as it should've been. So, a new coach was brought in. After new Head Coach John Torchetti was brought in, the Minnesota Wild had scored 5 goals or more in their first three games with Torchetti at the helm. Not only was the scoring up, but so was the scoring on the power play. The coaching change came at a time where it was do or die as far as the season goes, because the Wild had just dropped out of a playoff spot.
So here we are today, Thursday, March 24th and the Minnesota Wild just won a game tonight against the Calgary Flames at home at the XCEL Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota by a score of 6-2. This kept the Minnesota Wild in the eighth spot in the playoff race, which is the second and final wild card spot. It is unfortunate that the Wild are going to either have to settle for the eighth playoff spot, or go home as they only have seven games remaining in the regular season. The positive to this situation is that usually a team can get hot in the playoffs and make a run for the championship. This, however, in hockey is very difficult.
There will be many questions to probably answer when the offseason rolls around. What do we do with the new interim Head Coach that was brought in? What happens to all the assistant coaches that have been around for years? Thomas Vanek and Jason Pominville have had very disappointing seasons, what do we do with them? How much longer do we go with the Parise and Suter leadership as they get older and we pay them more and more each season? My hope... is that we just run the table and bring the Stanley Cup to Minnesota so all of these questions will be very simple to answer. Buckle up, the next two weeks of the remainder of the regular season promise to be intense, but also exciting.
#gowild
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