Minnesota Wild: Gearing up for the playoffs, our team here at Puck Prose will be looking at each potential NHL playoff team as they clinch their playoff spot. We will be discussing why each club can win the Stanley Cup. This time, we’ll look at the suddenly struggling Minnesota Wild.
EXPECTATIONS AT BEGINNING OF SEASON?
From a roster standpoint, there weren’t many major shakeups for the Minnesota Wild heading into the 2016-17 NHL season. The nucleus stayed intact. It was the coaching that changed this team for the better after last season.
Bruce Boudreau, after being fired by the Anaheim Ducks, took over for a Mike Yeo and John Torchetti combination that saw the former fired midway through the year and the latter head to Detroit after his interim time was up. Boudreau brought a new philosophy with him, one that kept the stellar defense rolling but sped up the offense and gave the Wild more scoring opportunities.
BIGGEST STRENGTHS
For the majority of the season, this new philosophy has clearly worked out well. The defense has remained in the top five in the goals against category, giving up just over 2.5 goals per game, while the offense has seen a large improvement. The Wild average 3.23 goals per game and get production from all four of its lines.
The offensive production has been led by a fantastic year from center Michael Granlund, who has 25 goals and 44 assists on the year. Eric Staal, Jason Zucker, and Nino Niederreiter each have 20-plus goals as well and the captain, Mikko Koivu is just two shy of that mark as well.
Goaltending has been a strong point for this Minnesota Wild team, even more so than it was last season. Devan Dubnyk, for most of the season, has been a brick wall in between the pipes. He is 37-19-3 on the season with 2.17 goals against average and a .927 save percentage. His RBS (Really Bad Starts) number sits at five, a respectable number for a goaltender that faces a lot of dangerous shots. There’s no question that Dubnyk’s performance in goal will be crucial to the Wild’s run at a Stanley Cup this spring.
At the trade deadline earlier in March, the Wild went all-in, grabbing centers Martin Hanzal and Ryan White from the Arizona Coyotes. Each has 11 games under his belt and are playing some decent hockey in the new sweaters, but it remains to be seen if these are the guys to help Minnesota hoist the Cup. Hanzal has a goal and five assists for the Wild, while White has two goals and an assist thus far.
BIGGEST QUESTION MARK: SLUMPING
There are never any certainties in the NHL postseason, but one thing is for certain: the Minnesota Wild have to get out of the current slump the team is in and find a way to win five or six of these last eight games in the regular season. Over the past 10 games, the Wild are 2-8-0 and have been uncharacteristically poor on both ends of the ice, averaging 2.4 goals per game while giving up 3.4 per.
WHY THE WILD CAN WIN THE CUP
Almost every good team goes through droughts throughout the regular season, but this drought is coming at the wrong time. Righting the ship and winning the majority of these last eight games will restore the confidence that the Wild will need in order to make a run at Lord Stanley’s Cup. The naysayers will point to Coach Boudreau’s inability to win a game seven — he lost in a game seven four times while at the Anaheim helm — but he has the roster and the gameplan to win in the Western Conference.
Next: Washington Capitals: Stanley Cup or Bust
If the Wild stay healthy and get the defensive issues figured out over the next couple of weeks, this team has a chance to win a Stanley Cup just 16 seasons into its existence.
DEPTH CHART
Jason Zucker – Mikko Koivu – Mikael Granlund
Zach Parise – Eric Staal – Charlie Coyle
Nino Niederreiter – Martin Hanzal – Jason Pominville
Chris Stewart – Ryan White –Jordan Schroeder
Erik Haula
Ryan Suter – Jared Spurgeon
Marco Scandella – Mathew Dumba
Jonas Brodin – Nate Prosser
Christian Folin –