Minnesota Wild preview: Ryan Suter leads aging but talented core

Weaknesses

Goaltending

Yes, you read that right. The Minnesota Wild goaltenders should be doing better than they are doing. During all situations and at five-on-five, the Wild had the lowest expected goals against per hour rate. Yet they ranked 10th in both categories in actual goals against. This solves the “chicken or the egg” issue once and for all. The Wild are great defensively because of the guys in front of their goaltenders, not because of their goaltenders.

At five-on-five, among goalies with at least 1000 minutes played, Dubnyk had the highest expected save percentage while Stalock ranked fourth. Yet looking at actual save percentage, the former ranked 18th out of 51 goalies and the latter ranked 33rd. It’s hard to argue the Wild’s goaltenders aren’t underperforming. Minnesota has the defense necessary to be a legit Stanley Cup contender despite an unimpressive offense. Their goaltending needs to take advantage of that.

Scoring Depth

Though the Minnesota Wild ranked 12th in goals for last season, they relied a bit too heavily on their best guys. Zucker and Staal scored 75 of their 253 goals, which is roughly 30 percent of the team’s total. Though eight of their forwards picked up at least 10 goals, only three got over 20.

Even if you assume Parise stays healthy (which isn’t a given), that’s still only four goals who can get 20 goals. Maybe some guys step up, but you need contributions from all over your lineup to win a Stanley Cup. I’m not sold the Wild have that.