Spoiler alert, Minnesota Wild fans: Your team isn’t making the playoffs.
I know there’s a lot of games left – 35 of them, to be exact, going into Thursday’s tilt in Calgary. But right now, the Wild are sitting in last place in the Central, a point behind Dallas and three behind Colorado. But the team is at 6th in the wild card race, seven points behind the Flames and a whopping 12 behind the Jets.
Here’s where things get dicey: With 35 games left, there are a limited number of 4-pointers out there. To get the three-seed in the Central, there’s six games left against Colorado, Dallas and Winnipeg. To make the wild card, there’s three games left against Calgary, two against Vancouver (both on the road) and one against the Kings.
To chase the really good teams in the Central, there’s three games left against Nashville – all at Bridgestone, with home and away tilts left against Chicago and St. Louis. Not only is time not on the Wild’s side, the schedule isn’t either.
But on the ice, plain and simple, this team is average. A .511 winning percentage, minus-8 goal difference, ranked 16 of 30 in goals scored per game and faceoff win percentage, 23rd in goals against per game and 25th in power-play percentage. There are a few areas where it really excels: Penalty kill (tied for 7th), shots on goal per game (4th), while allowing the fewest shots against per game.
The big question mark going forward, not surprisingly, has been goaltending. It’s an area that seemingly has never been addressed with illustrious names like Wade Dubielewicz, Manny Fernandez and Anton Kudobin among the names that have backstopped the team since its inception in 2000.
Devan Dubnyk has played well since coming to Minnesota from Arizona. But it’s only been a handful of games – one of which he chased from. But how many Wild fans see him as the long-term answer? He’s never been an everyday goalie, which the Minneapolis Star-Tribune beat-writer Michael Russo acknowledged on Twitter is happening (although, to be fair he’s played as many of 47 games in a season for Edmonton three years ago.)
Granted he’s never played for good NHL teams – 4 seasons and parts of a fifth with the Oilers, two games for Nashville last year after being dealt by Edmonton – but the last time he’s played in a playoff game was in 2006-07 with the ECHL’s Stockton Thunder. He’s never won a playoff series dating back to his WHL days with Kamloops. Minnesota Wild fans: This is your goalie.
Next year gets dicey with an uncertain salary cap, two defenseman under contract and the $3.4 million owed to Niklas Backstrom. Vanek is under-producing on his $6.5 million cap-hit, as well as Koivu at $6.75 million (is it too much to ask that at that kind of money, you produce at significantly more than a point every-other game?)
The bottom line is the Wild fans have outsized expectations for what their team is. It’s too good to tank for Jack Eichel or Connor McDavid, but not yet good enough to make any real noise in the postseason — especially in the brutal division they play, where every team in the Central is above .500. Find a way to get better, or prepare to scrap for a Wild Card berth every season.
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