Game #21 Preview Suite
vs. 
RECORDS: Hawks 2-0-1 Wild 0-1-1
PUCK DROP: 7pm Central
TV: WGN
SO THEY PHONED IT IN, END OF STORY: Hockey Wilderness
The current Circus Of The Western Conference rolls into St. Paul, Minnesota tonight, as the Hawks seek to continue their “points streak” against the Wild. That’s what it is, right? I mean, technically the Hawks have lost. But it was in the carnival game that the NHL calls overtime. So that doesn’t really count. Whatever. The Hawks have been fun, and they have an excellent chance of keeping it rolling tonight. And they’ll find the same thing they’ve found at the X for just about four seasons running.
Let’s start with the Westside Hockey Club. A couple changes look likely tonight. One, Alexandre Fortin, whom the Hawks have been trying to promote for about two seasons now, will make his NHL debut tonight. This is definitely in the can’t-hurt-could-help category. He’ll slot in next to Artem Anisimov and on the opposite side of Chris Kunitz, which has actually been a pretty effective line in highly-sheltered use.
That will slot David Kampf to the fourth line, which it probably could use. Marcus Kruger moves back into the middle, in yet another victory for logic. Either SuckBag Johnson or John Hayden will sit, and I would guess the former. The fourth line could certainly use the injection of speed that Kampf has and certainly Kruger’s brain in the middle. Sure, SuckBag was fast but it doesn’t really matter if you’re fast if you have no idea where you’re going. You just get nowhere faster.
Still appears that Cam Ward will play, and Brandon Davidson will continue to enjoy the popcorn. They’re going to make this Brandon Manning thing work if it kills them. Or the Jan Rutta thing. And either or both could.
Things aren’t nearly as rosy in the Land Of 10,000 Lakes, where the Wild have basically gotten pummeled in two games so far. They were able to scratch out a point against the Knights Who Say Golden thanks to Devan Dubnyk making 41 saves. They didn’t even crack a 40% share of attempts in either game, nor have they been above that mark in expected-goals percentage for those two games. It’s a whole lot of not pretty so far.
The Wild have a few problems causing that. One, Ryan Suter is not Ryan Suter. The ankle injury he suffered that ended his last season early have not cleared up yet, or at least are hampering him. And Matt Dumba just hasn’t been able to pick up the slack. A 33% CF% against the Knights would be the opposite of picking up the slack. That would be taking the slack and trying to fashion a belt-tie combo while you’re climbing partner plummets to death or serious injury.
Normally, Jared Spurgeon does some heavy lifting from the second-pairing, but that hasn’t happened either. Compounding that is the fact the Wild haven’t really upgraded their forwards in any way in like four seasons. They brought Eric Staal back, but he was there last year. They re-signed Jason Zucker, who will assuredly score tonight against the Hawks because that’s a thing that he does, but he’s not someone you build a team around. He’s also not going to shoot 15% again, or at least likely isn’t to.
Mikko Koivu is old. Joel Eriksson Ek, while sounding like a rare disease, isn’t going to pull any Atlas act. Mikael Granlund is just enough to break your heart. Nino Neiderreiter is marauding on the third line for some reason. Jordan Greenway is still figuring out how to fit his gangly frame into an NHL game. It’s not that they lack firepower at all. It’s just that they don’t have advanced weaponry.
You could get away with these forwards if you had a stellar blue line. You could carry that blue line if you had a crew of fast, skilled forwards on lines one through four. The Wild don’t have the two things that need to made up for, not either of the things that do the making up.
So basically, once again, they’re good enough to let Devan Dubnyk carry them into the playoffs if he has another .920 season. He’s more than capable of that of course, but the Wild won’t go anywhere if he doesn’t. That’s not really enough in this division which is The Unblinking Eye.
For tonight, the Hawks just need to keep running n’ gunning. The Wild can’t really do it with them, and then you’re just up to the whims of Dubnyk. You can past this blue line. You can catch back up to these forwards. Let’s have some fun.
Game #4 Preview Suite
As a fan of a team with still- recent success, and a lot of it, perhaps there has come a time when you’ve been perplexed how a different fanbase could become so infatuated with a player that isn’t as good as the one you have in the same position. Perhaps you’ve been exasperated at even attempting to explain that the entrenched nature of said player is part of the reason of that particular team’s failure to progress. But you can only judge the players in front of you as a fan, and the scale you’re given is dependent on the talent around them. Remember, it wasn’t so long ago that Tuomo Ruutu was a beacon of hope and we tried to talk ourselves into Mark Bell, It was what was on offer, and there wasn’t anything else on the menu.
Fans will always generate affection for what is before them, but it is an organization’s job to be above that. Even if that can get a little callous at times.
If you can believe it, this is Mikko Koivu‘s 14th season, all of them in St. Paul. And he’s been very far removed from a bad player. He’s amassed 193 goals and 660 points in 927 games, or just about 50 points per season. He’s been about as all-around of a player as you can ask, with impressive underlying numbers for as long as they’ve been tracked. Certainly, he’s been a loyal servant to the Wild, and you wouldn’t be shocked if one day his #9 goes into the rafters if for nothing else being the longest-serving player in their history. In a lot of ways, Koivu is the best Wild player in their history, which tells you about as much as you need to know.
Koivu has never broken the bank, but he’s done well. His highest contract was for $6.7M for seven years, which ended after last season. He re-upped for two more $5.5M starting this season, and you have a hunch these could be the last two. Certainly, Koivu hasn’t been a huge issue when it comes to the Wild’s cap problems.
And yet for most of his time in Minnesota, the Wild checked him off as a #1 center. And quite simply, he’s never been that. He’s been over 70 points once. He’s never broken 0.9 points-per-game. He’s never scored more than 22 goals.
Basically, those numbers along with his defensive prowess make for the resume of a very good #2 center. And yet it’s only recently that Minnesota has tried to make him that, first by moving Mikael Granlund to center and now paying for the aging Eric Staal. And perhaps it’s too late.
Chuck Fletcher rarely saw Koivu as anything but. Certainly Koivu was perfect for the Jacque Lemaire/Doug Riseborough era, as he was defensive first who wouldn’t try anything crazy on the offensive end (and why original draft pick Marian Gaborik never really fit). But that style was ushered out by the Great Lockout of ’05, and the Wild took too long to adjust.
You can see the affinity for Koivu. The second first-rounder in team history. Never rocked the boat like Gaborik. Showed up and did his job every day, and well. Connected with the community. Anything that demotes him would be given a side-eye in defense of a player who never really did anything wrong. It’s hard not to fall for a guy like that.
But Koivu is a symbol of how it’s always been just not enough for the Wild. Koivu wasn’t Henrik Sedin when they were in the Northwest Division. He wasn’t Jonathan Toews when they were chained into the Central, though he did give the latter a fair share of headaches. He wasn’t Ryan Getzlaf or Joe Thornton or Anze Kopitar. But you can’t help but feel that the Wild viewed him as that for too long, and didn’t bother to pursue someone who would be.
Koivu is what he is, and he doesn’t have to apologize for that. He can’t help what the team viewed him as and what they sought to put around him instead of in front of him. Sometimes a good player embodies what is good about a team. Unfortunately for some, sometimes they symbolize where a team fell short.
Game #4 Preview Suite
In this strange world of hockey writing we are more and more forced to deal with the unhinged and downright strange. So today, we have a salvo from something called The Noogie. When you send these things out into the abyss, you can’t be made when the abyss sends something weird back. You can find it on Twitter @The_Noogie.
The Wild have pretty much brought back the same crew from last year. Why do you think this version will turn out better or worse?
It’s not so much that the Wild brought back the same crew as last season. It’s just that the biggest addition of the offseason happened in the front office when owner Craig Leipold released former GM Chuck Fletcher after nine seasons and brought in Paul Fenton who previously was the Assistant GM for the Nashville Predators. Fenton was brought in with the understanding that Leipold was not looking for a complete rebuild, but more a new set of eyes to look upon an old problem.
So, with one hand essentially tied behind his back, Fenton made few moves in the offseason, certainly nothing that was sending shockwaves across the NHL. Role players like defenseman Greg Pateryn and centers Eric Fehr and Matt Hendricks were brought in to provide depth and a little cushion for some of the younger guys coming up through the system. They are by no means game-changing additions for the Wild which has a lot of the fanbase feeling lethargic about this squad that despite making the playoffs the past six seasons, have not made it past the first round in their las three tries.
At the same time, injuries plagued the Wild last season. It didn’t matter the time of season, one of the Wild’s every-day starters was likely out of the lineup. With that in mind, one could make the argument that if this team can stay healthy, they have a great shot to make some noise. Then again, they’ve been healthy before, with much of the same core intact.
The Wild also bought out the remaining year of Tyler Ennis’ contract and shed the husk of Matt Cullen as well. But don’t worry, Nate Prosser is still floating around eating popcorn somewhere. Some things never change, and that notion very much applies to how this season will probably shake out for the Wild. Not noticeably better and not noticeably worse.
We watched Jordan Greenway crush fools in the WJC a couple years ago. He was one of the few younger players to make the Olympic squad last winter. What are the reasonable expectations for him in his first full NHL campaign?
Greenway certainly has been fun to watch as he came up through Boston University, made a few international tournaments along the way, and participating in the most recent Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang as well. His performance in the WJC in 2016-17 was the bright spot. The gold medal winning USA squad also featured another Wild prospect in Luke Kunin, both players are worthy of your attention as their careers progress in the NHL.
Hockey Wilderness runs a series every fall where we rank the teams top 25 players under 25 years old. This year Greenway finished 4th in our rankings. We are mostly excited about this kids’ potential, but he is going to need some time to figure things out at the next level. It’s not underselling it to say this guy is a monster on the ice though. Standing at 6’6” and tipping the scales at 230 lbs. he’s a big body who will be hard to dislodge from the puck, and if he lines you up for a check, watch out!
Greenway made the team right out of camp this season and has been centering the 3rd line with a couple of utility wingers in Charlie Coyle and Joel Eriksson-Ek. Don’t count on him making his way into the NHL lexicon this season though. It’s early in the season and he is still adjusting to the speed of the game at this level. He has been successful at every level of hockey, so there is no reason to assume he won’t find a solid NHL game over the next couple seasons.
The Wild are once again up against the cap after re-signing Jason Zucker and Matt Dumba. What’s the plan to free themselves up a bit in the coming years?
The salary cap has been the rallying cry for some disgruntled Wild fans who want to see Ryan Suter and Zach Parise’s heads on a spike. Until those two contracts are off the books, the Wild are on the hook for their matching 13-year, $98 million contracts signed on July 4th, 2012. If one were to retire after the season, or be bought out… let’s just say it gets really gross looking in 2022-23, and worse in 2023-24 and 2024-25. If both contracts expire after this season, X2. YAY!!!
We don’t like to talk about the salary cap in Minnesota, but if we must. Zucker’s 5-year, $27.5 million and Dumba’s 5-year, $30 million contracts are hardly the albatrosses on the roster. Both players who signed extensions this past offseason showed significant growth over the previous season, and their contracts cap hits are right in line with what Nino Niederreiter and Mikael Granlund signed in the summer of 2017. In these four players, you will find many admirers in Minnesota. This is the young core the Wild look to be building around.
With the cap, the plan is to wing it, because what else can you do? You have a pair of the last great old school bananas contracts which the 2013 CBA (that cost half a season) was designed to put a stop to and penalize. But who knows, that CBA expires after 2021-22, they could blow it all up again and the Wild could avoid a very painful future.
What are you expecting out of the Wild this year?
Same old Wild, and with how this season has started that old looks like it’s starting to show. Mikko Koivu, Devan Dubnyk, Eric Staal, Suter, Fehr, Hendricks, and Zach Parise will round out your over 30 crowd. Jared Spurgeon will be joining them in a years’ time as well. Entering this season on the active roster the Wild boasted a league-leading 9,637 combined games played. These guys have been around the sun a few times. Suter is also coming off a nasty ankle injury from late last season that caused him to miss the playoffs as well as the final few regular season games, so he’s looked an extra step off to start the season.
The Wild have looked a step behind out of the gate losing 4-1 to a speedy Colorado Avalanche squad and dropping their home-opener after giving up a late-game lead and losing in a shootout to the Vegas Golden Knights. If the Wild get their possession game going, they’re as dangerous as anyone. And it’s not as if the Wild are just a bunch of potted plants out there. Zucker can be elusive and is very speedy, Granlund and Nino are pretty quick as well, and Staal has been sneaky in his ability to get behind the defense.
So where might the Wild finish? I’m inclined to believe this team will do well in the regular season and make the playoffs once again as either a 3rd seed in the central or fighting for a wildcard spot. Unless we see some significant growth from the younger guys, especially players like Charlie Coyle who really need a good bounce back year, it’s tough to believe this team is worth much more than what their recent history has shown with them bowing out of the playoffs early. One hopes for the best, but this is Minnesota sports. Good things don’t tend to happen here. (Don’t worry, Khalil is coming to help with that for the next five years. -ED)
Game #4 Preview Suite
We’re not blaming Eric Fehr. After all, who wouldn’t take a paycheck to play NHL hockey? You only get a certain window to play at the top level, and every player wants to extend it as long as they can.
The thing is, Fehr has been terrible for three or four seasons at least. There’s a reason the Leafs had him in the AHL for most of last year. Fehr hasn’t scored over 14 points since 2015. Not that Fehr ever was considered a scoring threat, but there was a time when he was a bottom-six, support-scoring guy. He’s always skated well enough, though even that’s changing at 33.
But Fehr’s underlying numbers have been terrible for a long time. Relative to his team, his possession-number hasn’t been positive since 2014 with Washington. And he’s been aggressively bad for most of the time since, posting relative-Corsis like -6.8, -9.4, -9.5, and -7.6. That’s not just bad, it’s aggressively so. Yes, Fehr has taken an overwhelming majority of shifts that start in the defensive zone. So he’s not likely to turn the play the other way most of the time. Still, you’d like him to be able to do it at all. It’s been five years since he’s done that.
As the game skews younger, you’d think players like Fehr are going to be moved out. There are certainly middle-six veterans who struggle to find the money they deserve thanks to the salary cap. But Fehr isn’t one of them. NHL teams and general managers are suckers for a veteran fourth-liner who like, growls a lot and “knows how to be a professional.” Or at last that’s what they say.
Fehr is hardly taking up much cap space at $1M for one year. It’s no risk. But the thing is, with the cap in place you have to maximize the time you have a guy on an entry-level deal. A player like Luke Kunin, who has a much bigger future, should be here. There’s a few others.
Fehr will be paste by February. He’ll probably get another job next year. So it goes.
Game #4 Preview Suite
As the season draws nigh, we land on the team in the Central Division that I become more and more convinced are the only ones the Hawks can actually catch. The Minnesota Wild will show up to make up the numbers, because that’s really all they do. Sure, there was that weird one a couple seasons back where they almost won the division, and then surrendered meekly in the playoffs.
And that’s all the Wild ever really do. The height of their accomplishment is that they almost did something. They like, almost beat the Hawks in 2014. They almost won the division. And they almost mattered anywhere beyond that.
This is a team that if it has a true, top-line player it’s either the pretty damn old Eric Staal or the permanently crocked Zach Parise. If it has a truly top-pairing d-man it’s the pretty damn old Ryan Suter. It will once again rely and Devan Dubnyk to bail them out of just about all the things they can’t do, as he barely clings on to the platform of top-echelon goalies. Again, he’s an almost. He’ll almost get you there. But he won’t. And they won’t.
2017-2018: 45-26-11 101 points 253 GF 232 GA 47.8 CF% 53.5 xGF% 8.1 SH% .927 SV%
Goalies: You know the story here. Doobie Brother is going to be in net and he’s going to be better than you ever think he is, because we don’t associate him with the Prices and Holtbys of the world, perhaps just because he’s so damn goofy looking. But last year’s .918 SV% overall was something of a small step down for him, And over the past four seasons, only Price has a better SV% than he does. He’s a tick ahead of Corey Crawford in that span as well. He’s just that good, and without him the Wild would essentially be the Canucks.
He’ll be backed up by Alex Stalock again, who was just about serviceable last year. Stalock spent three seasons being woeful or being in the AHL before last year, and he’s certainly not anyone the Wild are going to want to have to ride if Dubs were to get hurt. But he’ll do a job. This whole fucking team is guys who’ll “do a job.” It’s why they don’t do anything.
Defense: Christ, is there a team with less turnover than this bunch always seems to have? Dumba, Suter, Brodin, Spurgeon. It’s been that way for seemingly 89 years. And none of these guys are bad, and in fact all are quite good. Even if the Wild have been trying to trade Brodin for three seasons. Suter has aged better than his contemporary Duncan Keith because his game is more efficient. There’s no wasted movement. Dumba put up 50 points last year and I bet you didn’t know that. Spurgeon has been one of the best puck-movers and possession d-men in the league for years even though he’s not getting on any roller coaster. As far as top fours go, there are plenty of teams doing way worse than this (leading off with the one in town).
The third-pairing is looks to be Greg Pateryn, who is a broken toilet, and rent-a-stiff Nick Seeler. There’s a couple kids in the AHL in Menell and Belpido who could come up somewhere during the season to bolster this, but in the meantime they’ll get by with the top four they have.
Forwards: Again, you know this crew. Eric Staal somehow came up with 42 goals last year, though somehow I doubt he’ll shoot 17% again. As he hadn’t scored more than 30 since 2011 before that, you can look for 25-28 goals again. And where the Wild will make up the difference, I can’t tell you. Mikael Granlund is still here to not be a center and a top line winger with a whole lot of “Yeah, but who gives a shit?” Jason Zucker got rich and will still score 10 goals annoying goals against the Hawks, and that’s it. His 33 goals last year aren’t the anomaly that Staal’s totals were, because he’d scored at that rate before. But you see him and think, “If he was on the second line, that team would be good. But he isn’t, and they’re not.” Zach Parise is here for 50 games and then he’ll have some injury that will cause you to have to take a moment to yourself while kneeling. Charlie Coyle is a synonym for disappointment. Mikko Koivu needs his food turned into mush. Nino Neiderreiter will be undervalued by everyone, including his coach. “Joel Eriksson Ek” is something you say while booting. Marcus Foligno is always a sign that your roster needs work.
We have written this preview for them for like four straight seasons. I’m just fucking cutting and pasting next year, assuming the Hawks haven’t caused me to turn the lyrics of “High Speed Dirt” into a performance art piece.
Outlook: The thing about the Wild is that the roster isn’t anywhere near bad enough to be bad. That would at least be interesting. They’re a team full of the middle skater from the Nintendo hockey game. Just fast enough to not get killed, but not skilled enough to surge. Dubnyk gets them to the playoff platform if he performs. If he falls off or gets hurt, this is the definition of an 88-point team.
But they’re not going to do anything memorable. They’re not anywhere near the Jets or Preds. They’re nowhere near bottoming out to get a top pick to actually get a player you’d recognize one day. They’re in that limbo-hell that teams in other sports actively try and avoid (except for the Bulls). They’re not gong to win anything, they’re not going to rebuild. They’re as bland as the state they come from. Seriously, how did that place produce Prince? That seems like a crime.
Previous Team Previews
We took a bit of a tour through the league last week, but of the more local concerns, what have the other Central Division teams been up to this offseason?
Nashville Predators – The reigning champs haven’t really done much of anything other than watch PK Subban have the summer we all dream of having. They have a ton of cap space but have yet to use it, and Ryan Hartman and Juuse Saaros remain unsigned. Perhaps they’re keeping their powder dry for next summer when they sign Ryan Ellis and/or Pekka Rinne to utterly hilarious extensions. This is probably a team that could use more firepower up front, despite what they keep telling you. Maybe they’re spending it on the Eli Toivanen PR machine. Not sure. Still awfully silent on the Austin Watson case, and they’ll almost assuredly welcome him to training camp with open arms because David Poile is the same bag of shit that every other NHL GM is when it comes to that sort of thing, and don’t let Preds fans tell you different.
Winnipeg Jets – The Jets have also been remarkably quiet, but you can do that when you probably were the West’s most complete team last season. There are still extensions waiting for Hellebuyck, Trouba, Tanev, and Lowry, and the first two could be quite expensive. Even Lowry should get more than you’d think as one of the better checking forwards last year. They lost Stastny to Vegas, but this was a borderline great team before he showed up, and going Scheifele-Little-Perreault-Lowry, or moving Copp or Roslovic to the middle should still make for a great team. They still need a backup goalie of some kind because Hellebuyck isn’t going to play 70 games, and I’ll laugh pretty damn hard if they bring Pavelec back to do that. Still, this is a team that needs to keep space reserved for next summer when Wheeler, Copp. Laine, and Connor are all up for new deals. This is still a team you have to figure out why they can’t come out of the West instead of why they can.
Minnesota Wild – Other than scouring the black market for bionic limbs for Zach Parise, this is the same collection of “Oh that guy” it’s been for at least five years now. J.T. Brown or Eric Fehr don’t really move the needle, and they’ll count on kids like Kunin or Greenway to take this rabble any farther than it’s gone, which they can’t do. Matt Dumba remains unsigned, though they have plenty of space to accommodate whatever his number comes in at. Bruch Boudreau “GO GO GO” ways and Devan Dubnyk probably monkey-hump this team to another playoff appearance, the question for everyone is what good will that do? This is a team screaming for a major shakeup that simply can’t produce one.
Colorado Avalanche – This was a team whose main goal was to not fuck up their rebuild too much, though they’ve been whispered to be in on Erik Karlsson. Matt Calvert is an interest signing who didn’t cost much at $2.8 per, and if he’s restricted to middle six minutes would be a boon to their depth. Tyson Barrie is somehow still here even though they’ve been trying to trade him since the first Obama administration and now he kinda sucks. They brought in Phillip Grubauer to replace Semyon Varlamov, which should be an upgrade. Basically, this team is looking at how much Yost, Kerfoot, Girard, Compher, Rantanen, and Kamenev grow for whatever their improvement is going to be, and that’s basically all they should do. It’s not as promising in Denver as some would have you believe, but it’s far from hopeless either.
St. Louis Blues – We went over this last week, but this is how a team should react to missing the playoffs. Bozak and O’Reilly are massive upgrades on what they had, and that includes Stastny. $4M on David Perron is a complete waste of time other than to my sense of mirth, but given what’s here he can pretty much be restricted to third-line duties which is all he’s ever really been. The defense is still slow and overrated, and Jay Gallon is going to piss fire all over whatever they try and do, but at least it’s a team acting with some urgency.
Dallas Stars – They were poised to make the biggest splash by acquiring Karlsson, and then fucked it up by bragging to everyone how badly they were bending over the Senators and hence the Sens pulled out. So now they’re left with the same problematic squad Jim Nill has built over the years. The return of Nichushkin at least raises some eyebrows, because he flashed being a dominant power forward in his first go-around. It was just drowned in a sea of confused faces the rest of the time. Still, this remains a great top line with Jason Spezza trying not to disintegrate behind it and Martin Hanzal gasping for air. And that hasn’t been addressed. They brought in Roman Polak, which I’m basically out of words for, and he’ll kill Julius Honka’s will to live by December 1st. Ditto Marc Methot and Stephen Johns. Also whatever’s left of Ben Bishop is claiming to still play goal, though Khudobin is not a bad insurance policy.
So if you want to feel better, other than the Blues this is a division full of teams that have stood still. Except the Hawks were worse than all of them last year, and right now you can only see them topping Dallas and Colorado with the second being a real stretch. If Dubnyk finally goes off the boil the Wild actually have a chance to be real bad, but Boudreau never has teams that are real bad in the regular season.
So it’s an even bigger shame the Hawks didn’t do anything to try and jump up in the standings, because it was there to be done.
It used to be tradition that playoff exits were complimented by eulogies on Puck Daddy. But with Wysh off in the Connecticut hinterlands and those who remain at Yahoo! being a bunch of Canadian giblets who take things far too seriously (and Lambert being angry and definitely not a Bruins fan), we don’t need them to do what we do best. So fuck it. We’ll eulogize all 15 teams that will eventually fall. Now, a rite of spring…
Actually, that picture should probably portray Zach Parise as Death, because today he turned a new trick by expanding on getting his coaches fired by getting his GM fired, and a big reason is the contract Parise signed. Good stuff, that.
Whereas there was joy in kicking dirt all over the bloated corpses of the Ducks and Kings, sending the Wild out with a quiet word is really just a reflex of the spring. About the only thing they provided was quality #BoudreauFace during these playoffs, as it quickly became obvious to him and everyone else his team was just ridiculously overmatched. If any player turned around on the bench and saw the expression of their coach it would have been an upset if they hopped over the boards ever again.
But this is what you sign up for when you have Boudreau behind the bench. Since he left the Capitals, his Ducks and Wild teams have these great seasons that take place almost entirely in the dark. You check the standings every few weeks and your reaction is always, “Huh, how’d they get there?” Because you wouldn’t ever choose to watch them. And then you go on about your life only to repeat the process a few weeks later. Then, when the playoffs start and you really pay attention, you really wonder how they hell they finished where they did, at least you do for the six minutes the Wild are around in the playoffs.
Once again, Devan Dubnyk was the second-best goalie in a series, just as he was in ’15, and ’16, and last year. And you have to hand it to him, because he’s been the second-best goalie in a series to a wild variety of other goalies, from one of the league’s best (Crawford) to genuinely terrible goalies (Niemi and Lehtonen) to absolute basketcases (Jake Allen) and now a young one in his first playoff series (Hellebuyck). He is wonderful talent enhancement.
It was another year of writers marveling at what a defensive wizard Mikko Koivu is in the dregs of February, and then watching him get turned into dog food in the playoffs. A 41% Corsi for the series, reminding us once again he’s a million years old and the Wild have yet to produce a center that’s really any better than him. The State of Hockey is one of paralysis. If Beckett had been around now he would have written a sequel to Godot about the Wild and waiting for anything or anyone of consequence to happen.
It’s really hard to stress just how much the Wild, a 100-point team somehow, got their ass handed to them in five games. No player achieved a positive possession rating over five games, and this was to a franchise that had never won a playoff series before. This might not even count, considering the cannon fodder the Wild were. It’s like counting something in the Home Run Derby as your first major league hit.
And the thing is, the Wild aren’t going to change. They can’t. They have to find the money to pay Dumba and Zucker, and that will be that. They won’t have any flexibility to do anything else, and they’ll roll out the exact same team next year that will amass around 100 points thanks to Gabby’s “Go get ’em, scouts!” system that sees them play really hard when no one cares. And we’ll get more and more articles of “Boudreau does it again! What a magician!”
And then April rolls around, they’ll face a good team that cares again and they’ll get walloped. We’ll get shots of Boudreau behind the bench, the definition of “out of answers,” and he’ll basically be the same shade as Grimace (and shape) by Game 4. His career playoff winning percentage is .478. But hey, he talks to the media and is kind of adorable, so let’s just ignore the fact that he’s almost certainly a moron.
There’s a lesson to the Wild. Constancy. Some teams just have to fill out the numbers, to perform the same cycle over and over to make the ones who change stand out. They’re the backup singers doing the same dance routine every night while Jagger is out front. They help hit the harmonies for the rest of the league, and then fade into the background when the important notes are sung. They are water carriers. Good things there’s a lot of it in Minnesota.
Last night was an exercise in the duality of these NHL playoffs. I can’t really remember the last time I felt like the NHL playoffs were somewhat resembling the NBA’s tournament, but this year kinda feels like that – there are a few series which have a clearly dominant team for whom winning seems inevitable, and then a few series that definitely could go either way. In this case, we watched Winnipeg continue their dominance of Minnesota, which has felt inevitable since puck drop of Game 1. We had Washington and Lumbus, which has been very even – because both teams suck, not because they’re both good – and went to OT for the third time in three games. Vegas and LA was kinda even but the Knights ended up completing a sweep because the NHL is a urinal.
Capitals 3 – Jackets 2 (20T) (CBJ leads 2-1)
Barry Trotz finally stopped out thinking himself and put Braden Holtby in net. I know Holtby didn’t have a stellar season, but ultimately I still think it was foolish to not start him in this series to begin with. And yeah, I don’t know how much of a difference it would’ve ultimately made given both of the first two games went to OT as well, but overall Holtby is a better netminder than Grubauer and I’m willing to bet he stops that Panarin winner from Game 1. This game was just as evenly played as the other two have been, and I think CBJ might really end up eliminating this Capitals outfit. And hey, Caps fans, at least losing to the Jackets would save you from losing to the Penguins again.
Jets 2 – Wild 0 (WIN leads 3-1)
We all would’ve been better off if the Wild had just accepted reality and let Winnipeg run over them in Game 3 as well, just accepting the defeat of a sweep. Instead they got mauled again last night – the Jets controlled nearly 60% of the shot attempts in all three periods! – and are in for another belt-over-a-raw-ass beating again in two days. I wish I could feel bad for them, but I most definitely do not. Chicago is the state of hockey, bitches.
Golden Knights 1 – Kings 0 (Knights sweep series 4-0)
The NHL is a urinal. A team made of paper mache and scrap heaps just swept the Los Angeles Kings out of the playoffs. Look, I know the Kings were hardly a force to be reckoned with this year, but neither should Vegas have been. I think there’s probably something to the idea that the underdog status and borderline disrespectful expectations for them, even as champs of the Pacific Division, is motivating them, but an expansion team with a bunch of guys who have had to add “who?” to their name in their career sweeping a team with one one of the league’s best 1C/1D combos is just outrageous. There is no way this kind of shit happens in any of the other leagues that isn’t a single entity. But, this league is a urinal.
Clearly the highlight of the evening were the reaction shots of Bruce Boudreau as the Jets put his Wild to the sword again last night. You can tell he knows he’s utterly fucked here, and would have been even if Ryan Suter had been healthy. I wonder if that filters down to his team. We know his panic stations-like attitude in previous Game 7s always did. Anyway, let’s run it through on this drippy Saturday.
Flyers 5 – Penguins 1 (Tied 1-1)
See, a lot of people think the Brian Elliot Experience means he’s getting punctured like Boromir every outing. Not so. The Elliot Experience means that he’s going to put together just enough good games, or stretches, to make you believe in him before he becomes a turned-over turtle. So was last night. He was excellent, Matt Murray definitely wasn’t, Flyers win, and now they’re believing again. But don’t you worry. Elliot will shit a chicken either in Game 3 or Game 4, and the Penguins will assuredly win the next two, whichever it is. This is the way he wants it.
Wild 1 – Jets 4 (Jets lead 2-0)
There probably isn’t going to be a more lopsided series than this one. The Kings-Knights one has been but Jonathan Quick has kept it from getting silly. Devan Dubnyk quite simply is not capable, nor are the Kings facing the firepower the Wild are. It sounds weird to gush about just how loaded the Jets are, but there was their fourth line, a dominant fourth line, getting their third and icing goal last night. There’s nowhere for the Wild to turn. And the first two Jets goals were a result of a d-man simply going cowboy. That’s Dustin Byfuglien’s thing of course, it’s not as much Tyler Myers’s. But that’s what it takes at this time of year, because it’s the only way you’re going to outnumber the defensive team and get coverage to break down. This looks a lot like the Wild’s 2013 series against the Hawks, where they hung around in Game 1 but didn’t have another gear to find in Game 2 when the superior team could relax a bit. Sure, they might spasm a home win, but they’re toast.
Kings 1 – Knights 2 OT (Knights lead 2-0)
Everyone needs this series to end now. The Kings might point to the absence (deserved, by the way) of Drew Doughty as the reason they basically went Mourinho on this one, but it’s no different than what they did in Game 1 when they had the gap-toothed scumbag in the lineup. They’re terrified of the Knights’ speed, because their blue line is slow and basically bad, so they’re going to do everything to keep it under wraps. The result has been two games that have set the sport back 20 years, and basically have us longing for the NBA Playoffs today. Compare Kopitar and the Kings this year to Toews and the Hawks all you want, but if the Hawks put on this kind of faire you wouldn’t watch and we’d resort to doing ketamine or something. Maybe Kings fans constantly complain about the individual awards their players don’t win simply so they can feel anything after watching this team all season. The lyrics to “Comfortably Numb” were written about watching a full season of this.
