A Holiday Wish List for the Minnesota Wild
By Derek Felska
The holidays are a time spent with their families in the spirit of celebration. Whether its Hannukah, Christmas, Kwanza, or even Festivus the time is often marked with the giving of gifts or the latter holiday’s practice with ‘an airing of grievances.’ People often go into the holidays with the challenge of identifying what to get those they care about as well as the amusing mystery what will be given to them. As a child you learn you don’t always get what you wish for. You learn to lower your expectations and appreciate the simple truth someone decided to get you anything at all. Children create ‘wish lists’ they might give their parents. Parents probably find these lists both helpful and annoying.
Yet sometimes we probably miss those kinds of hints as adults so we avoid the indignity of giving a person a gift card or worse yet that social faux pas of an awkward amount of cash. You ask others around those you are trying give a gift to and they may not be able to lead you in any direction at all. Luckily its not so difficult to pick out gifts for professional sports teams. So what would the Holiday wish list be for the Minnesota Wild? I should warn you my holiday wishes for this team might sound a little more akin to Festivus’ ‘airing of grievances.’
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1. A clean bill of health, (as a team) – When was the last time the Wild were completely healthy? As the old saying goes, you don’t have anything if you don’t have your health first, and the Wild know that all too well. While injuries are a normal part of the season, the 2014-15 season has been marred by illness like no other season the Wild has ever had. More recently it has been a stomach virus, but it were the cases of mumps that was as disturbing as it was bizarre. As more mumps cases continue to be discovered around the NHL, the strange outbreak was not only the Wild’s problem but as of right now no team according to hockeystats.ca has had more confirmed mumps cases. On the injury front, it sure would’ve been nice if Josh Harding hadn’t kicked the wall this summer because the team would have more options at its disposal than Niklas Backstrom and Darcy Kuemper. A clean bill of health would at least allow the club to better identify its true strength and weaknesses; whether they be on the ice or behind the bench. We’d also like wish an extra special and successful recovery for Keith Ballard after suffering broken facial bones and many lacerations after a punishing hit doles out by the Islanders’ Matt Martin. While I wouldn’t say the team’s current woes are entirely due to these missing players it makes it tough to create chemistry and continuity with a roster that seems to change from game to game.
2. Consistent 60-minute efforts – As the Wild’s season has stumbled into mediocrity, a big reason for it is the club’s inability to play hard for a full 60 minutes. Every game features at least one period where the team fails to work hard and that usually results in goals ending up in the Wild’s net. Wild Head Coach Mike Yeo is then stuck telling the media game after game about how the team needs to put a 60-minute effort, so what would be a better gift than to have a club that doesn’t take its foot off the gas? For some clubs the effort seems to fluctuate from game to game, but Minnesota its period to period that has to change if this team wants to really push for a playoff spot. It is hard for anyone to know just how good this team can be if they can’t find a way to work hard all game long.
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3. Highly-paid veterans start scoring like highly-paid veterans – The Minnesota Wild is currently spending $13.25 million on two players who have just 10 goals between them in Thomas Vanek and Mikko Koivu. Toss in Jason Pominville to that mix and you have 17 goals for $18.85 million. Either way, spending over a million per goal for three players you are probably using on your top 6 is not real good bang for your buck. As sportscasters love to point out, the teams that perform well have their best players actually being their best players. Some may give a playmaker like Mikko Koivu a pass for paltry goal production, but Pominville and Vanek were brought to the team to light the lamp, and light it often. The beauty of this wish is that even if one or two of these players start producing closer to their normal seasonal rates over their last 3 seasons, in Koivu’s case (.8 points per game), Vanek’s (.92 points per game) and Pominville (.79 points per game) and suddenly the Wild’s fortunes probably look a whole lot better.
"“What has gone on earlier in the season or last year is completely irrelevant and if we keep sitting around waiting for that to reappear without actually doing the things to make that happen, then we’ll continue to be disappointed.” ~ Wild Head Coach Mike Yeo after Tuesday’s 5-2 loss to Philadelphia"
4. Wild tighten up their defensive play and a return of its puck possession style – The team has been scoring for, and Wild fans are grateful for that. However, its also letting in far more goals in as well as they’ve let in 3.1 goals per game in its last 21 games. The result of this porous defensive play has been barely .500 hockey and a team steadily sliding out of the playoff picture. Some of this has been the result of poor play of goaltenders Niklas Backstrom and Darcy Kuemper who have had the nasty penchant of letting in the bad goal or two which have forced the club to always try to will its way back in the game. Defensively some of the clubs lower level defenseman like Nate Prosser would be well-served to reducing the amount of needless turnovers by overusing the glass and boards. The team had great success at the start of the season because its puck possession style gave opponents so few opportunities to score, but now the turnovers are frequent the team’s place in the standings and statistical rankings speak for themselves. At one point in the season the Wild were among the best puck possession teams in the NHL, with its Corsi and Fenwick ratings a fancy stats person’s dream. Not anymore. The Wild are now in 7th in Corsi and 5th in Fenwick according to HockeyAnalysis.com. The team’s puck possession was in effect its best defense as they gave opponents such little time with the puck that Kuemper and Backstrom didn’t have to stand on their head in order for the team to have a chance.
5. Give Jason Zucker and Nino Niederreiter more opportunities to play on the top power play and top 6 – At this point in the season these two players represent the top goal scorer and 3rd best goal scorer on the team. Despite that, both have been given only intermittent time on the team’s top 6 and power play. As we mentioned earlier about the underperforming highly-paid veteran players, they continue to get the lion’s share of minutes on both the top 6 and power play it seems its about time to move those players aside and let the team’s leading goal scorers have a bigger opportunity to shine. Giving Nino and Jason the ice time normally assigned veterans fits within the team’s core values of accountability, an area which seems to be lacking these days.
Oh, but I’m not done yet. I am not going to give every Wild player their own gift; because quite frankly not all of them deserve it. So I am going to hand out a few more Holiday wishes for a few players that I feel could really use it. Here are some stocking stuffers for a few Wild players.
To Ryan Suter: A reduction in ice time – Suter almost never seems to leave the ice as he regularly logs nearly 30 minutes per night. To his credit, he’s been amazing durable and for the most part consistent and a big reason why he’s so important to this team. Suter and the team would be well-served to scale back his minutes a bit (3-4 minutes would be the goal I’d recommend) and I’d suggest this mostly to come out of his time spent on the power play. Let Marco Scandella, Jonas Brodin or Jared Spurgeon carry that load off of Suter’s shoulders where the team can use him where he’s at his best in the defensive zone. His offensive totals may suffer a little, but for his long-term health and fatigue level it might be what’s best for him and the team. Also, Scandella has 8 goals already and it seems odd that he isn’t on the top power play either when he’s clearly your biggest threat to score from the point.
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To Charlie Coyle: A few goals in the near future – Goals can be like potato chips, once you get one you crave another. Coyle has been on a long scoring drought that goes all the way back to October. With that being said if Coyle can finally cash in perhaps that will lead to him scoring some more and becoming more of a factor offensively for the Wild. Minnesota doesn’t need Coyle to carry the team with his offense, at least not at this stage of his career but chipping in every now and then would be helpful for his own confidence and the team.
To Mikael Granlund: Olympics-version upgrade – Even though he’s currently out of the lineup battling illness, his play this season has been underwhelming. I really feel Granlund’s confidence gained an additional boost last season from his time at the Winter games in Sochi, where he was a big contributor for Team Finland. If the Wild could get that free-wheeling, assertive (i.e. shooting the puck more frequently) Granlund back who’s ever line he’s on just became a lot more dangerous.
To Darcy Kuemper: Confidence restored – When Kuemper started off the season he played fairly sharp and showed the kind of promise that made some believe he just might be ready to assume a #1 role. Those early successes seem like distant memories as we close in on a new year, with his recent penchant for giving up bad goals, his questionable decisions in playing the puck outside of his crease and the fact he’s been pulled in 4 out of his last 5 starts at home the kid just needs to re-establish his confidence. I wish it was easy as slipping something in his Gatorade, but it will likely take a few quality starts or two to get that back.
To Josh Harding: a reset button – I know this is late, but 2014 has been a nightmare between the issues he had after his medication change that caused him to sit out the rest of the 2013-14 season where he was playing the best hockey of his career, to spend the many months battling back to only lose it all by breaking his foot after an pre-training camp altercation this summer. The team opted not only to not pay Harding, but for him it was a lost opportunity to take back the reigns as the Wild’s #1 goalie. The loss also put the Wild in a tricky place between the pipes. So instead of starting his season in Minnesota he was shipped off to Iowa instead only to have his Multiple Sclerosis symptoms come back to haunt him yet again. I think its safe to say that if given the chance Harding may have done a few things differently.