Colorado Avalanche vs Minnesota Wild TV Listings, Playoff Odds, & More
The Minnesota Wild take on the Colorado Avalanche for the fourth time this season on Saturday night. The Avalanche have yet to score a goal against the Wild this season and if the Wild were to shut them out Saturday, it’d be the first time in the expansion era that a team was shutout by another team four times in the same season. There’s a record you don’t want to set shortly before you go home to look wistfully at your Jack Adams Award from the season before.
Minnesota Wild TV Listings, Online Streaming, and Radio Broadcasts
9pm Central Time puck drop
TV: FS-N in Minnesota and ALT in Colorado
Online Streaming: NHL Gamecenter
Radio Broadcast: KFAN 100.3 FM in Minneapolis area
Radio Streams: NHL Radio or KFAN on I Heart Radio
Nationally Broadcast Games:
New York Rangers vs. Philadelphia Flyers, 7pm Central, NBC
Playoff Odds
We’re changing things up a bit with our playoff odds updates. While I like the interface of Sports Club Stats, we’re going to start using the playoff odds from Hockeystats.ca. The big difference between the two is that I think Sports Club Stats focuses more on the possible outcomes and that Hockeystats.ca is looking more heavily at probable outcomes and weighting things like possession. Their data (and maybe you don’t care…if that’s the case just skip to the next paragraph, because I’m not done going on about the change) comes from Micah Blake McCurdy, who does some fantastic stats work all around and some great writing over at Hockey Prospectus. Another, very, very superficial reason I think the change is worth making is because the graphs he/they produce are very readable and look nice. The visualizations produced at SCS are very busy and I’ve never included them in the Pre-Game Skate because I don’t think those visualizations offer a whole lot.
More from Wild News
- Defenseman Matt Dumba signs one-year contract with Arizona
- Minnesota Wild reach agreement with Brandon Duhaime on one-year contract
- Minnesota Wild receive mixed grades for picks in NHL Entry Draft
- Minnesota Wild draft heavy on centers and home-state selections
- Minnesota Wild open regular season at home against Stanley Cup Finalist
Anyhow, onward.
According to Hockeystats.ca, the Wild’s odds are up to 75.7% and they retained the final wild card spot after the Calgary Flames lost 2-1 to the New York Islanders last night. The Wild were also helped out by loses from the Chicago Blackhawks and Los Angeles Kings. The only game that didn’t go their way yesterday was the Dallas Stars and Colorado Avalanche, which the Avs won in a shootout. Anything but a three-point game there was what they Wild were looking for.
Here’s the Hockeystats.ca graph of the Western Conference playoff odds at the moment. The Wild have a chance to get some good distance between them and the pack with a win tonight.
Tonight, aside from a Wild win, we’re looking for an Ottawa Senators win over the San Jose Sharks. The Senators have actually been great lately and they’re doing it without Craig Anderson or Robin Lehner. Andrew Hammond — who has currently played six NHL games — is their starter and he’s been on fire. He just posted back-to-back shutouts against the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, it’s the first time a goaltender has ever posted shutouts against those two teams, on the road, in back-to-back nights. In his five games this season, he has a Sv% of .962 and the team was playing well before he came in. They’re a ways out of a playoff spot in the east, but they aren’t without hope, especially as the Bruins, Panthers, and Flyers have all been pretty mediocre recently.
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