Game Previews

Good afternoon State of Hockey! In tonight’s tilt, the Wild will attempt to shutdown the Colorado Avalanche at home once again. No major lineup changes expected. No Waeros (sorry, but it’s my term and I’m using it for as long as we play roster ping-pong) came up or went back down after Tuesday’s devastating loss to the Nashville Predators. Lundin and Staubitz remain scratches along with Marek Zidlicky (gee, such a shock). Mike Yeo said he liked what he saw for 50 minutes on Tuesday night. Let’s hope the team plays 60 tonight. By the numbers, this game is heavily [...]

  Minnesota Wild @ Philadelphia Flyers Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 7pm EST at Wells Fargo Center This is the first meeting of the season for the Minnesota Wild and Philadelphia Flyers. Last time these two squared off was over a year ago (November 24, 2010) when the Flyers won in dominant fashion, 6-1 in Minnesota. The Wild had just 16 shots-on-goal in the last meeting with Patrick O’Sullivan, now with the Coyotes, scoring the lone goal. The Wild is coming off a heartbreaking 3-2 shootout loss to the St. Louis Blues on Saturday night. Wild rookie David McIntyre scored [...]

Minnesota Wild @ Calgary Flames Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 10pm EST at Scotiabank Saddledome The Minnesota Wild and Calgary Flames have already had three meetings this season with the Flames holding a 2-1 advantage over the Wild. With three games remaining between the two intra-division rivals, the Wild will try and even the series on the road this evening against the Flames. In the last contest, played on December 20, the Flames skated to a 2-1 victory at home. The Wild team is coming off a 3-0 shutout loss to Roberto Luongo and the Vancouver Canucks earlier in the [...]

Minnesota Wild @ Vancouver Canucks Wednesday, January 4, 2012 at 10pm EST Rogers Arena The Minnesota Wild and Vancouver Canucks most recent meeting came on December 19th, in Vancouver, when the Canucks blanked the Wild 4-0. Roberto Luongo stopped 33 shots en route to his first shutout of the season for the Canucks. Henrik Sedin scored a goal and had two assists, while brother Daniel Sedin recorded three assists in the game. The Wild team is coming off a home ice 4-2 loss to the Phoenix Coyotes on Saturday, December 31st. The loss went to Niklas Backstrom who is now [...]

Minnesota Wild @ Nashville Predators   Wednesday, December 28, 2011 at 8pm EST Sommet Center The Minnesota Wild and Nashville Predators most recent meeting came the day before Thanksgiving, in Minnesota, when the Wild prevailed with 3-2 win. The game just happened to be the last time the Wild won before hitting their current losing skid of seven games. The Wild team is coming off a home ice loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Monday, December 26th. Wild team captain Mikko Koivu returned to the line-up after sitting out the last two weeks with a leg injury. Pierre-Marc Bouchard and [...]

I think so. I think they will win. The Blues have given up 10 goals in their last two games while scoring only one. Granted, they  played Pittsburgh and Anaheim. Based on stats they Blues are the favorite: 2.86  GFA , to the Wild 2.12 2.86 GGA, to the Wild 3.38 Perhaps the most interesting state for this match up is 5 on 5 goals for/against ratio. The Blues are 8th in the league in this stat, the Wild are dead last meaning we don’t score 5 on 5 goals.  Which leads me to look at the Blues penalty situation since [...]

Tonight should be an interesting night for more than one reason: #1- It’s the firest Wild home game in quite some time. #2- They are wearing their “Miller High Life” Jersey’s tonight. #3 – Chuck Kobasew should make his Wild debut. #4- It’s Koivu’s first game with the “C”. That’s the good stuff. The bad stuff is that Colorado comes into the game with the 3rd largest margin of victory in the league and they are healthy. The Avs have been outstanding on both sides of the ice this year scoring 28 goals while only giving up 18. I think [...]