Minnesota Wild: Predictions at the Start the World Cup of Hockey

The pre-tournament games of the World Cup of Hockey are over and this afternoon the games will start to count for real as the tourney begins. The Minnesota Wild players in the WCH have all played well in the pre-tournament tune-ups and will need to play even better if they want to see their respective teams lift the cup as tournament champions.

The World Cup of Hockey is in full-swing now as tournament play starts this afternoon with Team USA taking on the conglomerate know as Team Europe. The pre-tournament games were exciting and offered some solid insight into just how the tournament will go for each of the eight teams. The six Minnesota Wild players had strong contributions for each of their three teams, and will be looking to improve as the games really count now.

For those of you who are just tuning in the Wild have six different players representing three different squads in the tournament. Team USA will feature Ryan Suter and Zach Parise, Team Europe will have Nino Niederreiter, and Team Finland will have three Wild players Erik Haula, Mikko Koivu, and Mikael Granlund.

So as the tournament begins I thought it might be a good idea to summarize the pre-tournament performances of the Wild players and their teams, offer a little prediction for each team the Wild players represent, and of course give a quick thought on who’s gonna be standing at the end.

1) Team Europe – The Europeans seem to have had a very rough go of it against the faster and younger Team North America in their first two tilts. The Europeans looked flat from top to bottom as they only mustered 4 goals in those two games. Then finally some adjustments to their lineup and playing times in their game on Wednesday and the team looked completely different as they rolled to an easy win 6-2 over tournament favorites Sweden.

Sep 14, 2016; Washington, DC, USA; Team Europe forward Leon Draisaitl (29) celebrates with teammates after scoring a goal against Team Sweden in the second period during a World Cup of Hockey pre-tournament game at Verizon Center. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports /

One of the keys to the victory against Sweden for Team Europe was spreading the playing time around and juggling the lines a bit. Nino had a great game as a result as well as he got his first two points in the three games with two assists tallied. The combination of Niederreiter and Leon Draisaitl was deadly as the two seemed to be on the same page connecting on some fast finesse type goals. Hopefully they’ll be more of a part of the game plan heading forward for the Europeans.

If the Team Europe who played Sweden shows up this team could be dangerous. But in the end it’s a long road for them to get out of Group A. With only the top two teams advancing after three preliminary games, it’s highly unlikely they will be able to finish above Team Canada and Team USA. Still if they can take care of business and beat the US or Canada it could be a situation where they finish above one of the two favorites since the US or Canada is guaranteed one loss due to their head-to-head matchup.

2) Team Finland- The Finns may have lost two of their three pre-tournament games, but it still looks like they are going to have a great tournament. They had a great overtime win in their first tilt against Team Sweden, but fell flat the very next night against that same Swedish squad losing 6-3. Against Team USA Tuesday night the Finns took two periods to get over their jetlag as they got trounced early by the Americans, but rebounded in the third to improve the score in the paper to only a 3-2 loss.

Sep 13, 2016; Washington, DC, USA; Team Finland head coach Lauri Marramaki talks to his team during a timeout against Team USA in the third period a World Cup of Hockey pre-tournament game at Verizon Center. Team USA won 3-2. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports /

All three Wild players for Finland have registered points. The team’s captain Mikko Koivu tied for the team lead in prelim scoring with 3 points (1 goal and 2 assists), and seems to be one of the sparkplugs for the Finns moving the puck well in the offensive zone and on the power play. Granlund and Haula both have a goal apiece and have also looked strong at points, but seem to be searching for a bit more success.

Team Finland has the talent and most of all the discipline to be a factor in this tournament. To make it out of Group B though they’ll need to have many more contributions from up and down the lineup to include players like Haula and Granlund. Additionally, it seems that goaltending has been surprisingly shaky with both Rinne and Rask having issues and their performance could really be the deciding factor for the Suomi. The Finns can make past group play, because it seems like the other teams in the group have had their slips as well. The Russians are not playing like a group and the Swedes are under preforming, so look for Finland to take a loss but still get out of group play with the young guns of Team North America.

3) Team USA- Team USA had a great pre-tournament run going 2-1 and beating rival and tournament favorite Team Canada. Head Coach John Tortorella has the US players playing like a well-oiled physically dominate team. The Americans seem to be crushing their competition disrupting their game plans and imposing their will. In the two games they split with Team Canada they didn’t back down at all, and then against Finland they took advantage of a sluggish start by the Finns to drive out to an early lead they would not give up.

Sep 9, 2016; Columbus, OH, USA; Team USA forward Zach Parise (9) celebrates with teammates on the bench after scoring a goal in the first period against Team Canada during a World Cup of Hockey pre-tournament game at Nationwide Arena. Mandatory Credit: Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports /

Parise and Suter have both played very well. Parise is playing well on the top line with Joe Pavelski and Blake Wheeler and notched the first goal for Team USA in the first game. Suter assisted on the Parise goal for his only point, but has been his normal ice time eating self. Where Suter is excelling though is he is playing a much more physical game than Wild fans are accustom to, and therefore making himself invaluable to Tortorella and his game plan.