The Minnesota Wild have struggled in their last two preseason tilts, to include a 4-1 beatdown by the Jets in Winnipeg last night. Still Wild fans should be careful to realize that its preseason and the final score is not the objective of a preseason game and not panic…yet.
The preseason is always an interesting time. Fans are always excited to see hockey back in action, but the problem is its only half back in action. The purpose of preseason games are purely to knock the summer rust off and evaluate players to see if they are worthy of the open roster spots that may exist. Practice can only do so much because the pace is not simply not real game pace and the competition is not the mixed back of tricks you’ll get from playing another squad.
The Minnesota Wild have had a rough go of the last two preseason games, and there’s been a temptation to start to admonish this team a bit. Sure there needs to be some criticism, but it needs to always be tempered with fact that the lineups being put on the ice are not representative of the lineup that will be on the ice for opening day.
Yes it was very hard to watch last night’s shellacking of the Wild by the Jets, but in the end I changed the channel and watched the last few minutes of the Canada Europe game without throwing anything or cussing (well too much). It’s because the team that took the ice last night was a team that only had three NHL roster regulars in the starting lineup.
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That’s the evaluation part of this preseason equation, and so final score was not really the objective in last night’s tilt in Winnipeg. The objective was to see how the younger players like Mike Reilly, Tyler Graovac, Joel Eriksson-Ek, etc. handled game situations and the system they had learned in practice. Bruce Boudreau and his staff are looking to see if they can take what they’ve learned in practice and go out and execute in the game.
Sure the score might lead you to believe those players haven’t learned the system and might be behind. But it’s a team sport and you’ve got to look to find the good performances that are buried in the score. An example being while you might be tempted to rip on the entire defense for giving up four (five goals really), but you might be overlooking the fact that Mike Reilly had a very strong game. He moved the puck very well last night to include the assist to set up Dumba’s power play goal and he even finished even in plus minus.
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Add to all of this too that there’s three more preseason games left, and about three times as many hours left on the practice ice. So keep that in mind because if you keep seeing improvement over those games that means rust is being knocked off, and players are starting to get the new Boudreau way of doing things.
Finally, as the regular lineup is worked into the preseason action over the next three games that should be the real measuring stick if the team is ready. The scores should improve, and even the young players who have been beat up in the last two games will enjoy a little more success by learning and playing alongside the veterans. That might even yield better performances from roster hopefuls who might be struggling right now.
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Preseason is great, but you’ve got to watch the games through the right lens. Preseason is all about preparation for the upcoming season. If the team was up to opening day form at the beginning of training camp they’d most likely just say “Let’s just start the season” rather than risk injuries in games that don’t effect the final standings. So remember to watch the performances of the players and remember the final score doesn’t matter until October 13th in St. Louis when the Wild take on the Blues for the 2016-17 season opener.