The Minnesota Wild through seven games this season have had issues scoring in the first period. It’s been so bad that the Wild have only netted 2 goals in the first period thus far, and these poor starts seem to be holding the Wild back from the consistency they crave.
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The regulation time of a NHL hockey game is three twenty-minute periods. The traditional wisdom is that the best way to win a hockey game is to come out and get the lead early after that first twenty minutes. The idea being that you force a team into the harder position of playing from behind early, and then you can play an easier more defensive game that can keep your opponent from gathering momentum.
The Minnesota Wild seem to be ignoring this strategy. Instead the Wild have decided to turn on their scoring in the second period. Whether it’s intentional or not the Wild through their first seven games have only scored 2 goals in the first period and 15 goals in the second period.
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That’s pretty big disparity and one that really seems to have no purposeful explanation. The Wild just seem to be getting off to a slow start every game. In some games they’ve gotten by and in others it’s really bitten them.
After the Wild’s loss to the Islanders on Sunday, Chris Stewart explained something that seems to be plaguing the team…streaky non-consistent play across the 60 minutes of a game. Stewart said of the Wild’s play “we’ve got to come out ready to play. You can see it in spurts. We can dictate. We’ve been showing the team we can be, but not for 60 minutes. You can’t win in this league without playing 60 minutes.”
Stewart’s point is what is at the heart of this streaky second period play after average to below average first period play. Add to that the Wild have only scored seven goals in the third period in the seven games they’ve played, and you can see where the Wild seem to be having an issue with play a consistent 60 minutes of hockey.
Sure some of the Wild’s second periods have been extremely great, but they’ve usually been followed by a power outage that has cost them the game. In all of the Wild’s three losses, they’ve been within one goal going into the third period but were not able to come away with the win.
To illustrate the point further in the seven games thus far the Wild have only scored in the first period in one of those games the 6-3 win against the Kings. The joke by Bruce Boudreau was that he should tell the Wild that they game started 30 minutes before the opening puck drop.
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Before the Isles game he explained that “I’m going to have to start telling them the game’s at 6:30.” He continued that he felt the team needed to be more consistent. “We fall asleep and then we come back in the second and third and play really hard and really well. But we’ve got to be prepared to play the game. The first five games, the first periods, we haven’t been ready yet.”
As the Wild move forward they will need to fix this problem if they want win consistently. They need to be ready and Bruce Boudreau all kidding aside needs to figure out how to do that. To waste twenty minutes of hockey like they have is missed opportunities to grab early leads that will knock their opponents out of the game early.
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It wasn’t a problem in Boston last night because the Wild faced a shaky Malcom Subban in goal. But when you face a much better goaltender like the Wild did against the Islanders and Devils, to waist 20 minutes of hockey not giving your best effort could mean the difference between winning and losing. In the case of the Devils game one simple goal in the first period would have won the game. Let’s see if this next game can bring a first period goal.