Minnesota Wild: The Opening Faceoff 10 March 17

The Minnesota Wild are having a rough go of it lately. Goals have been hard to find as the team is struggling to score and, thus have dropped 3 of their last 4 contests. With no rest for the weary they’ll need to get their act together as they play another tilt tonight in South Florida against the Panthers.

Let’s drop the puck on a busy Friday…

More from Gone Puck Wild

1) The Wild lose second straight last night in Tampa Bay: Prehaps the biggest key to the Wild’s success this season has been that they been able to avoid losing back-to-back games. So good have the Wild been in this area that according to Michael Russo, they are 16-4-2 following a loss this season. No panic button needs to be pushed just yet, but since the Wild are playing tonight in Sunrise for the second night in a row the probability for another loss is certainly higher.

2) The Lightning’s top player crushed the Wild: It’s always a hard pill to swallow when you know that something you should have stopped is what ran you over. It’s no secret that the Lightning’s best player is Nikita Kucherov, so you’d have thought the Wild’s 4th best in the NHL defense could focus in and shut him down…right? Wrong Kucherov torched the Wild for 2 goals and an assist leading to the dominate 4-1 by the Lightning.

3) Did Nino Niederreiter mean to injure Tyler Johnson?: This is a really hard call folks. Watching the play you can see pretty clearly that Niederreiter was leading with his knee. Johnson doesn’t do himself any favors by moving out of the way like he did at the last minute and in the direction he went. Still looking at this from a dispassionate point of view you can figure Nino didn’t want to clip knees with him, but it happened that way and is a big reminder where intention can be moot if an injury like this occurs. The NHL will be taking a look at this one.

4) The Panthers will be every bit as hard as the Lightning to beat.: Florida like Tampa Bay is fighting for its playoff life as they are 6 points out of the final Wild Card spot in the East. They won’t be pushovers and will look like Tampa to gain a spark tonight against what will be a fatigued Wild squad. One big difference between the two teams is that Florida is a -21 in goal differential as opposed to Tampa’s +1, and the Panthers are in the middle of a three game losing streak adding to their last ten game total of 4-5-1. That’s in sharp contrast to the Lightning who were 5-2-3 going into their game against the Wild.