Minnesota Wild: Three Reasons They Finish Higher Than Colorado
The Minnesota Wild drop the puck on their regular-season against the Colorado Avalanche, in what is somewhat of a rivalry game within the Central Divison.
The Minnesota Wild are seeking to make another consecutive playoffs, and hopefully make it past the first round this time.
Whilst, the Colorado Avalanche are a season removed from finishing dead last but somehow squeaked into the playoffs themselves last year.
Pre-season is hardly a good judge of what the regular season score-lines will be, but I’d take a Minnesota Wild 7-0 win any day of the week. The chances of a weakened roster such as the one on that occasion are minimal though.
Both teams have their strengths and both have clear weaknesses, the question is; which team is better prepared to exploit the other’s weaknesses on game-night.
You can’t call the Colorado Avalanche a one-man band; they are far more than Nathan MacKinnon, but he is obviously a very large part of the team. Without his point-scoring ability last year, they don’t make the playoffs.
The Minnesota Wild, by comparison, spread the point-scoring love around with several players topping 50 for the year, not least Eric Staal who had a bumper 42 goal year.
There’s three key aspects of the Minnesota Wild team that I find are lacking with Colorado.
To finish above them, the Minnesota Wild will need to use all three to their advantage, every time the two teams meet, whilst hoping that the Avalanche self-sabotage and other teams can also take advantage of the same failings.
Age Brings Wisdom For Minnesota Wild
For all the hype around the Colorado Avalanche team, the Minnesota Wild plain and simple have far more experience than them.
The Avalanche gave 11 rookies their chances in the NHL last year; let’s say for example, only half of them suffer from the dreaded ‘sophomore slump’. In their case, that’s 5-6 players that won’t be at peak performance this year.
When you look at a twenty-man game-night roster, that’s one-third of your guys on the ice, almost, that are under-performing.
Let’s say the team is holding on to a one-goal lead late in the game; who’s more prone to make a mistake; the experienced heads that lead the Minnesota Wild like Ryan Suter, Zach Parise and Mikko Koivu.
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Or a youngster that is still learning the ropes in the NHL like Alexander Kerfoot?
These are the smallest of margins, but this could be where the experience and veteran leadership of so many in the Minnesota Wild locker-room counts for much more than the few veteran heads in the Avalanche room, such as Ian Cole.
Plainly, experienced players are better able to handle both the challenge of being down a goal, but also the maintaining of a lead. It’s not some skill you learn at training camp; it’s a skill learned (often the hard way) in actual game-time action.
It’s fair to say the most experienced guys on the ice each night are people like Carl Soderberg, Ian Cole and Matt Calvert – will their leadership be enough?
Goaltending More Certain For Minnesota Wild
Devan Dubnyk hasn’t always been the perfect goaltender for the Minnesota Wild; he has his moments, but then again all goaltenders do.
Likewise, Alex Stalock; the number two for the Minnesota Wild may not have the ability to fulfil a starter’s workload, but he does have an ability to put up strong performances when called upon as backup.
Not forgetting that there’s is more NHL experience further down the depth chart, with Andrew Hammond awaiting the call-up to replace an injured goalie.
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In Semyon Varlamov and Phillipe Grubauer, the Colorado Avalanche have a stronger pairing on paper at least.
However, neither has ever truly been a starter; they have a situation almost akin to one the Toronto Maple Leafs once suffered whereby Jonathan Bernier and James Reimer didn’t know who was the starter and who was the backup.
That’s exactly what I see in Colorado, and the Minnesota Wild may be able to take advantage of uncertainty amongst the goalies.
If anything, goalies are creatures of routine and rhythm; if neither can hit their stride, requiring starter workloads to do so; it could be a challenging season.
Not forgetting that Semyon Varlamov has proven quite injury-prone over his career. This team doesn’t look as deep in terms of goaltending when you factor him out for a chunk of the season.
Between them it’s reasonable to see a full year being covered, given Varlamov’s career-high games in one season was 63 back in the 2013-14 season, whilst the young German, Grubauer managed 35 with the Stanley Cup winning Washington Capitals last campaign.
It is however going to be an interesting situation; will the competition for the starter spot spur greater performances from both, or will it be their undoing?
Minnesota Wild A Bigger Team
The Minnesota Wild have a bigger team and a bigger approach to the game, there’s no hiding from that.
They’ll be hoping to beat up on the smaller, skilled players of the Colorado Avalanche every time they’re in town.
That also goes for a lot of Central Division rivals; they’ll look to use size, hustle and muscle to over-power the youth of the Avalanche.
Looking just at the Minnesota Wild’s new third line trio of Jordan Greenway, Charlie Coyle and Joel Eriksson Ek; between the three you have a ton of size, a ton of ability to create a net-front nuisance.
Realistically, Colorado don’t have the size or bodies to be able to clear out that sort of trouble. Erik Johnson, Nikita Zadorov and Ian Cole represent the closest thing to big bodies on their back-end; there’s no guarantee all three make it on the ice together.
Laying hits and pushing a team around is one thing, and one the Minnesota Wild will hope to capitalise on.
However, their opponent may have a joker up their sleeve. Their youth and tenacity means that it could be speed that is the Wild’s undoing.
If the youngsters can play with skill and speed, they can potentially out-run a checking game.
It’ll need to be a very careful balancing act.
However, over the course of a season against all-comers, I think it still is the superior size that leaves you higher in the standings.
Making the Minnesota Wild a team that others fear to face because they know it’s going to be physical should be key.
Joel Eriksson Ek Offers Value. dark. Next