Minnesota Wild: Top 5 Games to See Live This Season
The Minnesota Wild open their 2018-19 NHL Schedule tonight, on the road against the Colorado Avalanche. What other games stand out on their schedule this year?
I’ve went through the Minnesota Wild schedule for the season, and thoroughly dissected the games to determine which games are the most must-see. Road games are important, but for the purpose of this exercise I’m going to give you the Top 5 games that will be played at Xcel Energy Center this year.
The Minnesota Wild do not have any extremely long home stands, the longest being 5 games late in March. This is a good thing, as a long home stand can lead to complacency and unnecessary losses.
The home stand in March is at a perfect time as well, in the last quarter of the season when everyone is battling for playoff spots or playoff positioning the Team of 18,000 will be able to encourage the Wild down the stretch run of the season.
Early in the year, Minnesota will face a long road trip of 7 games. They will be away from their friendly home for 7 games from the end of October into the middle of November. This stretch could be a very telling run for how the rest of the season will go.
Minnesota also will have 14 back-to-back games, only one of which is with both games being at home. There are the somewhat easy trips to Tampa & Florida, Edmonton & Calgary, Anaheim & Los Angeles, but even those still require travel after a game night.
The Minnesota Wild will need to be able to rely on Devan Dubnyk and Alex Stalock fairly heavily in all those back-to-back situations, as the team will likely be short on rest and flat-footed at points in the season.
These are the Top 5 Home Games I can find. Purely based on my own opinion, but diagnosed as best I can based on the players coming from each team and where each game falls during the season. Let me know if you think I missed an important game.
October 6, 2018 vs. Vegas Golden Knights
October 6th will see the St.Paul arrival of last season’s NHL Western Conference Champions. Vegas took the league by surprise in its inaugural season and will look for an encore performance in year 2.
Minnesota Wild expansion draft losses Alex Tuch and Erik Haula expect to be in the lineup, and should be top producers again for the Golden Knights this year. Vegas has added Max Pacioretty via trade, and Paul Stastny via free agency to strengthen what was already a good lineup.
This is an important game for the Minnesota Wild, as they will look to set the home schedule off on the right foot with a win over the defending Western Champions.
Vegas finished last season only 8 points ahead of the Minnesota Wild in the standings, but won the weaker Pacific Division while Minnesota clung to a playoff spot in the difficult Central Division.
This will also be the first true test of the cross-division play between the Central and Pacific Divisions for this season. With 2 strong teams going against each other, and Minnesota having home ice advantage, it could end up being one hell of a game.
Devan Dubnyk will be looking to get himself on track after a questionable preseason, Zach Parise and Ryan Suter will be making their return to meaningful games at home, and Marc-Andre Fleury should be heckled off the ice at every opportunity!
Get your 2018-19 Wild Team Calender at the doors of Xcel Energy Center on your way into the game, and be sure to circle the rest of the games on this list. Let’s be truthful, though, circle them all because you don’t want to miss any Wild action this year!
November 13, 2018 vs Washington Capitals
Alex Ovechkin and the defending champions will make their way to the State of Hockey in November. This is a critical game for the Minnesota Wild, as it will be their first game home after the 7 game road trip.
Minnesota will return home from the west coast trip, and have 1 day off before diving into a tough matchup with the Capitals. Alex Ovechkin is a superstar, Braden Holtby is one of the best in the league between the pipes, and this team just opened the NHL season with a 7-0 dismantling of the Boston Bruins.
Last season, the Minnesota Wild lost both games against the Capitals so a game this early in the season will be a good challenge to determine where the Wild stand in terms of NHL positioning.
Nino Niederreiter, Mikko Koivu, and Mikael Granlund all had a point in each game against Washington last year, so they will be ones to watch when the Capitals come to town in November.
The last time the Minnesota Wild beat the Washington Capitals was in March of 2015, so a win coming off a long road trip against the Stanley Cup Champions would likely be the biggest win of the season.
If you aren’t too keen on the Wild’s chances to win this one, then at least you should be in for a fast paced game and get to see Ovechkin, Holtby, Nicklas Backstrom, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and John Carlson in person.
This will also be Military Appreciation Night at Xcel Energy Center, so if you don’t feel like supporting the Wild in a huge game in November you can at least get out and support the troops. The Wild will also be wearing their camo jerseys in warm-ups for this one.
December 1, 2018 vs Toronto Maple Leafs
The top story of the NHL this summer has been the free agent status, and subsequent signing, of John Tavares. The Toronto Maple Leafs feel like they won the lottery and have already started talking Stanley Cup Celebration.
The Minnesota Wild will open the month of December hosting the Leafs at Xcel Energy Center, as Tavares and Auston Matthews will look to leave their stamp on a Wild team with Stanley Cup aspirations of our own.
Both are weapons, and could potentially be thorns in the Wild’s side, but it is also another opportunity for the Minnesota Wild and Bruce Boudreau to prove their place in the playoff discussion.
Toronto lost their trip to Minnesota last year, being shutout by Alex Stalock in December. They will be looking to avenge that loss and assert their high scoring offense on a deep defensive Minnesota team.
Aside from Matthews and Tavares, Toronto boasts Mitch Marner, Nazem Kadri, and Zach Hyman as top offensive players. They will also be bringing the bought out former Minnesota Wild forward, Tyler Ennis, to town.
It will be Ennis’s first game back in Minnesota, and I would expect to hear a not so warm welcome from the Wild fans in attendance. He has looked good in the preseason, and we hope to not regret his buyout, but regardless we should expect him to be showered with boos whenever he is on the ice.
Toronto’s defense and goaltending are beatable, though Frederik Andersen can be a wall in net at times. They should pose a solid test, and would be a high-skill game regardless the outcome. If the people in the Toronto area are to be believed, this could be your 2019 Stanley Cup Champion. Might as well get a chance to see up-close what all the hype is about.
December 18, 2018 vs San Jose Sharks
Aside from the John Tavares story into July, the other big story of the summer was what the Ottawa Senators would do with their captain, Erik Karlsson. That decision was made in early September when Karlsson found himself on his way to California.
It will be a long couple month wait to see the Minnesota wild stack up against the San Jose Sharks, but it should be worth it when the Sharks arrive in St.Paul for a pre-Christmas showdown.
Minnesota Wild
Erik Karlsson will bring his defensive teammate, Brent Burns, home to Minnesota and a true test for the offensive and defensive abilities of the Minnesota Wild. The excitement from this game should be entirely on the fact of watching 2 of the best offensive defensemen in the league on the same team.
Mathew Dumba and Ryan Suter each put up 50 points last year, but Karlsson and Burns have been the top scoring defensemen in the NHL over the last 2 seasons. Putting them on the same team is a threat to score whenever one of them is on the ice.
The defensive play of the Wild will be on high alert, and the big 2 defensemen of San Jose are not the only 2 to watch out for.
The Sharks still ice a forward lineup led by Joe Pavelski, Tomas Hertl, Logan Couture, and big Joe Thornton. There are plenty of threats to look out for, and plenty of reason to believe this Sharks team could be a deep playoff contender this year.
Martin Jones in net has been one of the better goaltenders in recent years, and is still young enough (28) to be considered as a future top goaltender for many years.
I think it’s a running theme I’ve went for in these top games to see, is the teams expected to be at the top of the NHL when the season ends. I think it’s important to see where the Minnesota Wild stand matched up against these teams, but also fun for fans to see the league’s best if you can only get out to a couple games during the season.
March 3, 2019 vs Nashville Predators
It’s weird that as division rivals we have to look ahead to the month of March to find the first home game against the Nashville Predators. But that’s exactly how this season will go for the Wild and Preds.
The Predators will host the first game of the season series in October in Nashville, and then we will wait almost 5 whole months before these 2 teams will see each other again. A lot can change in 5 months, we could be watching a wild card battle or a divisional battle for first place in the Central.
The game on March 3rd is the first of 3 matchups between these 2 in March, and will likely be crucial to the final outcome of the Central division. If a team sweeps all 3 games these could be as much as a 12 point swing in one month.
The Wild went 3-1-1 in games against Nashville last season, losing both games in Nashville while winning all 3 games at Xcel Energy Center. Despite Nashville winning the Presidents’ Trophy as the best team in the NHL regular season, the Wild seemed to be able to keep pace with the Preds.
Viktor Arvidsson, Filip Forsberg, Roman Josi, P.K. Subban, and Ryan Johansen are all threats in any game. Pekka Rinne can shutdown any team on any given night. So the WIld need to be at their best again if we hope to take the season series this time around.
This game falls as a one-off home game between a couple short road trips, and will be extremely important as a refresher for the players before hitting the road again. The stay at home will likely be so short-lived it will feel like any other road game.
These can be some of the toughest game mentally, as you get home and get into the home atmosphere before jumping right back out to hostile territory again. If Minnesota wants to have positive results from following road trip, coach Boudreau will need to instill the right plan for his team during the short stop at home.
Next. Minnesota Wild Opening Night Line-Up. dark
If the Wild can win these 5 games, or at least put out a solid effort against the top teams in the league, we could be extremely optimistic heading into the NHL post season. Losing all 5 of these games could see us on the outside looking in when the season ends. Either way, these games should be extremely fun to watch live, and are my recommendations on ones to watch this season.
Keep an eye next month as I give you another Top 5. In November, we’ll be breaking down the top draft picks in Wild History.