Minnesota Wild: Power Rankings After Week One
By Luke Ryan
The Minnesota Wild haven’t exactly gotten off to the best start this season, going down to the Colorado Avalanche, then dropping a shoot-out to the Vegas Golden Knights.
Before the season commenced, the pundits, analysts and hockey media in general were writing off the Minnesota Wild’s chances.
This has been the case most years of late, but this year maybe their predictions, thoughts and suggestions about the team being too old are actually right.
The team couldn’t keep up with the speed of the Avalanche and couldn’t match possession in either game. An injection of youth though, is hindered by the lack of space to move within the salary cap.
Around the media outlets, this is reflected with very poor placings in most outlets’ power rankings for week one.
Joe Haggerty of NBC Sports places the Minnesota Wild a lowly 24th in his rankings. He points out that the team is failing to score and that ‘somebody besides Zach Parise needs to step up’.
His points ring true; Zach Parise can’t be relied on solely to produce points all year. They need better primary scoring among the top lines and some complementary secondary scoring from the bottom six.
More painful than that, he ranks the Chicago Blackhawks 2nd, Nashville Predators 3rd and Colorado Avalanche 6th.
Ryan Lambert of Yahoo Sports places the Minnesota Wild even lower, a lowly 27th. He expresses surprise to rank the tea so low, but also points out their awful shots against through the first two games.
Thank goodness for Devan Dubnyk and his ability to keep the team in a game!
TSN.ca has the Minnesota Wild ranked even lower at 28th. They too highlight the amount of shots that Dubnyk is facing and also point out their possession is lacking. Over the first two games of the season, it’s been a brutal 39.3%.
It’s not really a huge surprise to see the Minnesota Wild put into so low spots on the media’s power rankings. It’s not exactly been an amazing start to the season.
The big hope now is that the team can climb out of the rut and build on their singular point they earned in their shoot-out loss to Vegas.
It’s a rough ride ahead, but there’s still eighty games to save this season!
dark. Next. Wild need to improve their possession game