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Minnesota Wild: Start the season with a strong October

By Cody Defoe

ST. PAUL, MN - OCTOBER 25: After scoring a 2nd period goal Jonas Brodin #25 of the Minnesota Wild is congratulated by Charlie Coyle #3 of the Minnesota Wild and Jared Spurgeon #46 of the Minnesota Wild during a game between the Minnesota Wild and Los Angeles Kings at Xcel Energy Center on October 25, 2018 in St. Paul, Minnesota.(Photo by Bruce Kluckhohn/NHLI via Getty Images)
ST. PAUL, MN - OCTOBER 25: After scoring a 2nd period goal Jonas Brodin #25 of the Minnesota Wild is congratulated by Charlie Coyle #3 of the Minnesota Wild and Jared Spurgeon #46 of the Minnesota Wild during a game between the Minnesota Wild and Los Angeles Kings at Xcel Energy Center on October 25, 2018 in St. Paul, Minnesota.(Photo by Bruce Kluckhohn/NHLI via Getty Images) /
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VANCOUVER, BC – OCTOBER 29: Troy Stecher #51 of the Vancouver Canucks looks on dejected as Ryan Suter #20 of the Minnesota Wild is congratulated by teammates after scoring during their NHL game at Rogers Arena October 29, 2018 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. (Photo by Jeff Vinnick/NHLI via Getty Images) /

The Minnesota Wild completed the month of October with their best record since the 2015-16 Season. A complete team effort resulted in a strong month.

The month of October for the Minnesota Wild went much the same way as most of the games along the same way. Minnesota started slow, going 1-2-2 through the first 5 games and looking quite sluggish for the better part of most games.

Late in the games, namely the third period, Minnesota looked like a much better team by winning the third period in most games. Late in the month, the Minnesota Wild appeared to be finding their stride and starting to skate better early in games.

Following the lackluster start to the season, Minnesota went on to win 6 of their next 7 games and slide up to third place in the Central Division.

They finished the month of October as the only NHL team without a regulation loss on home ice, and an impressive 2 road wins on top of that. Registering 16 of a possible 24 points in October, the Wild are on pace with the 2015-16 and 2016-17 teams before the down year last season.

Most importantly, the team escaped October with the only injuries being minor ones to Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Hendricks. Each player missed 6 games due to injury in October, but neither’s contributions were sorely missed.

Mikko Koivu‘s day off to welcome his new child was the biggest missed game of the month, and if the Minnesota Wild can say that their biggest players only missed games for positive like that, then this team should be in good shape going forward.

The largest negative of October could be that the team finished with a goal differential of Zero, with 35 goals for and 35 goals against, through 12 games. This is something that will need to be worked on going forward.

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