Minnesota Wild: Losses cause dip in Power Rankings perceptions
By Luke Ryan
The Minnesota Wild came crashing back to Earth the past week as they continued a poor streak that saw three losses in four games to the Capitals, Sabres and then divisional rivals, the Blackhawks.
These all fell roughly within the same week that many pundits use for their Power Rankings. As a result, we’ll be ignoring the recent improvements against the Senators and the combative win over the Jets. Those results will be sure to boost what the analysts think of the Minnesota Wild next week!
For the most part, the line-up has remained the same; the Minnesota Wild have been relatively lucky when it comes to injuries, especially when it comes to losing star players. In past seasons, this has not been the case with Zach Parise and Ryan Suter among the names to miss decent chunks of game-time.
As a result, it’s fair to say that any scorelines are real in the sense that the Minnesota Wild aren’t being affected by having to ice less than full-strength line-ups.
Mike Harrington of Buffalo News is the first person we look to; unsurprisingly he rates his hometown Sabres in third; their win over the Wild just one of many recently.
However, despite the somewhat patchy form of late, he isn’t willing to knock Minnesota too far down his rankings. Placing the Wild fifth is only a one place drop despite two losses. He also notes that Matt Dumba has been an elite player for the side, as the first defenseman to score 10 goals in 22 games in ten years!
Heading to Ottawa and another local publication; Michael Traikos of the Ottawa Sun isn’t quite able to show the same hometown bias, as the Senators aren’t on any sort of streak.
Back-to-back losses are the sole reason he isn’t moving the Minnesota Wild from eighth spot in his rankings.
It’s actually surprising not to see a slight drop, rather than maintaining a stable spot on the back of losses, especially as one was against a lowly divisional rival in the Chicago Blackhawks.