Minnesota Wild: Losses cause dip in Power Rankings perceptions
By Luke Ryan
Leaving the locals, what do some of the bigger guys think of the Minnesota Wild?
Cody Benjamin of CBS Sports doesn’t seem to think the team is doing too badly, leaving the Minnesota Wild in his top five ranked teams.
He thinks that, we as fans, should be thankful for Bruce Boudreau and his ability to get the best possible results from the team in the regular season.
Dropping us down from third is very fair given the two losses the team suffered; frankly, I’m surprised it wasn’t a bigger fall.
Sportsnet have three Canadian teams ranked above Minnesota, which actually doesn’t reek of bias, it’s probably quite fair. Realistically, the Toronto Maple Leafs have been better than us, the Winnipeg Jets and Calgary Flames, not so much, but of late, yes.
Anyhow, they have the Minnesota Wild sitting in seventh spot and in giving their quarter-season report card find it surprising that an ageing core has managed to be as effective as it has been.
Over at Yahoo, Ryan Lambert serves up one of the biggest Power Rankings drops for the Wild; moving us down from fourth, the week before, to ninth this week.
He comments that he stated the team was ‘for real’, before then seeing them fall on three of four occasions. This is one of those eating your words moments, so it’s unsurprising that the pundit wanted to rank us lower!
Also, yet another column questioning any play-off chances.
Sitting high in fourth spot on the Sports Illustrated rankings, they don’t seem to mind being proven wrong and have high praise for the recent form of Mikael Granlund.