Minnesota Wild: Facing Pacific Division rivals in Western Canada

The Minnesota Wild are heading West this week. Having already completed the West Coast trip to California (quite successfully, I might add), they now face the Western Canadian contingent of the Pacific Division.

First up, the Minnesota Wild head to British Columbia to face off with the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday evening, that’s followed by a trip through Alberta encompassing the Calgary Flames on Thursday and the Edmonton Oilers on Friday. Looking at the takeaways from their encounter with the Toronto Maple Leafs, there’s a lot of work to be done.

The Vancouver Canucks seem like the most likely chance for the team to get back to winning ways. Despite a highly impressive start to the season and the form of rookie forward, Elias Pettersson, the team now finds itself in the basement of the Pacific Division, propped up only by the disastrous Los Angeles Kings.

Vancouver, much like the Minnesota Wild, are in the midst of a three-game losing streak that both teams will be desperate to end on Tuesday.

Their line-up is a mish-mash of young, skill players and slightly more physical guys like Jay Beagle and the newly acquired Josh Leivo, whom the Wild faced off against just a few nights ago.

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From the Pacific coast, the challenge steps up a notch; Calgary are flying high at the top of the division and are finally showing a level of play that everyone thought was there all along, given their roster.

Surprisingly, they have relied on David Rittich in between the pipes, rather than the far more experienced Mike Smith.

Maybe, given Devan Dubnyk‘s recent struggles, the Minnesota Wild can look at their example and give Alex Stalock an extended stint in net.

This game would appear to be the toughest task on paper, but that’d be underestimating the Edmonton Oilers, who appear to be turning a corner since the arrival of new head coach, Ken Hitchcock.

The key, as always with them, is to limit the effectiveness of Connor McDavid. That’ll be no mean feat for the likes of Jonas Brodin, Ryan Suter and Jared Spurgeon, especially on the second night of a back-to-back.

It’s not very easy, given the Minnesota Wild’s recent form, to be optimistic about this particular road-trip, but I’m hoping to be happily surprised. Four points from six is achievable and that should be the goal.