Minnesota Wild: Need something to cheer about heading into Christmas

The Minnesota Wild are on the road to face the Pittsburgh Penguins; their second-last game before Christmas. Getting a win is vital to hopefully shape the second half of their season.

Starting the year, the Minnesota Wild looked pretty dreadful; they were getting hemmed in defensively and blown out on the scoreboard. Then they went on a winning streak and came away from Southern California with some impressive points. However, of late, things are falling apart once more.

Facing off with the Penguins is still by no means an easy task; the core of their team has multiple Stanley Cup wins to its’ name. This year though, at least in the first half of the season, they’ve been a team that you can sneak a win against.

For the Minnesota Wild, it’s vital that they head towards the Christmas break (with just the Dallas Stars remaining pre-Christmas) with a win.

Their form has been so up and down this year that the unthinkable (at least in recent years) looks like it may happen. The Wild might well end up outside of play-off contention and not achieving anywhere near their one hundred point regular season standard.

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Whilst they are still a top-ten team in goals against, they’re very much lower middling team in terms of goals for.

Also, whilst the goals against total on the standings doesn’t look too bad, it masks what has been a remarkably average year for number one goaltender, Devan Dubnyk. The 0.911 save percentage doesn’t exactly match up to his previous campaigns.

Given he’s down on his career average 0.916 and down on last year’s 0.918, you have to hope it’s not a permanent slump and is just a phase.

Goal-scoring is being shared among the team thankfully, because having just four players above double figures for goals this far through the year is a little disconcerting. Even more disconcerting when one of those players is (currently injured) defenseman, Matt Dumba.

The ideal result against Sidney Crosby and company would be a blow-out like that they scored against the Montreal Canadiens and Florida Panthers. Quite frankly though, as long as they can come away with a win, any result would be good.

We need to see a Minnesota Wild that is playing right and not endlessly hemmed into their zone taking shots against.

A win against the Penguins would certainly be a nice early Christmas present; but as we’ve seen before, the Wild need to build on a win and maintain a decent streak, not just pick up one here and there.