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Minnesota Wild: Five predictions for the Wild in the New Year

By Luke Ryan

ST. PAUL, MN - DECEMBER 31: Nino Niederreiter #22 of the Minnesota Wild and Charlie Coyle #3 of the Minnesota Wild congratulate Mikko Koivu #9 of the Minnesota Wild on his 1st period goal during a game with the Pittsburgh Penguins at Xcel Energy Center on December 31, 2018 in St. Paul, Minnesota.(Photo by Bruce Kluckhohn/NHLI via Getty Images)
ST. PAUL, MN - DECEMBER 31: Nino Niederreiter #22 of the Minnesota Wild and Charlie Coyle #3 of the Minnesota Wild congratulate Mikko Koivu #9 of the Minnesota Wild on his 1st period goal during a game with the Pittsburgh Penguins at Xcel Energy Center on December 31, 2018 in St. Paul, Minnesota.(Photo by Bruce Kluckhohn/NHLI via Getty Images) /
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ST. PAUL, MN - DECEMBER 31: Luke Kunin #19 of the Minnesota Wild warms up before a game with the Pittsburgh Penguins at Xcel Energy Center on December 31, 2018 in St. Paul, Minnesota.(Photo by Bruce Kluckhohn/NHLI via Getty Images)
ST. PAUL, MN – DECEMBER 31: Luke Kunin #19 of the Minnesota Wild warms up before a game with the Pittsburgh Penguins at Xcel Energy Center on December 31, 2018 in St. Paul, Minnesota.(Photo by Bruce Kluckhohn/NHLI via Getty Images) /

The Minnesota Wild made the play-offs yet again in 2018, however right now they’re entering 2019 on an awful run of form with just 1 win in their past 7 games.

Right now, the Minnesota Wild are at risk of losing their consecutive play-off appearance streak, especially with Dumba’s injury added to their woes. Another display on New Years’ Eve against the Pittsburgh Penguins, where they had plenty of chances but couldn’t convert, rounded out their year in poor fashion.

The team is looking ever older and none the wiser to the fact that the league no longer is challenged by their game play. On any given night, most teams can out-pace the Wild and most teams also know that they may face shot volume but from a team that lacks an out-and-out goalscorer.

Players like Zach Parise, Mikael Granlund and Jason Zucker can get the job done on any given night. They too are often afforded some decent support by the likes of Ryan Suter, Matt Dumba (when he’s not injured) and Jared Spurgeon, but this year they haven’t been able to rely on Devan Dubnyk too much.

It’s not that the team necessarily has bad players, it’s more that they lack a clear tactical advantage – you can’t have Matt Dumba sitting as high up the team’s goal scoring chart as he is.

They lack someone with speed to burn past opposition defenders and although they have the size of players like Charlie Coyle and Jordan Greenway; the Los Angeles Kings’ plight suggests that style of game-play is beyond outdated.

Quite simply, there is no easy answer for the Minnesota Wild; their roster has been built around two immovable contracts and that has been hampered tremendously by the trading of draft picks year-on-year.

You have to question where the talent will emerge from, because looking at those with the Iowa Wild, it’s not exactly packed full of amazing young talent.

Looking ahead to the calendar year of 2019; I’ve got five predictions as to what the future holds for the Minnesota Wild. I’m hoping not to be right on all of these but I wouldn’t exactly be shocked if they all came true:

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