Brand New Year, Same Old Wild Problems

New Year's. Time to re-start everything. Time to turn the calendar over, and renew your committment to making your life better in the New Year,

Oh, how I really wish the Minnesota Wild would follow that philosophy.

The fact of the matter is that despite their recent success (two wins vs. Calgary, wins vs. Colorado and San Jose in the last two weeks), this Wild team is, at best, a .500 hockey club. A testament to middling performance. A team which, if this season so far were made into a commercial, would come out like the Education Minnesota union ad during the elections -- "Mediocrity, Mediocrity, ME-DI-OCRITY!"

The reality is that until the Wild can once again upgrade their forwards to a level of, say, a St. Louis, or the LA Kings, or even this afternoon's opponents, the formerly-lowly Phoenix Coyotes, the Wild will be mired with a Calgary Flames team which is on the verge of a total rebuild, and the near-perpetual bottom feeders, the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Edmonton Oilers, teams who are destined to be cannon fodder for the likes of the Detroits and Chicagos of the Western Conference.

How bad are the Wild viewed, especially away from Minnesota?

CBC's Pierre LeBrun, with Kelly Hrudey commenting on Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday night from Pittsburgh's Heinz Field, where they were doing the Washington-Pittsburgh Winter Classic, came out and said that the Wild are 'not a sexy team' right now, and do not even deserve hosting the Winter Classic (although they wouldn't have had the warm weather problems they did in the Steel City yesterday). He also said that Philadelphia (home of Comcast, who will purchase NBC from GE later this month) and Colorado (who's Invesco Field at Mile High would be an 80,000-seat bonanza, for a game vs. either the Detroit Red Wings or the Dallas Stars) are the current front-runners for the 2012 game, a game which the Wild ownership covets dearly.

LeBrun's comments should have been viewed as an alarm bell, ringing throughout 317 Washington Street in Downtown St. Paul. It's time to get serious as to what direction the Wild need to go in to get where they really need to be -- the Stanley Cup Playoffs -- and soon.

They have to get involved this season at the trade deadline. And at the rate this team is going, they certainly would not be construed as 'buyers'. No way. They need to unload salary, and quickly. Antti Miettinen, Andrew Brunette, Chuck Kobasew all need to be shown the proverbial door. Two other Wild players -- John Madden and Jose Theodore -- are also unrestricted free agents at the end of this season. But there are two Wild players who's output underscores the fact they need a change of scenery.

Cam Barker and James Sheppard, your taxis are waiting to take you to the airport. One-way.

Sheppard, injured in pre-training-camp while ATV'ing in Colorado, needs a new start. Somewhere else. The second biggest draft day bust in Wild history (behind A. J. Thelen), the only thing Shep is doing right now for the Wild, is dragging down the team's salary cap to zero. They won't get anything out of him this season. Anything you get in return for him, (even a used puck bag), should be considered a plus for the Wild. Just get his name off the books.

Barker, acquired in the Kim Johnsson-Nick Leddy trade from Chicago, has probably been the single biggest stalagmite since Martin Skoula departed after the 2008-09 season. He doesn't hit. He doesn't check. Quite frankly, other than take up space on the roster, he really doesn't do much of anything, which is evident in his -12 plus/minus rating, worse than the rest of the Wild defense combined.

And who(m)ever told the Wild forwards that the fans don't want 'garbage' goals at home? The way that this team doesn't score, we fans can't be begging for the 'pretty' goal. Beggars can't be choosers. The Wild faithful will take goals, any way the Wild can deliver them.

Let's hope the New Year will right the Wild's ship of state. Because, the dinghy is still leaking...

Time for a Change?

Something -- nee, anything -- needs to be done if the Minnesota Wild are to salvage anything from the 2010-2011 season.

After getting shelled for 5 or more goals in three of their last four games, two of which were at home, the time has come for the Wild management to do something about this team's malaises. The days of taking whole periods of games off has to stop. And, it has to stop NOW.

Yes. different players (most notably Nick Schultz and Captain Mikko Koivu) have taken the 'fall on the sword' for recent team bad performances. But, it's not just one or two players that take whole periods off. It's the whole damn TEAM that is taking periods off.

This cannot be allowed to continue. The fact of the matter is that if the Wild are serious in an attempt to even qualify for the 2011 Stanley Cup Playoffs, they need to right the ship of state NOW, or else face a long, cold winter of discontent -- something, quite frankly, that this franchise has never really faced before. Unless they get going, and soon, the only post-season activity that will be hockey-related at the 'X', will be the 2011 NHL Entry Draft June 24 & 25.

Should this poor performance continue, it will make four seasons since the Wild will have qualified for the post-season. The statistics (yes, I know, lies, damn lies, and statistics; but these don't lie, people) speak for themselves:

• The Wild are being outshot 117-54 in the second period of the last nine games (going back to the game in Atlanta, Nov. 11), and 79-24 in the second period of the last five games alone. In fact, the Wild rank 30th -- that's right, dead last -- in shots on goal overall this season. And this for a team which is supposed to have a 'new and improved' offense, under Head Coach Todd Richards.
• Niklas Backstrom, who was held out of the Nashville victory on Friday, should start thinking of getting a lawyer, and suing his defense for non-support. His goals-against average has ballooned from 1.90 to 2.66 in his last three starts, all of which 'featured' the Wild giving up five, six, and seven goals, against the NY Rangers, Philadelphia and Colorado, respectively. Should the Wild start Jose Theodore in their next game (against Calgary on Monday night, in the Saddledome), Backstrom would start against the Phoenix Coyotes at home, on Wednesday night, against a Coyotes team which has scored 4 or more goals in 5 of their last 8 games, winning 7 of those last 8 games, including a sweep of all three Western Canadian teams (Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver) on the road last week (something the Wild have never achieved, by the way).
• The next seven games for the Wild (five of which are, thankfully, on the road...I don't feel as guilty shutting the TV off and going to bed, as leaving a home game early) are against Calgary (twice, home and away), Phoenix (same, home and away) and at Dallas, LA Kings and Anaheim. The fact is that the Wild, as they are playing now, stand a better-than-even chance of losing at least 5 of those 7 games, and realistically could find themselves out of the playoff race in the Western Conference before Dec. 19, the start of the NHL's Christmas holiday roster freeze.

The Wild are also hamstrung with three players on injured reserve (Josh Harding, Guillaume Latendresse, Pierre-Marc Bouchard) for which GM Chuck Fletcher stubbornly refuses to request Long-Term Injured Reserve (LTIR) status to get cap relief, to bring in another player who may actually help this club turn its' fortunes around, whether it be via trade, free-agent signing (Owen Nolan is still out there, as example) or otherwise. Now, whether he is trying to 'save' his cap space, so he has more to use later on or whatever, the fact remains that there may not be a 'LATER', if he doesn't do something about turning the fortunes of the club NOW.

The Wild are in free fall, and everyone -- from Owner Craig Leipold, to the most casual fan -- knows it. Will anything be done before they hit rock bottom? The people who DO have all the answers, aren't saying. And the paying public? Those who are 'stakeholders' in this franchise? We're not pleased. And if we aren't pleased, we won't come to games anymore. We'll stop helping pay the bills.

For as fans, the best response to apathetic play, is our own apathy.

It was SO bad, I went to bed

Canucks strike back at weary Wild, JT60 with 5-1 trashing

The Minnesota Wild ship, which fans thought had come in after last Sunday's 'bag skate' practice, ingloriously sank near the mouth of the Fraser River late Friday night.

The Vancouver Canucks, showing how and why they are considered one of the front-runners in the NHL's Western Conference, trashed the Wild with a 5-1 beating, so as to say 'Oh, Yeah? Sez You!!' after Tuesday night's Wild 6-2 win, against the Canucks in St. Paul.

Backup goaltender Jose 'JT60' Theodore took the loss, but made 35 saves in the process. The Canucks took 70 shot attempts, which had to have been some sort of record. This Wild team had no jump at all. This game reminded me of the pre-season. It was so bad, I actually went to bed after the second period. I knew the boys didn't have it in them.

Anyhow, the Wild start a 5-game homestand next Monday; 4 of the 5 are against teams which made the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season. This may, or may not, be the end of the line for Coach Todd Richards, depending on how far out of hand things get in the next two weeks.

Next Game: vs. Los Angeles, Monday, Oct. 25, 7:00 PM Central (5:00 PM Pacific) Time, Xcel Energy Center. (TV: Versus, TSN2; both in HD)