Another game, another loss, another injured Wild player

Well, after Saturday night's latest Minnesota Wild loss, the number of Wild walking wounded now ruled out of the rest of this season-from-hell, is now up to five (Bouchard, Latendresse, Falk, Spurgeon, and now Matt Cullen, who had his right index finger broken, by a Christian Ehrhoff shot) and with five of the team's seven remaining games at home, the question has to be asked: Was the schedule as much a part of the team's problems this season as the concussions, groin problems and general poor play in December, January, February and March? Or was it the failure of the 'Director of Player Safety'?

The fact that the months of November, December and January were very much road-heavy months for the Wild, exasperated an already tenuous situation for the team's paper-thin lineup of talent. After the back-to-back nights of December 13 and 14, when Bouchard was re-concussed by Zack Bogosian of Winnipeg, and Chicago's Viktor Stahlberg rang the bell of Latendresse, respectively, Wild fans knew this team was going nowhere but down, from the lofty first-place heights they had been in, just a few days before.

The fact that without two of their top 6 forwards in the lineup, the offense was going to stall. But no one knew it was going to stall this bad. Then there was the shoulder injury to Mikko (Kaptain) Koivu, the groin troubles of both goaltenders (Niklas Backstrom and Josh Harding), and you had a recipe for trouble. And, you already had tapped the Houston Aeros affiliate for all the talent that they could afford to send.

But nothing prepared Wild fans for the next two months following the All-Star Game, when the Wild were turned into the NHL's version of Alfred, the butler from 'Batman', -- 'At your service, sirs'.

Disasterous loss after disasterous loss. Beating the Wild was almost becoming comical. From the Nashville disaster on January 31, when the Wild blew a 4-1 lead at home in under 13 minutes, through the embarrassing 3-1 home loss to a Columbus team in 'fire sale' mode on February 11, through a embarrassing 7-1 loss to Colorado on March 6 (thank God, that game at least was in Denver), and onto another come-from-ahead loss to lowly Carolina on St. Patrick's Day. That Saturday, as the party raged on outside the 'X', the funeral was being held inside the arena.

And now, in two successive nights, two more add to the list of Wild walking wounded. Don't forget that on Thursday night, Calgary's Alex Tanguay gets away with an elbow shot to Jared Spurgeon, effectively ending the season for the defenseman some call 'the Minnow', for his small size. Surely, Wild fans thought, the NHL would look at this for some supplemental discipline. Right?

Uh, No.

Seems that the Wild don't matter to NHL disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan. 'Sheriff Shanny', as he has been known, turns a blind eye to discipline when it comes to matters involving the Minnesota Wild. They aren't even worth his attention, even when the rules are clearly broken and players are getting concussed needlessly. Shanahan's official title is 'Director of Player Safety'. But, excuse me, if we fans point out that his title means for ALL players, not just those of teams going to this season's playoffs. Shanhan is as hypocritical as his predecessor, Colin Campbell, ever was or could have been. Player safety should be pretty straightforward; either the player involved was concussed, or he was not. If he was, and it was the direct result of an elbow (Tanguay's), then supplemental discipline should be assessed. Simple.

But Wild fans are already accustomed to the NHL not doing anything about incidents involving the Wild. Nothing was done about Bogosian when he ran Bouchard; nothing was done about the beatings in the crease both goalies were taking; nothing will be done about the Tanguay elbow.

Player safety? Contradiction in terms, if you ask me.

As the other shoe drops...again, and again, and again, and again...

Disasterous Minnesota Wild season nears its' inevitable conclusion, minus seven regulars, give or take

Three weeks remaining. 11 games. 7 at home, 4 on the road. When Wild fans looked at the schedule in July, they saw a golden, once-in-a-decade opportunity to make most of your run for a playoff spot at home, in front of your own fans, with sell-out after sell-out, despite the weak economy.

Yeah, right. wasn't there a song about this, from the 70's? 'I Like Dreamin'...'

The reality is nearly the exact opposite of what I have stated above. Oh, there is the 11 games at home during March and April, of the last 19 games overall. But with a record since March 1 of 1-6-1, and since the Dec. 13 beatdown at Winnipeg's MTS Centre -- the game which, quite frankly, derailed the Wild season's juggernaut --  this Wild team has done the nearly impossible, gone from best record in the NHL on Dec. 13 to the third-worst record in the league this Sunday morning -- and no one can seem to find the switch to turn on the old Wild once again.

The Wild's record-setting futility streak, of losing five straight in front of the home folks, emphasizes the need for further development of the roster, not only for depth but for breadth as well. You not only need more players, but you need better players as well. Cleaning house just isn't enough. You really need to blow this thing to hell and start over. If you haven't adopted another team for the 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs, you are wholeheartedly advised by this blogger to do so. Now.

For this Wild season will end, three weeks from yesterday, with possibly the last game ever for the Phoenix Coyotes franchise, as an Arizona sports team. Nobody attends their games at Jobing.com Arena, but they are still in the playoff chase. But the Wild, and their 'Team of 18,000', are not.

Did I want the Wild to make the playoffs, even though I was as skeptical as everyone else when the Wild were going thru their November winning streak? Sure did! Did they disappoint me this January and February? Sure did! This 'March into hell' month is just depressing as a Wild fan. (Now I know how Toronto Maple Leafs fans feel. Just think of this times 40, and you somewhat understand your Leafs' fans frustrations.)

But the selling of hope -- as the 'new generation' of Wild players, led by the (hopefully, he's not signed yet) arrival of Mikael Granlund from Finland's HIFK -- continues, even as the NHL and the Players' Association veer ominously towards a labor dispute, one which threatens to disrupt, if not cancel, the 2012-13 season in its' entirety. The fact that two of the most stubborn figures in North American sport -- NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr, he who helped make the Mendoza-line banjo-hitting baseball player a multi-millionaire -- are squaring off against each other, does not bode well for the hockey-loving NHL fan.

So enjoy the losing, Wild faithful. For in three weeks, it will all be over. Except the angst of 'we should have been there'. Because a season which started with so much promise, cannot end soon enough.

Random thoughts after the dust has settled...

The dust has finally settled from the pre-Trade Deadline wheeling and dealing for the Minnesota Wild.

And, to the dismay of the fanbase, nothing has really changed. The Wild are still precipitously close to entering the top 5 in the 2012 NHL Draft, due to the club's continued inability to score goals in a timely manner (or, as in Detroit last Friday night, at all). The lack of offensive punch is a major worry to everyone in the organization as well, from GM Chuck Fletcher on down. The Wild, who had everything in place to execute the unbelieveable 3-goal comeback on Thursday night in Montreal, wound up having a Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan-esque moment, when Devin Setoguchi blew his shootout shot attempt, after falling down and losing control of the puck. The only thing missing was Setoguchi crying, 'Why? Why?' after the blown chance.

Yes, Setoguchi did help engineer the comeback, scoring the tying goal and assisting on another in the final few minutes of the third period, but it will be the shootout opportunity lost that will haunt the Wild the rest of the season. Add that to Tuesday's now-strangely-familiar 4-0 blowout loss on national TV to the Los Angeles Kings, and your 0-2-1 week for the boys in Iron Range Red was made.

You trade the longest-tenured Wild player -- Nick Schultz -- for Tom Gilbert, a similar-but-different Minnesota boy (Bloomington Jefferson) who came from the hapless Edmonton Oilers, and what happens? He gives up the game winner vs. LA, and reminds Wild fans how difficult it is to be the steady, stay-at-home defenseman that Schultz actually was.

You trade Marek Zidlicky to the New Jersey Devils, for a boatload of soon-to-be free agent talent (including two former Wild players, Kurtis Foster and Stephane Veilleux) and possibly two draft picks, and what happens? Zidlicky promptly goes -5, and Jersey fans are incensed. The Wild are immediately relieved of over $3M of salary at the end of this season, which means that if the salary cap does NOT go up, the Wild are nearly $20M under the cap...just enough to possibly be in the running, for two of the NHL's premiere free-agents-to-be, Nashville's Ryan Suter and Zach Parise, who just happens to be toiling away currently with...the New Jersey Devils.

You trade Greg Zanon to the Boston Bruins for Steven Kampfer, a 23-year-old ex-Wolverine who no one knows much about. He still hasn't played his first game in a Wild uniform, although that will probably end this evening in tonight's twilighter vs. the Colorado Avalanche. It looks like he will be paired with Gilbert tonight vs. the Avs, so hopefully the lost (Gilbert) won't lead the 'newbie' down the wrong path. Zanon was going to become an unrestricted free agent (UFA) anyhow, so why not get something for him?

So, where do you go from here? Do you actually try to make the playoffs, try to make a last-minute charge for the No. 8 seed (the Wild are seven points behind current No. 8 seed Dallas this Sunday morning) or do you throw in the towel, play as many of the kids as possible, and make the fan base suffer thru the remainder of the fourth consecutive non-playoff season?

Now I know that three of the Wild's top six forwards are unavailable due to various injuries now. They have been for weeks at a time this season, especially after the Dec. 13/14 games where two players suffered concussions in back-to-back games. But the fact is there is no talent in the pool right now. It's been drained.

Reminds me of limbo. 'How LOW can you go?'

How bad into limbo are the Wild right now? And what can be done to pull out of the funk? Or, do you just wait for June and the NHL Entry Draft to try and get better?

I guess we all just wait and see...

Did anyone think it was going to be THIS bad?

Did you think it was going to be this bad to be a Minnesota Wild fan this season? Really?

Well, it has indeed gotten to the point where we are officially looking for 'moral' victories, not the two-points-in-the-standings kind. Because, for this group of Wild players, that kind of victory is the kind that is seemingly out of reach right now.

The fact that the Columbus Blue Jackets have a better record since Dec. 13 (8-19-2) than the Wild (5-16-6), despite the Jackets sacking their head coach and replacing him with ex-Wild coach Todd Richards, shows the depths of which the Wild face the rest of the season with.

Yes, Minnesota. It's THAT bad.

The fact that this Wild team cannot score, and cannot stop other teams from scoring, can no longer be denied by anyone who has even half a concept, as to how NHL hockey should be played. Yesterday's embarrassing 4-0 loss to the St. Louis Blues -- a team which the Wild toyed with in November, and lost to in a shootout in January -- again showed not only the depth but the breadth of the Wild's woes.

And today, the rest of North America will see how bad the Wild can get, as the defending Stanley Cup Champions, the Boston Bruins, will take on the Wild in a game seen nationally in the USA on NBC, and in Canada on TSN2. This game should be a cakewalk for the B's, as the Wild will feature no less than seven players who, realistically, should be with the Houston Aeros this Sunday morning.

With Chad Rau and Jeff Taffe arriving this morning from Abbottsford, B.C., -- where the Aeros were getting swept in a two-game series vs. the Heat this weekend -- the number of Aeros players currently up with the 'big club' exceeds the half-dozen mark, for God-only-knows how long, as the chess game which is the Wild roster gets played once again.

(I only wish I could get the commission for all those airline tickets, shuttling players between the Aeros and the Wild.)

The fact is that most Wild fans were somewhat realistic in the beginning of the season regarding the team's playoff chances. I even said before the season started that this team could be anywhere between a 7 seed in the playoffs and in 10th place in the West, two positions out of the playoffs. I changed it later to say that they would make the playoffs, in the midst of the team's record 9-game winning streak.

Well, folks, I'm changing it back. Back to anywhere down to 10th place. And, maybe even worse than that.

The only team this Wild club can beat right now with any regularity is the Colorado Avalanche, a team whose lineup is actually weaker than the Wild's impudent roster. The Wild can't beat anyone else in the NHL right now. In the last week, the Wild have lost to three teams who, if the season ended today, would be out of the playoffs, like they are (Columbus, Anaheim and Winnipeg). In fact, if you want to go back to Feb. 1, they could add a fourth non-playoff team (Dallas) and throw in another loss to the Jackets in that mix.

And then, if you go back one more day, there was the embarrassing, destructive, come-from-ahead throw-away loss to the Nashville Predators on Jan. 31st. No one, most notably GM Chuck Fletcher and Head Coach Mike Yeo, can seemingly do anything to stop the slide down the mountain. The players have seemingly given up trying to win games (sorry, I'm not buying that they are still buying into the system.)

The Wild's system is broken. It's time to fix the system. Before more irreparable damage is done.

Introducing... your .300 Minnesota Wild!

It really sucks to be a loyal Minnesota Wild fan right about now. Think about it for a minute...

In the last 60 days, the Wild have played 25 games. In that 25-game stretch, the local sextet has a 5 win, 15 loss, 5 overtime-loss record, for 15 points. That's an embarrassing, almost astonishing .300 record.

Now, while fans of most other NHL teams would be absolutely up in arms over this predicament, the fact is that the team has no one else to blame but the other guys in the room. Not the coaching staff, not the adminsitration, not any of the supporting cast. Just the men in the room themselves.

I have to wonder if the Wild have stopped listening to the coaching staff...again.  Like last season, when after getting demolished in Nashville and Dallas in back-to-back nights, the Wild decided, on their own, to just go thru the motions of playing out the schedule. And, the last three weeks became some of the worst weeks of Wild hockey, since the inception of the franchise in 2000.

(Remember the snowman (8-0) that Montreal put up on Sunday afternoon, March 20? The 6-3 blowout by St. Louis two days later?)

This team is perilously close to THAT KIND of finish. Not a playoff team any longer, the Wild have already set an NHL record for futility during the season, having been the first team that was in 1st Place in the entire LEAGUE for more than 5 days, to fall completely out of the playoffs in the same season.

Having long since moved out of the penthouse, the Wild have been periously close to falling right into the outhouse. This team needs heart. This team needs passion. This team needs a collective soul.

And, this team desperately needs to get rid of the dead weight -- again -- that has accumulated on the roster. Zidlicky, Zanon, Lundin, any forward with a no-trade/no-movement clause not named Koivu, and anyone else that can be moved out the door.

While being comfortable near the playoff race is OK for some Minnesota sports fans, the economics of the sport require that teams win in order to be successful. And, folks, would YOU call this team a success this season?

Me neither.

Shootout Dilemma: play a losing hand, or play to win?

I know goalies, (by their nature of BEING goalies), are fragile creatures. That's a given.

But the Minnesota Wild cannot continue to work like hell for 65 minutes, then stand by on the bench and watch, as Niklas Backstrom consistenly loses games in the shootout.

Michael Russo had some stats on this today in the S-T: as we already know, Backstrom is the WORST SHOOTOUT GOALIE in the entire NHL. Backstrom is an embarrassing 15-28 lifetime, with a .563 save percentage. This season, he is 3-4, and opponents have scored on 12 of 22 shot attempts, for a miserable .450 save percentage.

To work as hard as the Wild did last night vs. the Dallas Stars, and have all that effort come down to that galling stat, is ridiculous.

I'm sorry, but radical problems (such as losing shootouts and standings points) require radical solutions. I know this would hurt the psyche of possibly the entire team, but it also might just serve as the ultimate wake-up call, if once -- just once -- Josh Harding replaced Backstrom for the shootout. Harding could start on the bike (to get warmed up without getting too far away from the bench,) a few minutes before the end of regulation. That would also send a signal to the rest of the team, to get their act together -- NOW -- or else. If the game did indeed go to the shootout, Harding could come out like the Knight in shining armor, after the ice was dry scraped for the shootout.

Yes, I know we are dealing with emotions and fragile psyches, but as I said earlier, to consistenly know that you have a better chance to LOSE the game if you go to the shootout, than to WIN the game in the shootout, has got to play on the entire squad as well. And, with the fragileness of which the Wild psyche has been since the disasterous game at MTS Centre in Winnipeg Dec. 13, the last thing the Wild need is to not be rewarded for their efforts, because their goaltending cannot survive play in the shootout.


Of course, there is another way to get around all this: win in regulation. Don't allow the other team to even get to the shootout. Then you wouldn't have to worry about your No. 1 goalie being a shootout sieve.

'Mamma Otter' should be ashamed

Steve Ott's mother should call up her son, one of the NHL's biggest instigators, the reigning Western Conference's biggest cheap-shot artist (now that Matt Cooke is a Penguin, and Chris Neil is still in Ottawa), and tell him he gets no more presents.

If I was a Dallas Stars fan, I'd be embarrassed in Ott's performance last night. Now, granted, he was once again a beast in the face-off circle (winning 5 of 6), but the nine minutes in penalties he took last night, trying in vain to aggravate the Minnesota Wild, was one of the dumbest exhibitions of 'me first' hockey even I had seen in a while. (And, as a Wild fan, we've seen a lot of those this last five weeks.)

Ott's antics, which grow especially weary on the offensively-challenged and thin-rostered Wild, need to be reviewed by the League, if they are indeed concerned for 'player safety'. Is hitting a player (Darroll Powe) after the whistle a good example of 'safe play'? Is hitting a player when he is already down after the play has been blown dead (Cal Clutterbuck) an example of 'safe play'? Is hitting a player (Powe, again) in a fight, after the other combatant has stopped fighting, and has been restrained by the official, an example of 'safe' conduct?

Hardly, except in the eyes of the NHL, where 'Sheriff' Brendan Shanahan, will once again turn a blind eye to Ott's antics, based in part to what team it was done to. Shanahan hated the Wild when he played for Detroit, hated them when he was a Ranger, and still hates the Wild today, when he is a NHL pseudo-big shot.

Ott will skate away, to terrorize other teams whom have already been victimized (like Anaheim, the Stars' opponent in each of the next two games) and whose roster is about to be gutted at the upcoming trade deadline.

Saying 'I don't hate your team' is one thing, Shanny. Doing something about the problem of incidiary pugilism, for the sole purpose of personal vendetta, is a whole 'nother can o' worms.

The Wild took this Ott-inspired attack as inspiration for the 5-2 win Saturday night, as the Wild took their vengeance out in the right way, the proper way. The way you should. Scoreboard!

(Maybe Shanahan will have a hearing on the Wild, for taking advantage of the poor, hapless Stars.)

Now, on the other side of the coin, Chad Rau's family should be absolutely ecstatic this Sunday morning. Chad scored his first NHL goal, in his first NHL game, in front of his family, while just 6 miles to the west, little brother Kyle was just leaving Mariucci Arena, after helping the University of Minnesota split a weekend series with Colorado College.

Rau's mom and dad were beaming, like only parents who have their offspring achieve the success they never could, can. There is nothing like this for a parent. You say to yourselves, 'we've done our job'. And so, we congratulate the Rau family on their child's achievements. You done good.

Now, two of the remaining three games between the Wild and the Stars will be at the AAC in Dallas, including one less than two weeks from now, And, more than likely, it will denegrate into a donnybrook, more than likely led by...Ott. The Wild have lost their last 14 games in Texas; will the rememberance of this game be enough to break the NHL's longest visitor's losing streak in the same arena?

And as for Steve Ott's mom? He'd better watch out, or she'll be sitting outside his condo in the 'Plex, rolling pin in hand...