Wild Need to Start Stringing Wins Together

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Twenty-Eight games into the regular season, the Minnesota Wild are stuck in 10th place in the Western Conference. Plagued by inconsistency, they simply can not win more than one game in a row lately. In their last 11 games, they’ve gone win, loss, win, loss, win, loss, win, loss, win, loss, win.

A team with this much talent should not be out of the current playoff picture. You can blame the goaltending, but in reality the team just needs to get it together. Wild forward Zach Parise agrees.

“You don’t want to put yourself in that situation where you’re forced to string together eight wins just to have a sniff,” Parise said. “Regardless of the games in hand, we’re still five points back from Winnipeg. That’s not good enough. We should be better. We’re underachieving. It had to be addressed. Like I said, it was long overdue.”

While it has improved, I don’t recall many contenders with the 26th ranked power play in the league. In 92 opportunities, the Wild’s power play has generated just 12 goals. We’d like that number to be doubled and if it was the Wild would likely have 2-4 more wins. To be as blunt as possible, if the power play woes continue you probably won’t be watching your favorite hockey team in the playoffs.

Before the Coyotes contest, Head Coach Mike Yeo tried to light a fire under his team.

“It would be a mistake to not think that our backs aren’t against the wall a little bit here. We’re behind.”

“We’re tired of being on the cusp, we’re tired of being close. And we need to demand better than what we’ve been bringing,” Yeo said.

“We’re better than what we’ve been showing consistently. We can look at last game and we can say we were close and we could have won the game, but we can’t accept saying that… It would be a mistake to not think that our backs aren’t against the wall a little bit here. We’re behind.”

The Wild have played the least amount of games in the Western Conference, which is slightly annoying. Coming off of a MUCH needed win in Arizona, they take the ice next against a Corey Crawford-less Chicago Blackhawks team that is currently second in the West. It’s going to be one heck of a challenge, but in the same respect a win could catapult them with a four-game home stand on the horizon.

Dec 13, 2014; Glendale, AZ, USA; Minnesota Wild forward

Charlie Coyle

(3) passes the puck under pressure from Arizona Coyotes forward

Shane Doan

(19) in the second period of the NHL game at Gila River Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jennifer Stewart-USA TODAY Sports

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