wild/nhl

Ouch, brutal game. Back to the basics for the Wild. Too many mistakes to mention.

Wild sucks this year. Go timberwolves.

The Wild have had a good year but the fact is you can't score only 2 goals a game average and expect to be a top team. I'm not saying this team won't make the playoffs because they probably can. But I know they won't be able to outmuscle teams like Chicago, Detroit, and San Jose.

There are 10 players that have played on the top 3 lines this year. The current 9 and Latendresse. That list includes Nick Johnson, a wavier wire pickup, and "penalty kill specialist" Darroll Powe. The Captain Mikko Koivu has more even strength goals than ZERO of them.

Now lets see how Coach Yeo responds. Terrible game by the Wild. I hope Backs is embarrassed. We just seemed flat, again. The D is going from unbelievable, to uh oh, we might have a problem here. Lets see how good Yeo really is! Come on Boyz!

The bloom is off the rose for the youngsters on D. Welcome back Zanon and Lundin.

It was smoke and mirrors during the good run. They had every bounce go their way for three weeks. The wave has hit the beach and they got waxed at home by the Oilers and Flames (division rivals no less). This is NOT a playoff team.

Looks like the Mild have come back down to earth. 11 spot in the Western Conference will soon be ours again.

While the Boogaard tribute was very respectful and appropriate, it took 20 minutes and disrupted the start of the game. Backstrom played horrible and gave up two very soft goals but his team didn't help out much either. There were also a half dozen bounces that did NOT go the Wild's way so chalk it up to the pre game festivities and an off night. This team isn't going to win every game and go on continuous 5 - 6 game win streaks. It just doesn't happen in the NHL. With that said, they need to get the goal scoring going or it's going to be a tough road experience in Dec/Jan - too many games away from home to not be scoring goals. If not, one of these goaltenders needs to be traded for some more offense.

I'm really surprised that anyone on this board would question the playoff aspirations of a team that scores 2.2 goals a night and gets out-shot 41-17 on a nightly basis. Can't you guys see the vision?! Don't you see the "huge advantage in time of puck possession" and "the aggressive, up-tempo style of play" and "this team of fighters" and every other platitude served up by Yeo in the past five months??? It was cute while it lasted, but getting your skull rocked by 40 shots a game while only scoring two goals a night is just NOT a sustainable model for success. This has become Lemaire Lite. What a boring team to watch...as is always the case in St. Paul.