Post by Minnesota Wild on Nov 19, 2022 22:05:39 GMT -6
Welcome to the sixth edition of Wild Times
Eighteen games into the 2022-2023 regular season, and the Minnesota Wild sit 32nd overall in the league with a 5-12-1 record. Management, players, and staff absolutely bewildered. "It's been a humbling season so far. To enter the year on a high horse, thinking we made major improvements on the roster just to spin tires right out of the gate. It's not what we expected at all." Wolf said.
It's a curious case for the Minnesota Wild. A top 6 boasting of Kopitar, MacKinnon, Benn, Kuznetsov, Atkinson, Teravainen. Josi, Seider and Co on the blueline, with one of the leagues top goalies in Oettinger. On paper this team look poised to challenge for the top of the central division. The Wild actually rank 1st place in the league allowing the least amount of goals.... yet see themselves dead last in the standings. How is the leagues best defensive team in 32nd place? It's quite a curious case, indeed. "The numbers are really wacky. We actually have good performing underlying stats, we have the leagues top defense right now. The problem is we're only scoring about one goal a game, so no matter how many pucks you keep out of your own net, if you're not scoring you're not winning."
Could it just be a slow start, bad puck luck, or both? 9 of the Wild's 13 losses have only been by one goal. "We haven't come out on the positive side of a one goal game all season. When we win we outscore our opponents by 3 or more goals, but when we've lost we've lost all 9 of our one-goal contests." Regardless of the really bizarre stats generating out of Minnesota, excuses aren't going to generate wins. "I genuinely feel our season so far has been an anomaly. This team did very well in the pre-season. Then we start the season and to have the least fewest goals scored against, and to be losing all of these one goal games, I do believe over the course of the year we'll slowly climb out of the basement, because the underlying stats suggest we are performing better than what our current record suggests." Wolf reiterated.
Despite the hopeful claims from the Minnesota brass that they anticipate the season turning around, they weren't about to sit on their hands and not try to spark change in the lockeroom. Late Saturday night the Wild made a deal with the Florida Panthers. Going to Florida is long time Wild defenseman Jonas Brodin. In exchange, the Wild are recieving young defenseman Sean Durzi and two draft picks.
"It's hard to move Brodin. If we were performing up to our expectations this trade doesn't happen. But with the season still young and salvagable, it was necessary for us to make a deal like this to try and spark a chemistry change amongst our line-up. We're high on Durzi, we feel he's a young up and coming defenseman and we needed to allocate a bit more of our focus on the future. We thank Brodin for all of his service in a Wild uniform, but we are excited to add Durzi to the team and see his continued growth within our organization."
Will the Wild turn their season around? Tune in next time to find out in our future editions of Wild Times
It's a curious case for the Minnesota Wild. A top 6 boasting of Kopitar, MacKinnon, Benn, Kuznetsov, Atkinson, Teravainen. Josi, Seider and Co on the blueline, with one of the leagues top goalies in Oettinger. On paper this team look poised to challenge for the top of the central division. The Wild actually rank 1st place in the league allowing the least amount of goals.... yet see themselves dead last in the standings. How is the leagues best defensive team in 32nd place? It's quite a curious case, indeed. "The numbers are really wacky. We actually have good performing underlying stats, we have the leagues top defense right now. The problem is we're only scoring about one goal a game, so no matter how many pucks you keep out of your own net, if you're not scoring you're not winning."
Could it just be a slow start, bad puck luck, or both? 9 of the Wild's 13 losses have only been by one goal. "We haven't come out on the positive side of a one goal game all season. When we win we outscore our opponents by 3 or more goals, but when we've lost we've lost all 9 of our one-goal contests." Regardless of the really bizarre stats generating out of Minnesota, excuses aren't going to generate wins. "I genuinely feel our season so far has been an anomaly. This team did very well in the pre-season. Then we start the season and to have the least fewest goals scored against, and to be losing all of these one goal games, I do believe over the course of the year we'll slowly climb out of the basement, because the underlying stats suggest we are performing better than what our current record suggests." Wolf reiterated.
Despite the hopeful claims from the Minnesota brass that they anticipate the season turning around, they weren't about to sit on their hands and not try to spark change in the lockeroom. Late Saturday night the Wild made a deal with the Florida Panthers. Going to Florida is long time Wild defenseman Jonas Brodin. In exchange, the Wild are recieving young defenseman Sean Durzi and two draft picks.
"It's hard to move Brodin. If we were performing up to our expectations this trade doesn't happen. But with the season still young and salvagable, it was necessary for us to make a deal like this to try and spark a chemistry change amongst our line-up. We're high on Durzi, we feel he's a young up and coming defenseman and we needed to allocate a bit more of our focus on the future. We thank Brodin for all of his service in a Wild uniform, but we are excited to add Durzi to the team and see his continued growth within our organization."
Will the Wild turn their season around? Tune in next time to find out in our future editions of Wild Times
