{"id":334392,"date":"2025-12-02T18:51:32","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T18:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/334392\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T18:51:32","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T18:51:32","slug":"the-wild-will-regress-if-they-cant-improve-their-anemic-offense-minnesota-wild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/334392\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wild Will Regress If They Can’t Improve Their Anemic Offense – Minnesota Wild"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEven at the tail-end of a seven-game win streak that probably saved<\/a> John Hynes\u2019 job, the Minnesota Wild can\u2019t help but lose to one of the worst teams in the league for the past 15 years.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tIn their last four games heading into tonight\u2019s matchup with the Edmonton Oilers, the Wild:\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\t\tBeat the Winnipeg Jets 3-0.<\/p>\n

\t\tScraped by the Chicago Blackhawks 4-3 in overtime.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tHad a cathartic 3-2 shootout win over the Colorado Avalanche.<\/p>\n

\t\tLost to the Buffalo Sabres 3-2 in a shootout, snapping their seven-game winning streak.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s easy to focus on the positives. Jesper Wallstedt<\/a> had a shutout<\/a> in Winnipeg, and the Wild beat a divisional foe who had won nine straight games against them! Colorado has more points than any other team in the league! Kirill Kaprizov<\/a> is an Avs killer<\/a>, Matt Boldy<\/a> is looking like<\/a> Robin to Kaprizov\u2019s Batman, and Brock Faber<\/a> is scoring again!\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s all well and good, but consider that the San Jose Sharks have beaten the Wild twice this year, including immediately before Minnesota\u2019s seven-game win streak. They\u2019re a bubble team looking to break out of their rebuild phase. Chicago also nearly took one from the Wild.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tTeams like the Sharks and Blackhawks tanked rather than rebuild, sneaking into the playoffs and losing in the first round, as the Wild did<\/a> during the worst of their cap penalties. San Jose and Chicago are led by dynamic superstars, Macklin Celebrini<\/a> and Connor Bedard<\/a>, and they will likely have more dynamic talent come up through their system because they\u2019ve been drafting higher than the Wild.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tChicago eliminated the Wild in the second round of the playoffs in 2013-14 and 2014-15. San Jose represented the Western Conference in the 2015-16 season. Once they realized that their old cores had aged out, they tanked and rebuilt while the Wild dithered in the first round with no chance to truly contend because of the Zach Parise<\/a>, Ryan Suter<\/a> buyout penalties<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Blackhawks and Sharks likely will be waiting for the Wild by the end of Bill Guerin<\/a>\u2019s five-year plan<\/a>, threatening to eliminate them from the playoffs as bona fide contenders.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat about the Sabres? They haven\u2019t made the postseason since 2010-11, and they have the fewest points in the Eastern Conference this year. The Wild chalked that loss up to an emotional letdown after beating Colorado the day before.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s hard I think from a mental aspect, but that\u2019s the challenge in this league to come from a game where there\u2019s hype before the game, two of the best teams, two of the hottest teams in the league, and you\u2019re amped up and then the next time you gotta play a team that doesn\u2019t look good in the standings,\u201d Nico Sturm<\/a> said<\/a> after losing to Buffalo.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut as you saw today, there\u2019s no easy teams in the NHL. We all know that, but that\u2019s a challenge in this league to show up 24 hours or less sometimes when your emotions come from the highest highs to the lowest lows.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s no easy teams in the NHL, but there are teams that win more often than they lose and vice versa. Then there\u2019s the Wild, perpetually stuck in the middle.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThey can tell themselves that they\u2019re on the Avs\u2019 level after beating them in a shootout to win their seventh-straight game. But they\u2019re not. Colorado scores 4.12 goals per game and gives up 2.08 \u2013 that\u2019s a winning formula.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, Minnesota scores 2.85 goals per game, slightly more than the Philadelphia Flyers (2.83), San Jose Sharks (2.81), and Columbus Blue Jackets (2.80). The New York Islanders and Detroit Red Wings (2.88) score more than the Wild. So do the Vancouver Canucks, Utah Mammoth, and Buffalo Sabres [italics] (2.96).\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tPhiladelphia, Columbus, and Buffalo are some of the worst teams in hockey. The rest reside on the bubble with Minnesota. The Wild may have won seven straight, but they\u2019re only a .500 team now (14-7-5, or 14-12 in other sports). They\u2019re likely nothing more<\/a> than a bubble team and probably will lose in the first round again.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tEven if the Wild win a playoff series this year, they don\u2019t look like a true contender. Their stellar goaltending is masking<\/a> their lack of scoring. Marcus Johansson<\/a> is their third-leading scorer, and he\u2019s 35, liable to regress, and shouldn\u2019t be part of Guerin\u2019s five-year plan. Faber is their next-highest leading scorer.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tLosing to Buffalo isn\u2019t a mystery or a fluke. It\u2019s the product of Minnesota\u2019s lack of offense and a harbinger for what\u2019s to come. Cathartic victories and epic letdowns. The Wild can beat anyone on any given night, but they can also lose ot the worst teams in the league. They\u2019re not talented enough to sustain success.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Wild are always stuck in the middle because they refuse to leave it.\n<\/p>\n

\n Think you could write a story like this? Hockey Wilderness wants you to develop your voice, find an audience, and we’ll pay you to do it. Just fill out this form<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even at the tail-end of a seven-game win streak that probably saved John Hynes\u2019 job, the Minnesota Wild…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5118],"tags":[5,161,38,5280,4,248,162],"class_list":{"0":"post-334392","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-wild","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-minnesota","10":"tag-minnesota-wild","11":"tag-minnesotawild","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-nico-sturm","14":"tag-wild"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115651483038939637","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}