Minnesota Wild Offseason

            The Minnesota Wild had an extremely up and down season, well down and up would probably describe it better. The season started 7-12-2 including 0-8 on the road, then things turned around for a while where they went 13-4-1. Injuries started to set in and the season went downhill again. A 13-24-4 record in 38 road games led to an overall record of 38-36-8. I didn’t know what to expect coming into the 2010 season since a new coach was in place along with a new GM and the leading scorer in Wild history had been let go to the Rangers. I suppose an above .500 winning percentage 11 points out of a playoff spot is about as good as could have been expected.

            Injuries played a huge roll in the fall of the team in the second half of the season. In the last 10 games the Wild went 3-5-2, once it was official that they would not make the playoffs 9 players who played regularly were out of the lineup. Three Wild players have had surgery since the season ended, including 2 surgeries for leading scorer Mikko Koivu.  

            During the off season the team has a few things to address. First and foremost they need to find a pure goal scorer. The loss of Gaborik was huge to the franchise and no one that they were going to bring in was going to replace him. Koivu had another great season but is an all around player, not the goal scorer that they need. He had 22 goals and 49 assists in 80 games this season, the only change that would be nice to see for him is a plus/minus rating better then the -2 he had this past season. Bringing in Marty Havlat was supposed to help that but he only had 54 points this season, 23 off of his previous season with Chicago. Maybe another season with the same players and coaches will help him get back to where he was but his first season with the team just wasn’t enough. Guillaume Latendresse was probably the biggest surprise to come to the team this season; in 55 games with the Wild he had 25 goals and 12 assists. However, based on stats from the past it is hard to guess what he will provide next year. Latendresse had only 3 points in 23 games before coming to Minnesota this year but 26 points in 56 games the year before that.  Pierre-Marc Bouchard is another player they lost to injury this year he played only one game because of a concussion. The previous 2 seasons Bouchard had 63 and 46 points respectively. He needs to come back healthy and fill in the void that the Wild have at the center position, after Koivu the production falls of significantly. A goal scoring center would be the best addition, probably though a trade, if Bouchard cannot return and perhaps even if he does.

            A few other players/positions that I would like to see addressed are Owen Nolan and the backup goalie. I would love to see the Wild resign Nolan; I think he brings leadership and grit to a fairly young team with little to no playoff experience. I know he wants to have a chance to win the cup but I fully believe that if a few adjustments are made the Wild can make the playoffs. Owen could be the difference maker in the make or break situations for the Wild. As the Eastern Conference has proved so far year once you make the playoffs just about anything can happen. It will be interesting to see how management handles the backup goalie position will be as well. Josh Harding has been around the organization for 5 years with a majority of his 65 starts coming in the last 3 years. Although Minnesota has been known to trade away their starting goalies (Fernandez, Roloson) I cannot currently see them getting rid of Niklas Backstrom. Backstrom was not his usual self this season but still had solid numbers; 2.72 GAA and a .903 save percentage good for 26 wins over 58 starts. Harding is currently unsigned and would be nice to have back since most of the free agents this year seem to be due some big pay days. I would like to see them bring back, and would imagine that they will sign, either John Scott or Derek Boogaard. Cal Clutterbuck is a great agitator but not the intimidating force that is needed on the ice in certain situations. Neither of the big guys are point getters which is why only one or the other is needed.  

            Hopefully the team has a productive off season using a mix of their farm system and trades. They have a good competitive core that needs a few changes and could be competing not only for a playoff spot but for the Northwest division title.

The NHL Playoffs

            With the conference finals underway let’s take a look back at the playoffs so far this year. First Philadelphia makes the playoffs in the final game of the regular season by winning a shoot out against the Rangers. The first round brought us plenty of upsets, in the east only the defending champion Penguins managed to beat the lower seeded team. In the west the Red Wings “upset” the young and upcoming Coyotes in 7 games while the higher seed prevailed in 6 games in the other 3 series.

The second round brought a few more surprises in the east and more of the expected in the west. Montreal went the distance against the Penguins beating them on the road in seven games, selling out their home rink to watch the game on the big screen. The Flyers made history coming back from a 3-0 series deficit to beat the Bruins in 7 games, only the second NHL team ever to do so. Making this story even better for the Flyers is that they lost their starting goalie, Brian Boucher, in game 5 and relied on backup Michael Leighton to get their final 3 wins of the series. The top seed Sharks took care of Detroit while number 2 Chicago took care of the 3 seed Vancouver. This set up exact opposites for the Conference Finals, the #1 and #2 seeds playing for the Western Conference championship and the #7 and #8 seeds playing for the Eastern Conference title.

The surprise stories for me are the Sharks in the West and too many to mention in the East but probably the Flyers and Canadians. Coming into the playoffs the talk was about whether or not the Sharks could overcome the choke tag that they had earned the past 2 years. A slow start to the series, losing the first game at home and leaving the ice to audible boos after a 2-1 loss put more pressure on the teams. They bounced back in the second game in a high scoring game then lost the third game on a bizarre play where Dan Boyle appeared to have the puck go in his own net. The Sharks bounced back however and won the series in 6 games. In the second round they jumped out to a 3-0 series lead against the Red Wings, missing only a beat when they lost game 4, then finished off the series at home in game 5. The Coyotes would have been the best story had they been able to finish off Detroit at home in game 7. Phoenix was a team that no one knew about or expected to succeed coming into the season, a 4^th place finish in the highly competitive west was needless to say a great story.

Personally my favorite story in the east was the Montreal Canadians beating Sidney Crosby and the Penguins in Pittsburgh in game 7. Hail Gill and company did such a great job of shutting Crosby down it prompted the coach about the type of game the Canadians were playing. Both the Flyers and Canadians have strong arguments for being the best story, when is the last time you saw a seven seed have home ice advantage in the second to last round? Jaroslov Halak has been the story for the Canadians, as they have been outshot in both of the series so far, shutting down Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby each for 7 games is no small task. For the Flyers once again how they made the playoffs, the loss of their starting goalie, or missing 3 of their leaders for at least part of the playoffs (Gagne, Laperriere, Carter). Either way you look at it the 2010 Playoffs have been great entertainment.

As for the third round I’m rooting for the Canadians, I would love to see a Canadian team make it to the finals the history and fan support there is unreal. If you haven’t yet tune in for the beginning of a game where they show the national anthems, at any point during the Canadian or American song the singer can stop singing and the crowd carries on for as long as asked, it gives me the chills every time. Out of the west I am rooting for Chicago, they are a very young team that no one really knew what to expect. Patrick Kane’s mullet is in full effect (his equivalent of the playoff beard) and they are just a fun team to watch. For the finals of course ill be rooting for the US teams we want to have some kind of pride to hold onto after the Olympics.

The Achilles Heal of a Struggling Team

Being an Arizona Diamondbacks fan living in Central New York may be one of the tougher acts to follow. There has yet to be one of their games on TV yet and not much hope in sight for getting one anytime soon. I will get to watch the series against the Yankees, 2 games on YES 1 on ESPN, and the home and home series against the Mets on FSN. Most of my analysis therefore is coming from stats, which I realize is not always the most efficient way to look at things since there are other factors.

My look today is at the absolutely brutal bullpen that has blown the save on 7 different occasions this year not to mention a few less than acceptable performances. For example when Ian Kennedys last start, a 7 inning performance against Milwaukee where he gave up 2 runs then left trailing 2-1. Then the bullpen took over and gave up 4 more runs the next inning, essentially taking the team out of the game. I was going to wait for the next blown save to write this but decided that writing it on a day when I wasn’t all worked up about it was probably a good idea. The first thing I should establish is that by no means has the starting rotation been spectacular so far. Brandon Webb has yet to make a start this year and still has no timeline to return, Dan Haren has been average, picking up wins but not being the Cy Young candidate that he was last year. The pitching staff has given up the second most runs, the most home runs, and has compiled a team ERA that is better than only the Pittsburgh Pirates. Mediocre is the best way to describe the rest of the key pitching stats, where they fall somewhere in the middle for hits, walks and strikeouts. The key is though that an offence that struggled last year has been putting the team in a position to get wins. 14 times pitchers have come into the game with the chance to record a save, another time Haren went the distance to pick up the win.

I’ve started with a breakdown and tried to figure out where the problem coming from, especially the difference between the starters and relievers. The bullpen has pitched about half as many innings as the starters as a result of the starting pitchers averaging 6 innings game. The amount of just about every negative stat for the bullpen when adjusted for the number of innings is higher than for the starters. The hits and strikeouts come out about even but that just doesn’t balance with the 50 more runs (48 of them earned), 11 more home runs and 49 more walks. This is especially worrisome when your closer pitches 11 and 2/3 giving up 19 hits at 13 runs while blowing 2 saves. Not that he is the only one, 4 other pitchers have blown saves and the overall bullpen ERA is 7.13, more then 2 runs higher than the rather mediocre starters ERA. Too many home runs seems to be the major problem, allowing teams to score to many runs with just one swing of the back. Hopefully the starters and the bullpen can figure out how to cut back on that and Qualls can settle in a little bit as he has seemed to his last couple appearances. Only time will tell, but be sure to check back in next week as blog post should become more common as school comes to a close.