Minnesota Wild 2010 Preview & Predictions

Minnesota Wild 2010 Season Preview, Predictions Picks & Odds

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MINNESOTA WILD

2009-10 record: 38-36-8
Shootout Record: 5-7
Division Finish: 4th, Northwest
Conference Finish: 13th, Western
Goals For: 219
Goals Against: 246

Minnesota Wild 2010 Preview

The grand plans of the wild to excite. the hockey populace of the Gopher State are just at the sizzle stage.

To get past that will require team health and more depth.

That wasn’t accomplished in the first season under new general manager Chuck Fletcher and coach Todd Richards, so a second stab will be made in 2010-11, hopefully with far less than the 342 man-games lost to injury. Pierre-Marc Bouchard, counted upon to deliver something in the 50- to 70-point range, appeared all of 10 minutes and 44 seconds before an opening night concussion.

Minnesota didn’t light up the scoreboard, either; in fact, its 219 ‘goals were exactly what it pumped out in 2008-09, only this time team defense wasn’t as solid. Thus, the Wild spun their wheels and were held back from playoffs a second straight year.

They found a possible remedy at the Entry Draft, selecting the highest-ranked European skater Mikael Granlund, a point-a-game Finn, ninth overall.

The Wild are still much-loved at home, but Murphy’s Law certainly pervaded away from the Xcel Energy Center. The team failed to muster a point on the road in its first eight games.

A huge calamity occurred in late December in Ottawa when the equipment truck caught fire and barbecued much of the club’s gear. Most damaging was the total loss of goalie equipment, which forced Niklas Backstrom and Josh Harding to break in new gear in a matter of hours instead of weeks.

In Minnesota’s 13 road wins, the team generated just 86 ‘goals, the League low. Back home, several players spent a long time in sick bay.

Not only did the Bouchard injury get things off on the wrong foot, but the end of- season list included Harding with a torn labrum, Owen Nolan (knee), Martin Havlat (hamstring), Andrew Ebbett (broken finger), Guillaume Latendresse (back), Marek Zidlicky (arm), James Sheppard (knee) and Clayton Stoner (sports hernia).

Defenseman Brett Burns was out 35 games with a mid-season concussion and Backstrom had hip issues.

Top scorer and newly minted team captain Mikko Koivu skated off the ice in the spring and right under the knife to repair his right shoulder and right knee, with a four-month recovery forecast for the shoulder procedure itself.

Yet there were still some positives. The Wild remained a tough nut to crack in its Northwest Division, with an identical record of 15-7-2 as the first-place Vancouver Canucks. Approaching the New Year, Minnesota was on a roll of 13-4-1. Koivu led the club in scoring a second straight year, climbing to 71 points and reinforcing his reputation in the face off dots.

Free agent Havlat, despite missing nine games, gave the Wild a glimpse of what he can produce with his 54 points.

Forwards Andrew Brunette and Kyle Brodziak did play every game, and Brunette led the League with a 19.4% shooting percentage, netting 25 goals on 129 shots.

Latendresse ranked 14th at 16.9%.

2010 Minnesota Wild Offense:

Koivu’s 49 assists were one shy of Bouchard’s franchise record, with Brunette, Havlat and Zidiicky all getting 35 assists or higher. The remarkably consistent Brunette has missed just 14 games in his past 11 seasons, should hit 700 career points this year and has never been worse than 14.4% in shooting percentage. Almost all the Wild’s game-winning goals were split between seven players, led by Latendresse and Antti Miettinen with four each. Traded early in the season from Montreal, Latendresse showed no signs of homesickness with 25 gor.als for 27 overall and the team lead. Cal Clutterbuck, in addition to leading the League in hits a second consecutive season, delivered 13 goals; while Nolan, once thought to be done, had 16 to reach 73 the past four years after he’d spent a full season on the shelf. Fletcher added a couple of free-agent forwards who should help, veteran Matt Cullen and young Eric Nystrom.

2010 Minnesota Wild Defense:

With the Wild backsliding 46 goals last year, there were bound to be some ugly plus-minuses on the blueline. Greg Zanon, Zidlicky and Burns were all well into double figures, part of eight players in that negative zone. Cam Barker, the ex-Chicago first rounder, finished a plus-five, with most of his appearances coming with Blackhawks. But Zanon stood in front of almost 200 shots, one of them cracking his ankle, though he played on it for several games. Zidlicky’s 37 assists marked the fourth time in his’ career with Nashville and Minnesota·that he has been on the verge of 40. Minnesota used 13 defensemen in all last season.

2010 Minnesota Wild Goaltending:

Backstrom, who turns 33 this year, knew it would be hard duplicating his . 37 wins, .923 save percentage and eight shutouts from ’08-09 before the fire torched his equipment and the club eventually slipped into the bottom 10 in goals-against average. But the late bloomer from Helsinki is still to be reckoned with, as his record of 119-68-30 shows. His next shutout will be his 20th and he’ll have lots of chances for it as he resumes a busy schedule. Josh Harding had his own injury problems as he tried to step up for Backstrom, but his nine wins were a satisfying conclusion to the season, and six more than in ’08-09. The team called up rookie Anton Khudobin for two games and he produced two wins.

Minnesota Wild 2010 Special Teams

‘The glaring number last year was a League-worst 13 short-handed goals against, losing all but one of the games when that occurred. But in general, the Wild remained very committed in both power play and penalty killing, maintaining their top 15 League placements in both from the previous season. Brunette’s 12 power-play goals, giving him 102 in his career, was a key in keeping Minnesota 10th in the League with a 19.1% conversion rate. Koivu and Latendresse ganged up for another 15. Clutterbuck had a couple of shorthanded goals for the Wild, which ranked 14th overall at 82.7%.

Minnesota Wild 2010 Season Predictions

Other than the obvious concerns about ducking injuries (surely it’s some other team’s turn now), the tight-checking Wild were built to thrive on the road, yet were very ordinary away from home last year. And they spent far too much time in comeback model trailing in almost half the games they eventually won, including five victories when down two goals.

We predict that the Minnesota Wild will finish 4th in the NHL Northwest.

Minnesota Wild Betting

Minnesota Wild Stanley Cup Odds: +10000
Minnesota Wild Western Conference Odds: +5000

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