Wild Unraveling At The Seams

As the Minnesota Wild meanders towards elimination from playoff contention, the themes of discontent that have been present all season seem to have fermented into a sort of mealy, pungent brew.

True, the Wild is hanging around the cut off line in the Western Conference, but they’re certainly not taking any kind of bull by any kind of horns and trying to impose their will on the outcome of their season.  In a season where too many players have been passengers for too many shifts/periods/games, the team in general seems to have taken on that same mentality.

You’re fighting for your playoff life!  Where’s the passion?  Where’s the grit and determination?  Where’s the leadership?  This is a classic inconsistent team.  Since starting the season with a 4-game winning streak, and cobbling together a 3-gamer in mid-November, they have not put together another 3-game winning streak this season.  They recently managed a decent 2-0-2 run, but have followed it up with a 2-4-1 run to pretty much nullify any momentum they might have taken into the start of the stretch run.

This model is borne out during games as well.  The Wild has made coming out with a solid-if-unspectacular first period but then emerging from the dressing room for the second period a timid, scared, inept team into an art form this season.  I can’t count more than a couple true 60-minute efforts in the preceding games.

To be sure, I think one of the elements in play in this is coaching.  Clearly, the coach has to be able to motivate his team.  And whether it’s because Lemaire has the guys so afraid of drawing his wrath by blowing an assignment, or that he’s done too good of a job convincing them that, to coin a phrase, they’re simply not talented enough to win on talent alone, I think Lemaire bears some responsibility here.

But so do the players themselves.  This team clearly lacks in professionalism, maturity and leadership.  There can be no excuse for coming out flat for big games.  There can be no excuse for letting momentum flow to the other team without even a spasm of an attempt to reclaim it.  They are coached to play a dreadfully simple system.  I can not accept that, sixty-six games into a season, they have not assimilated to that system yet.  So, there can be no other explanation than lack of professionialism, maturity and leadership as to why they are unable to employ that system for more than one period in a row.  I’m not saying they should win every game.  Far from it.  But shouldn’t the effort be the same?

The bright spots, few though they are, continue to be bright.  Owen Nolan is a Godsend.  Cal Clutterbuck will be a useful fourth line energy guy.  Ditto for Dan Fritsche.  And Backstrom, despite seeming to have geared down a tad since signing the big contract, should be drawing both team MVP votes by the millions and hazard pay for as often as the guys in front of him allow opposing players to knock him over and then lay on him like his last name is Serta.

But Koivu has tailed off, Mittens peaked in, oh, November, Brunette (to be fair) is playing on what might be a shredded knee, Burns is having an off year, “Queen” MAB is just a disaster in his own zone, and Zidlicky isn’t much better in the Wild zone.

The key is going to be how Risebrough tries to spin this one.  Yes it’s a pig.  No amount of lipstick will be able to obfuscate that.  But the Team Identity for this season was that of building for establishing the rush with puck moving defensemen (MAB and Zidlicky), and that has pretty much failed to make a material impact in the outcome of games.  So will Riser, in keeping with his trend of the last few seasons, completely re-design the team (at least in his mind’s eye) for next season?  If part of the problems with the team is that they have no clear identity, shouldn’t it at least have dawned on the GM by now that one of the reasons why is that he keeps changing it?

NiNY

Some Other Articles That You May Enjoy:
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Minnesota Wild
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Lemaire Leaving Wild
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