Wild thoughts...

Gaborik's audition

The one thing Minnesota Wild winger Marian Gaborik is doing right these days is shining during his league-wide audition. The small window of opportunity for him to showcase his talents is closing fast but he is really making the most of it. Since returning to the ice after missing the previous 41 games, the soon-to-be unrestricted free agent has played surprisingly well in the 3 games, netting 5 points. For the season he has 10 points (6 goals & 4 assists) in only 9 games played.

I have mixed feelings on his recent return and success. This team needs him badly, there is no question about that. And at a time when earning victories is at a premium, you want Gaborik to contribute. But you also have to consider the fact that it seems clear that he will not be back, for whatever reason, and he now has a free stage, or rink, to showcase himself. Mistakes were made by the Wild's management and quiet frankly, he should have never been allowed to enter the season unsigned. But here we sit, with the slimmest of margin of making or missing the playoffs, and our elite player is our lame-duck option.

Goal differential

It always makes me laugh when I read predictions on how many games the Wild must win to make the playoffs because it really is a shot in the dark. Simply put, the magic number for the Wild to get into the post-season is 1...as in 1 more win than Anaheim, Edmonton, Nashville, and St. Louis. There is a good chance that we could pass a two of those four, as the Wild have a key set of games remaining against the Oilers (March 29) and Predators (April 10). But earning more wins than all four of those teams is probably not going to happen so you can bet on a tie-breaker rule kicking in. And things are so tight that I will go out on a limb and say that making it or missing it will come down to the tie-breaker rules. If by chance the Wild do make it, I am betting that the one tie-breaker that will propel them will be the last one, goal differential. That's right, a team that has had trouble scoring goals will be thanking their coach, a coach who demands defensive responsibilities, that they have a tight defensive system. The Wild will almost undoubtedly win a goal deferential tie-breaker scenario with the four teams that are currently battling with for the last two spots.

Still looking for consistency

Not a bad road-trip recently, when the Wild finished 1-1 in back-to-back games against the teams of New York. It was a short road-trip that featured a mostly lack-luster performance in a 2-1 loss to the Rangers, followed by a 6-2 win over a terrible Islander team. Two games in two nights and Minnesota was as inconsistent as ever. It's unbelievable to me that a professional team can ride a roller-coaster all season long, as the Wild have done. The urgency has been written on the wall in front of them for some time, yet they still don't want to read the message. And with only 8 games remaining, if it has not sunk in by now, it probably won't. The Wild's next chance to buck the inconsistancy trend comes in the stinky Saddledome, where Minnesota is a lifetime 3-17-4.

Koivu in, maybe...Burns out, still

Not sure yet on the first part, but signs are pointing to Mikko Koivu making the trip to Western Canada for a two games against the Flames and Oilers. On the other side of the injury list sits Brent Burns, who has missed Minnesota's past 11 games with what is being called 'concussion like' symptoms. Now as I blogged earlier, it puzzles me that in his previous four games, all on the road, he logged over 19 minutes of ice time in each. In fact, in his last two games of that road-trip, he played over 23 minutes in each. Now I am not prepared to question his handling, but one has to wonder, if he was not injured off-ice sometime after his last game on March 5 against the Sharks, how many games had he been playing in with 'concussion like' symptoms?