Standings watch

Here we are, barely into the regular season (21 games), and Minnesota Wild fans find themselves peeking at the NHL standings with distressed looks on their faces. This seems a bit unusual and especially early in the season to start a standings watch. But the problem is that our team has been on the outside from the get-go and is falling fast. Normally, or has been the case in years past, we could expect to limit our standings watch until much later because if we were not in, we were close. But it seems as if things have changed, and quickly. Since the teams disastrous start, the pressing issue now is whether or not this Wild team can rebound and start the climb into a playoff position. Too early to keep a watchful eye on the standings? Maybe but the 'official-unofficial' post-season deadline is fast approaching.

The Wild are currently cemented in 14th place in the Western Conference standings, 8 points out of a three way tie for the final spot. Now those 8 points surely do not constitute a mountain to climb in order to get back, but consider the standings from last season. Only 2 teams in the Western Conference who were not in the top 8 on Thanksgiving, St. Louis & Columbus, made the playoffs. Incidentally, one of the two teams that happened to be on the correct side of that playoff line at Thanksgiving and did not make it by seasons end was the Wild. And as for the Eastern Conference, all top 8 teams at the Thanksgiving mark made it into the post-season. So if you were to do some quick math based on last season, of the 16 teams that made the playoffs, all but 2 were in the top 8 of their conference by this time next week.

Now this could be a fluke or simply a shot in the dark, but post-lockout shows similar trends, especially in the Western Conference.

Since the lost years of 2004-2005, which covers 4 seasons, only 8 teams in the West have made it out of the regular season when below the 8-spot on turkey day. And league wide, 18 teams have made a big enough jump in those 4 seasons when playing below that final 8th spot at this time of year. Whether or not this is even a trend to consider, the one thing that is apparent is that Western Conference teams that have gotten behind the 8-ball early, historically have not stood a chance at getting back into the race.

Yes, this theory of marking Thanksgiving as the 'official-unofficial' post-season deadline date may be a bit of a stretch, but there seems to be no signs coming from our Wild that this theory will be disproved by them this season.

A sellout is not a sellout?

Funny, if a team announces a 'sellout' crowd, the assumption would be that they actually have sold x number of tickets to fill the building for that particular game. In the Wild's case, you would assume that the team has sold at least 18,064 tickets for every single game that has been played at the Xcel Energy Center, for a total of 375 games, because after all, they announce every game as a sellout. Not so fast says Michael Russo of the StarTribune.

In his blog yesterday, Russo mentioned that the policy of the NHL (add one more to the list of quirky rules and policies by the league) is that in order for a team to achieve a 'sellout', it is based on tickets distributed, not tickets sold.

It has been easy from year to year to scan the empty seats but the impression had always been that there was a no-show factor to consider. Now we also have to consider the 'distribution' factor as well. And the hot line amongst fans in the seats might be "did you pay for that or get it free".

Which brings me to a funny story, one that could hit close to home in the near future. While vacationing in the Sunshine State a few years back, the Florida Panthers were advertising a two-for-one ticket sale at participating McDonald's. At the time this concept was so foreign it was laughable. And not so long ago this idea was thought of as too good to be true for this market, but one never knows now (see arena tenant across the river).

Anyway, the Wild's sellout streak is currently intact but still moving closer to under capacity, as the franchise was only 46 in the good against the Coyotes.