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Sunday, December 13, 2009

Quick hits


It may have ended with a disappointing finish, as the Minnesota Wild lost a close one to the Canucks last night 4-3, but you would be making a mistake if you did not consider the teams recent 5-game road-trip a success. The Wild went 3-2 during those five games, posting wins in Nashville (5-3), Colorado (1-0), and Calgary (2-1 OT), while dropping games in Phoenix (0-2) and most recently Vancouver. That 3-2 record is a far cry from the team 0 for 5 that they had early in the season. Unfortunately, that 0-for at the beginning really put this team in a hole...even with their recent points (27 pts in the past 20 games), they still find themselves in last place in the Northwest Division, and more importantly, 13th in the Western Conference, 5 points out of the 8th and final playoff spot.

Winning in the circle


There are a few things that have been pretty constant since the teams inception, one being that they have seen limited success in faceoffs. Putting it in plain and simple terms, this franchise has been downright lousy in the circle. However, this version of the team has been spectacular winning the draws and currently have the 4th best faceoff win percentage at 52.9%. And most recently against the Canucks, the Wild won 49 fo 69 draws, or 71.0%. This is a definitely a departure from seasons past as the Wild have never finished a season in the top-half of the league in faceoff winning %, and instead usually finishing near the bottom. The teams highest finish in faceoff % was 48.5%, which happened twice (01-02 & 08-09).

Below are the stats for players that have taken at least 20 draws...


FOWFOL%
Eric Belanger22115359.1
Mikko Koivu35026157.3
Nathan Smith262353.1
Kyle Brodziak19219250.0
Owen Nolan718346.1
Andrew Ebbett253045.4
James Sheppard659241.4


Special teams

Minnesota has seen their power-play sputter as of late, netting only 2 man-advantage goals during this recent road trip...and both of those came in the win over the Predators a week ago Saturday. That left the team with only 2 goals on 22 power-plays, a dismal 9.09% and far short of the teams 17.9% season total to date. Fortunately for the Wild, the team has remained steady on defense when short-handed, killing 21 of 24 short-handed situations on the road-tripper, good for 87.5% and slightly above their season total of 82.1%.

First goal

The team is still struggling out of the gate and has given up the opening goal in 4 out of 5 games during this 5-game stretch. For the season, Minnesota has yielded the opening goal in 21 games out of 32 played to date. The good news is that this is seemingly a useless stat as far as the Wild are concerned because allowing the opening goal first has not seemed to hamper the team, as making a comeback seems to be their MO.

Keeping with the 'first goal' theme...Defenseman Shane Hnidy netted his first goal in a Wild uniform when he scored Minnesota's opening goal in the 4-3 loss at Vancouver. Hnidy is only 4 points shy of tying his career high of 12, which he netted two times (06-07 & 08-09) during his career. Hnidy was one of GM Chuck Fletchers first off-season free-agent signings.

Havlat revving-up

Finally, a point streak again from the off-season free-agency signing that fans had anticipated as being our main and top scorer. To date, Martin Havlat has stumbled through the season but looks to be on a roll. He has a 2-game point streak going (1 goal, 3 assists) and has 8 points in his last 7 games...this after a 4-game pointless streak. For the season, Havlat has 4 mulit-point games and 16 points (4 goals & 12 assists) in 26 games.

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