The Road to Nowhere

Last week the Minnesota Wild set out their most important road trip of the season, Four games in Nashville, Dallas, Vancouver, & San Jose.

None of these games were going to be easy for the Wild. Nashville is always tough to play against & the Wild hadn't won in Dallas since 2003. Add in the fact that Vancouver & San Jose are two of the best teams in the NHL & I felt the Wild would be lucky to get 5 out of 8 points on this road trip. The worst case scenario would be the Wild losing all four games in regulation.

Well, the Worst case scenario happened.

The Wild started out the road trip with back to back 4-0 defeats against Dallas & Nashville. They were down 3-0 against Vancouver before ending their scoring drought in a 4-2 defeat. The Wild played their best game of the road trip in San Jose but still fell short losing 3-2 too a much more talented Sharks team.

The question now is where do the Wild stand?

They are six points behind Calgary for the 8th spot in the Western Conference with 11 games left. The good news for the Wild is that Calgary has two fewer games to play than Minnesota.

I said at the start of the season that as long as Minnesota could finish 2nd in the Northwest Division they could get a playoff spot. I still think the Wild can finish ahead of Calgary in the standings.

The problem for the Wild isn't the team in the 8th spot in the West, It's the teams in the 9th & 10th spots.

Nashville is 9th in the West and they have eleven games remaining with four of those against the bottom teams in the Western Conference plus a home game with Anaheim. Of those remaining eleven games only three are on the road. Nashville does play Vancouver once & Detroit twice but those games will be in Nashville. it's a very favorable schedule for the Predators

Anaheim has twelve games left in the season with two of those against Calgary. The bad news for the Ducks is they also have two games with San Jose, two with Dallas, three with Los Angeles & one with Chicago. If the Ducks are going to get that final playoff spot they are going to have to earn it.

Right now the Wild can't worry about the three teams ahead of them. They can only worry about the team on the ice that they are playing.

The Wild start a four game homestand on Saturday against Columbus followed by visits from Montreal, Toronto, & St. Louis. I'm not expecting a sweep on this homestand but all four games are winnable. Columbus & St. Louis are out of the playoff picture while Toronto is making it's annual late season charge. Montreal seems locked in at the six seed in the East.

Can the Wild still make the playoffs? I'm not ready to write them off yet but time is running out. If a turnaround is to happen it starts tomorrow at 1 PM against Columbus.

Thanks for reading & enjoy the hockey.