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David vs. Goliath. Does Minnesota Have Another Cinderella Run Awaiting? |
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And so it begins. The Wild return to the playoffs for the first time in 5 seasons, their 4th appearance in franchise history. The Wild do not enter as favorites or as a team with momentum, but as a serious underdog, limping on 1 leg from a momentum perspective. The relatively ice cold Wild take on the red hot Blackhawks in the first round of the 2013 NHL playoffs starting tonight in Chicago. The Blackhawks return to the NHL post-season for the 5th consecutive year.
I said at the beginning of the season that the team with the best tandem goaltending unit would win the Stanley Cup and that distinction belongs to the Blackhawks. Corey Crawford and Ray Emery not only are the Jennings Award winners for goaltenders from the same team with the fewest goals allowed during the regular season, a league low 97 this season (no other team allowed under 100 goals this season), but they also only recorded 11 losses, 6 in regulation and 5 in extra time. Corey Crawford went 19-5-5 on the year, while Ray Emery was lights out at 17-1-0. Both had goals against average of under 2 (1.94 GAA for both) and save percentages above 92% (.926 for Crawford and .922 for Emery). Compare that to the Wild’s Niklas Backstrom who was 24-15-3 this season with a GAA of 2.48 and a SV% of .909. Crawford was 3rd in GAA and 5th in SV% across the league this season. Emery was 1 of only 2 goaltenders with 1 loss and a minimum of 10 starts. This will be Crawford’s 4th Stanley Cup playoff with only 14 post-season appearances compared to Emery’s 36 post-season games.
Overwhelmed yet? No, let’s talk about the Hawks’ fire power then. Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews tied for team lead in goals with 23 apiece (compared to Zach Parise’s team leading 18 goals for the Wild). Kane, however, ran away with the scoring title for the Blackhawks by tacking on 32 assists compared to Toews’ meager 25 assist tally this season. For the Wild, Ryan Suter led Minnesota with 28 assists. The Blackhawks scored 149 goals this season and allowed 97. The Wild scored 118 goals, but allowed 125 this season. Breaking it down by period, the Blackhawks scored 50 goals in both the 1st and 2nd periods this season and coasted in the 3rd period by only recording 44 goals. By comparison, the Wild scored 31 in the 1st period, 47 in the 2nd period and 37 in the 3rd period. As goals against go, the Blackhawks allowed 31 in both the 1st and 2nd periods this year and 35 in the 3rd period this season. The Wild allowed 40 goals in the 1st period, 42 in the second period and 42 in the 3rd period this season.
The Blackhawks opening night roster for the playoffs features no players without any NHL playoff experience. The Wild have 10 players without any NHL playoff experience (Brodziak, Clutterbuck, Coyle, Brodin, Falk, Gilbert, Prosser, Scandella, Spurgeon and Stoner). Brett Clark and Ryan Suter are the only defensemen for the Wild with NHL playoff experience. Matt Cullen and Mike Rupp are the only Wild players to have had the privilege to hoist Lord Stanley’s Cup and Zach Parise is the only other Wild player to have played in a Stanley Cup Final in the NHL playoffs. Impressively, Parise has only missed the NHL playoffs once in his 8 season career.
If just counting wins and losses without distinguishing losses in regulation versus losses in extra time, the Blackhawks have 10 more wins and 10 less losses than the Wild. That doesn’t seem so bad. The Wild have the 2nd best road powerplay in the NHL, but the Blackhawks are tied for the least amount of penalties this season in the NHL. On the 5-on-4 powerplay, the Wild scored 23 times and did not yield a single short handed goal. However, the Blackhawks only scored 19 goals and allowed 5 shorties. The Wild were the 1st team to hand the Blackhawks a loss this season, albeit in a shootout, but the Wild beat the Hawks before anyone else in the league. That would be the Wild’s only win against the mighty Hawks who went on to beat the Wild 5-3 and 1-0. And then, for having won a Stanley Cup recently, the Blackhawks have only won the opening playoff series 12 times and have lost it 13 times. In the playoffs, Crawford’s record is 5-8 in 14 all-time post-season apperances. Emery is 20-15 in 36 post-season games, but currently is injured, perhaps having tweaked his surgically repaired hip. The Wild finished the season with the 3rd best team faceoff percentage in the NHL, setting a franchise record. Lastly, Backstrom tied for theNHL lead with 24 victories this season.
So, the Blackhawks aren’t perfect. They can be beat. The question, however, is can the Wild beat them at all, much less in a 7 game series? That remains to be seen. My official prediction is that the Blackhawks sweep the Wild. However, that may be just my way of preparing for a tough series that Minnesota ought not win. However, Minnesota hockey teams have found themselves in that position before in the NHL playoffs and have shocked the rest of the league. In the 1980-81 season, the Northstars made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals. They did the same thing again in the 1990-91 season. Then, 10 years ago, the Minnesota Wild went on another Cinderella-esque run taking out the Forsberg-Sakic led Colorado Avalanche and the Naslund-Bertuzzi led Canucks, both in dramatic come from behind fashion after falling behind 3 games to 1 in each series, before being swept by the Ducks in the Western Conference Final.
Perhaps this year’s version of the Minnesota Wild can conjure up another fairy god-mother who sees fit that not only do we attend the ball, but that we get our prince in Lord Stanley before the clock tolls midnight.
It won’t be easy, but it should be fun. The Wild achieved their goal of making the playoffs. All of the pressure is off of them now and hopefully they can play loose and have some fun and gain invaluable experience for next season’s playoff run and for many, many seasons after that.
GO WILD!!!!!!
Minnesota Wild Blogger • 
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