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Let's Play Hockey!

October 3, 2013, 6:54 AM ET [9 Comments]
Brad Ratgen
Minnesota Wild Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Wild Fans, It’s Time to Drop The Puck……….

Those words will usher in a new season for the Minnesota Wild tonight as the Wild play host to the L.A. Kings.

Surprisingly, the Wild are 21-16-10, overall, and 11-7-6, at home, against the Kings.

Last season, the Wild won the season series 2-1-0, again to my great surprise given how physically gifted and talented the Kings are/were compared to the Wild of last year and/or this year.

In goal, Backstrom is 8-6-3 with a 2.45 goals against average, a .913 save percentage and 2 shutouts in 19 games (18 starts) against L.A. Quick, for L.A., is 7-3-2 with a 2.62 goals against average and a .892 save percentage in 12 starts. It should be noted that Jonathan Bernier, the former backup goalie in L.A., would usually get the nod against the Wild over Quick given the fact that the Wild have not been very good over the last few years and it was a good opportunity for Bernier to get some playing time. Bernier is now in Toronto and I would expect Quick to start to open the season tonight.

Interestingly, 17 of the 44 lifetime meetings have gone to overtime between these 2 clubs.

As most Wild fans know, the Wild have yet to lose a home opener played in St. Paul, having gone 11-0-1 which includes 11 straight home opener victories. In year 1, the Wild tied the Philadelphia Flyers in Game 1. Note, the Wild did lose the home opener to start the 2010-11 season in Finland against the Hurricanes, but that was obviously not in St. Paul, Minnesota.

When the Wild take the ice tonight, 8 players who were not at opening night last season will be this season: Ballard, Brodin, Cooke, Coyle, Fontaine, Niederreiter, Pominville and Rupp.

During the pre-season, Charlie Coyle led Wild forwards with 3 goals, a plus-4 rating and ranked tied for first with 4 points in 5 pre-season games. On defense, Keith Ballard had 4 points (1 goal and 3 assists) for the Wild this pre-season.

The Wild’s roster features 11 first round draft picks in Coyle, Granlund, Heatley, Koivu, Niederreiter, Parise, Rupp, Ballard, Brodin, Dumba and Suter. 7 Wild palyers have been named to their native countries pre-Olympic rosters: Parise, Suter, Backstrom, Granlund, Koivu, Brodin and Neiderreiter.

For the Kings, they are coming off a season where they played 18 playoff games compared to the Wild’s 5. The Kings did not use any of their compliance buyouts during the off-season, but said goodbye to Rob Scuderi, Dustin Penner and Brad Richardson, while re-signing Robyn Regehr and Slava Voynov. The Kings also traded stalwart backup goaltender, Jonathan Bernier, to Toronto for Matt Frattin, Ben Scrivens and a 2nd round draft pick.
Compared to the Wild, the Kings are better in every area. Up front, the Kings had 5 players score 10 or more goals led by Jeff Carter (26) and Dustin Brown (18). Not only can the Kings score up front, but they are also dangerous on defense with Drew Doughty and Voynov. Voynov was top 20 in scoring for the defensemen with 25 points last season. Not to mention Jake Muzzin who led all Kings defensemen in goals and plus-minus. In goal, Quick is on track to be the starting goaltender for the United States at the Olympics in February. In last season’s playoffs, he was under 2.00 goals against average and had 3 shutouts. On both the power play and the penalty kill, the Kings were 10th in the NHL last season of 30 teams.

Needless to say, if this were the playoffs and the Kings were hitting on all cylinders as they are prone to do in the playoffs, the Wild would have their hands full. However, being the first game of a full NHL season for both teams, I look for the Wild to, perhaps, have an easier go of it against the Kings. Then again, maybe not. Maybe Wild fans will suffer their first home opener loss in Minnesota since the Wild began playing.

Whatever the case, say it with me Wild fans: “Let’s Play Hockey!”

*Thanks to the Wild PR staff for their game notes and to The Hockey News Yearbook for material used in the writing of this blog.
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