The Wild are in the midst of their last homestand of the season, a three game stretch that could have and still may secure them a spot in the playoffs. But, this homestand is one filled with viable opponents and quite frankly the easiest of those was Los Angeles by a wide margin.
A lot has been said about the Wild and their home record being one of the best in the NHL, and it is at 24-6-7. Again with the, but, and that is that they have only won 1 of their last five at home vs. teams that sit in a playoff spot today. 1 out of 5!!!
We know all about the road woes of this team and the excuses after seemingly every back to back game. But the fact of the matter is this team is not built to compete with the powerhouses of the league and age has finally caught up with this group.
The trouble is that the window has closed on the current Wild team, without any playoff success. That is the legacy of Koivu, Suter, and Parise, along with Chuck Fletcher and each of the coaches he has brought in to lead this group.
Sunday the Wild played a pretty solid game. They showed that they can come back from 2-0 down to get the game tied and then take the lead late. Here's the but again, they failed to hold the lead as they became very passive in their d-zone coverage, when the Kings pulled Jonathan Quick in favor of the extra skater.
I have seen many blame Dubnyk for that tying goal, but I am sorry there is no goalie in the league stopping that perfect defection by Dustin Brown. If you want to place blame then fault the forwards and in this case Parise who did not put any pressure on Drew Doughty, allowing him to get off a perfect shot that was deflected by Brown, who was allowed to park himself on Dubnyk's doorstep.
Placing blame for goals on any one particular player though is an easy excuse to mask what the real problems are. It is never one player's fault, as the game is 60 minutes long and both teams make mistakes throughout the game. The issue is that the Wild just fail to compete at a higher level, because no one holds them accountable within the room.
We can say it until we are blue in the face, great players don't make the best leaders. No one is going to dispute the ability or the heart of Wild captain, Mikko Koivu or assistant captains, Ryan Suter and Zach Parise. The questions are fully about how this team goes about it's day to day business.
As long as Koivu, Suter, and Parise are here no matter what players are brought in the room is theirs and everyone else falls in line behind them. The coaches that have been here, from Mike Yeo, to John Torchetti, to Bruce Boudreau have done nothing to change this and actually magnify the problem by not acknowledging it.
My feeling is that when they (the coaches) are so close to it and know and see the players and how hard they work on a daily basis, the lack of leadership very easily gets lost.
There are a lot of qualities of a leader, and Koivu, Suter, and Parise have a lot of those characteristics. But not one of those three players has ever made any single player better or for that matter made the team as a collective unit better. That, to me, is the true test of a leader. One that makes everyone around them better and brings the group together to be able to accomplish something that none of them could accomplish alone.
So the Wild get a week to stew about Sunday's overtime loss, and the regulation win that got away against the Kings. Five days for the coaching staff to figure out how to get this team ready to compete with two of the best, if not the best two teams in the league Saturday and Sunday.
Bruce Boudreau has an opportunity to make a dramatic impact on this team, and now is the time to do so. He could very easily take the "C" off of Koivu and the "A's" off of Parise and Suter and make a statement to his club that there is no pecking order on this team. Everyone puts their skates on one at a time and must pull collectively in the same direction in order to accomplish the common goal.
Boudreau, himself needs to hold his poster boys accountable for the team's current up and down 5-4-1 March after their dreadful 4-10-2 March last season.
Time to take a page out of the 2000 NJ Devils book, where then Devil GM, Lou Lamoriello, fired head coach Robbie Ftorek on March 24, 2000, with his team in first place in the Eastern Conference, but losers of 12 out of 17 games. The Devils as we all remember, went on to win the Stanley Cup.
Now by no means am I saying Fletcher should fire Boudreau, or that the Wild are by any means good enough to win the Stanley Cup. But if you look back at that Devils coaching change, the reason Lamoriello made the move was not just because of that 12 of 17 skid, it was a combination of that and the fact that the three previous seasons the Devils were eliminated in either the first or second round of the playoffs, winning just one series over that time.
The question with the Wild currently is will they make the playoffs? That appears pretty apparent, and so then comes the next question will they finish 3rd in the division and face Winnipeg, which would most likely not be a good matchup for the Wild. Or will they fall into a wildcard position and either get Vegas (best case scenario for a 1st round win for the Wild) or worse get the 8th seed and draw Nashville in what could be a disaster of a series.
Drastic times call for drastic measures and this is a move that could actually have a positive impact, and if it doesn't so be it then they went down with a plan, rather than the same old song and dance the State of Hockey has witnessed the last five years.
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