We can look at what lies ahead for the Minnesota Wild when the bye week concludes and the playoff push resumes.
The Wild have played 46 games to date with an equal 23 home and 23 road games completed. That of course leaves 36 games to play which will include 2 three game road trips including a final California trip to close out the regular season with games in Anaheim, LA, and San Jose. They will also have a stretch of 4 out of 5 on the road in mid March.
The road has not been kind to the Wild so far and that will have to change down the stretch, with the standings as tight as they are especially in the Central Division. There are 10 division games remaining for the Wild, 3 with the Stars (2 in Dallas), 2 with the Predators, Blues, and Avalanche (1 home, 1 away with each), 1 game with the Blackhawks in St. Paul, and no games remaining with the Jets.
The division record of 8-8-0 through the first 16 games has the Wild right where they belong, 5th place in the Central and ninth in the Western Conference, on the outside looking in of playoff position.
The team is getting healthy and should have Nino Niederreiter back very soon after the bye week is complete. Once again the competition for ice time will heat up.
Some interesting decisions will need to be made as to what the line combinations will look like and who will be the odd man out with all 13 forwards healthy. Zach Parise has gotten better with each game he has played and the break may have come at the perfect time for him as he gets himself back to 100% game shape,
Parise is now firmly in the top six where he belongs and of course Niederreiter will slot back in there when he returns. Charlie Coyle needs to get top six minutes as well as he has the size and strength to be a real problem for the opposition on a nightly basis.
Ideally it would be great to move Koivu to the third line, where he can actually be more effective just as his shift last season to the second line with the arrival of Eric Staal. Koivu is so reliable in the face-off circle and the defensive zone, his offense is still solid but he has lost a step and monitoring his minutes may actually net a better return from #9.
Mikael Granlund has taken his game to a higher level and really is one of the top talents in the league. He is so vastly underrated, but night in and night out he performs and it does not matter who is on the ice with him. Granny sees the ice better than anyone on the team has the ability to make everyone he plays with better.
The Wild are a good team, no question about that. With the talent they have the playoffs should not even be a question. But all of that foes out the window when the team gets away from what makes them good. That is keeping the game simple, generating scoring opportunities off the shot and not being overly fancy. When the Wild get into those funks it is usually traceable back to how they are working the offense.
The trade deadline should be interesting, but the Wild for the most part will be bystanders as the cap constraints make moving anyone extremely difficult, combined with the fact that in past years the mortgaging of draft picks has left the organizational depth a bit thin.
Jordan Greenway will be competing for Team USA in the upcoming Olympics and will sign with the Wild, most likely at the conclusion of his college season with Boston University. That is the more likely add for the Wild and of course getting Zach Parise back after missing half the season is in a lot of ways like making a trade to acquire a key piece to the puzzle.
The race is wide open and there are no clear cut favorites in either conference. It all comes down to who is playing the best hockey from here on out. Should be fun and it gets going again for the Wild on Hockey Day Minnesota, Saturday night as they host the NHL leading Tampa Bay Lightning.
Follow me on Twitter @dwallace17