Losers of five straight now the Wild face more postponements and none are due to any fault of their own.
Saturday's Winter Classic was quite the spectacular as far as the production was concerned and the State of Hockey was represented very well with all of the pomp and circumstance. Now the product on the ice from the home squad was subpar from the outset.
Excuses aside the Wild to a man were very disappointed with their performance in the first and in particular the second period where they were blitzed for five Blues goals.
They did rebound in the third period but a four goal deficit against a very strong St. Louis team was just too deep of a hole to climb out of. The time off and injuries sure, are a factor but poor performance is unacceptable from a team that was in a showcase game and one that wants to be included in the contender discussion.
They are much better than what we have seen over the last five games but not quite as good as they were in the eight game win streak that preceeded the most recent trend.
This is going to be a great test for Dean Evason and his staff as well as GM, Bill Guerin, who has bargaining chips he can use to bolster the roster with the rash of injuries that the Wild have suffered to key personnel.
Cam Talbot was the latest to be added to the growing list of walking wounded when he left the Winter Classic after two periods and was not on the bench for the third period. It is not known how long the Wild will be without their number one netminder out with what is being called a lower body injury.
Joel Eriksson Ek and Jared Spurgeon are out for the foreseeable future, at least the next couple weeks, which with the postponements could work in the Wild's favor to some degree. However the Wild already have the most games of any NHL team scheduled in March and now will have to makeup these games over a condensed period.
The National Hockey League has done the Wild a terrible disservice with four of the five scheduled games leading up to the Winter Classic postponed and three of the next five already scratched. Excuses are not at all good ever, however the fact that the Wild have had one player in COVID-19 protocol during the NHL's rash of positive tests seems very ironic that they are experiencing the plethora of postponed games.
The NHL is all about making a profit, that we all get, but the fact is there was no valid reason for some of the postponements that the Wild have had. The game on December 27th in Winnipeg should absolutely positively been played however the league decided to extend the shutdown one more day. The Carolina and Florida games were postponed earlier in December yet both teams had played two days before in each case.
Many games have been played with teams having fractions of their lineups dressed and some very easy points for teams have been awarded, yet the Wild sit and wait to play all of these teams at full strength in what will be a condensed time period.
We will see how this plays out but for now it is not at all in the Wild's favor, and I am not saying it should be, but if it could be at least a bit more level.