I have talked all season about the points bank mentality teams need to adopt in an 82 game schedule. Playoffs can not be made in October and November, just ask the Montreal Canadiens. The season is a marathon, and the teams that realize this and base their philosophy around standings points are the ones that are jockeying for playoff position. They are not the teams fighting to get in.
The Wild did a very good job of depositing points in the bank from October to December and then the Wild recession of 2016 hit. The points dried up and thus here the Wild sit, a point up on Colorado with twelve games to play.
The fact that the Wild are in a playoff battle at all is solely due to their own inability to win. It is not like Colorado went on this tremendous run and closed the gap. It is purely due to the Wild's dismal record in January and early February. Minnesota went through a nineteen game stretch where they won just three games. Playoff contenders don't suffer through streaks like that, they find the answers to stop them before they reach any significant length. The Wild mess of January and February falls on the players, the coaches, and the management team. Everyone had a hand in that and each needed to take their share of the responsibility in turning it around.
Last night was just another example of how the Wild squander away points. They had the one goal lead and let it slip away with the same old guys on the ice. No sense of urgency, no hunger and no drive. John Torchetti reached into his Mike Yeo bag of tricks and put the game into auto pilot mode. Put my veterans on the ice because that is who I trust, or at least I am supposed to because I have no mind of my own.
Ryan Suter is a very good defenseman for sure. But I bet if we took a poll to list the top 10 defenseman in the NHL today, one would be hard pressed to include Suter. So why does he command so much respect from the Wild coaching staff, that he plays almost half the game and is on the ice in every key situation.
I am all for Suter being on the ice in the key moments, but only if he is at his best. That is the issue, he is rarely at his peak when the game is on the line. That same philosophy applies to Mikko Koivu and Zach Parise. They are all very good players when they are used properly, but when overused the laws of diminishing returns is what we get.
So twelve games to play and maybe the Wild get in or maybe they don't. The answer lies with which team plays worse the Avalanche or the Wild, not which team steps up and takes it.