With the Wild modest six year playoff streak a thing of the past after falling short this past season, how the short term future is viewed is solely based on recent performance.
Is there validity to that approach and if so why don't we just start the playoffs immediately and forget all about what may and will transpire once the lights come back on for the 2019-20 NHL season.
Everyone is an expert at saying what will happen in the future because all we need to do is look at the recent past. Ok I like that philosophy and so I am going to apply it to my lottery number selections when I hit the convenience store later. Haha, not really because I do not play the lottery and second because that would be a ridiculous strategy.
Of course more than half the fun of being a fan of professional sports is the prognostication and the ability to look back and say "I was right".
Of course on the other side of the equation is all of those times we are wrong.
So the 2019-20 Minnesota Wild will miss the Stanley Cup playoffs for the second straight season as the rest of the ever challenging Central Division teams leave them in the dust. Every one of their young players continues to plod along at the exact same pace or worse than they have produced to date and the aging veterans Koivu, Staal, Suter, and Parise see their usefulness diminish dramatically.
The cries for Granlund's return are heard echoing throughout the Xcel Energy Center along with the we need Coyle and Niederreiter too. Because those past six seasons left all of us elated and wanting more and more early playoff exits.
It is going to be a long year...
Oh, it is still July? The season hasn't begun yet?
Part of retooling in sports is the fun of watching it materialize and morph into the next generation of the team we root for through the good and bad times.
The new faces that are changing the course of the Wild will go through their growing pains of course. However the NHL has changed dramatically and the game is so geared to youth and skill.
Gone are the days that in order to compete a team must be made up of players who have done it all before. The youthful swagger and energy is something that will breathe life into the Wild veterans and should also provide Bruce Boudreau with renewed vigor of his own.
The future of the Wild is upon us and it will continue to take shape.
Minnesota Wild Blogger • 
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