Jake Middleton's Playoff Performance Highlights A Flaw With Guerin's Vision

Another Minnesota Wild season has come and gone, and the team still can’t get over the hump.  No matter what pieces they move around or how much they tinker with the roster, when the regular season shifts to the postseason, the Wild still wake up on Groundhog Day and lose in the first round. The Wild have lost eight straight first rounds, leaving only one conclusion. 

Minnesota is not built for postseason success.

Cap penalties have hampered Bill Guerin, but he still has made several moves that reveal his vision for the team. Guerin re-signed Jacob Middleton last summer after signing free agent Yakov Trenin. Then, at the trade deadline, the Wild acquired Justin Brazeau. All three transactions are attempts to make the team bigger, more physical, and “playoff-ready.” 

Ironically, that trio did little to contribute to the Wild’s postseason run. Of players who played more than 20 minutes in the series, Trenin, Brazeau, and Middleton were three of the bottom four on the team in expected goals percentage.

(Source: Moneypuck.com)

While Trenin and Brazeau didn’t perform well in the series, they were playing on the fourth line, and arguably didn’t significantly impact the series. The same can not be said for Jacob Middleton. 

Middleton is an integral part of the Wild’s lineup as a top-four defender. He plays significant minutes and, with his physical and defense-first approach, is a player who should be built for traditional “playoff hockey.” While Middleton is a serviceable defender and has contributed to the team, his performance in the playoffs left a lot to be desired.

The most notable moment of Middleton’s postseason came in Game 4. With a 2-1 series lead, the Wild could have put Vegas on the brink of elimination had they won in overtime. Middleton fanned on a breakout pass to commit a defensive-zone turnover, which ended up in the back of the net for a Golden Knights victory. 

The giveaway was one of Middleton’s eight in the series, including four defensive zone giveaways for the second-most on the team. Middleton led the team in blocked shots, which can be interpreted in several ways. While blocking shots is a valuable contribution, it can also mean that a player is always playing defense because they’re being outplayed. Unfortunately, that interpretation seems to be the case for the Wild defender.

Middleton posted poor possession numbers, which gave him plenty of opportunities to score blocked shots, but that doesn’t help the team if he rarely has the puck in the offensive zone. 

When Middleton contributed on offense, it was with two secondary assists in six games. It would have been nice to see the defender score a goal after his career-high eight tallies in the regular season. Middleton has never scored a goal in the playoffs for Minnesota, going scoreless in 18 games with five assists. 

However, Middleton is more of a defensive player. His offensive shortcomings would be completely acceptable if he were strangling the Golden Knights' offense in this series. That didn’t materialize, either. According to naturalstattrick.com, Middleton gave up 2.82 expected goals against per 60, which was sixth-worst on the team. 

By all accounts, Middleton is well-liked in the locker room and has one of the most prominent personalities on the team. That’s valuable, but players like him are supposed to make the team hard to play against and be better suited for the playoffs. He didn’t contribute offensively, possess the puck, or play particularly well defensively. 

That isn’t to say that Middleton is the sole reason the Wild lost or even the worst offender on the team. Still, his playoff performance is a microcosm of the issue with Minnesota’s roster construction under Guerin’s vision. 

Players like Brazeau, Trenin, Middleton, and more fit the mold of big, physical, and supposedly difficult to play against. However, the term “difficult to play against” doesn’t seem to fit here, because it can’t be that difficult if they’re all being outperformed by the other team.

Bill Guerin must reconsider what he values in a player. Is being bigger than average valuable if you can’t chip in offensively? Is playing physically vital if you’re caved in with poor possession and a share of scoring chances?

That isn’t to say being physical doesn’t matter in the playoffs. Matt Boldy, Marcus Foligno, and Ryan Hartman all had strong playoffs, largely using their size (in the case of Boldy and Foligno) and tenacity (Hartman) combined with skill to get those playoff-style goals and productive chances. 

The Wild need more of that and less of what players like Middleton gave them. 

This point will become particularly crucial to the Wild’s future this offseason. The first order of business will undoubtedly be re-signing Kirill Kaprizov and trying to figure out what to do with Marco Rossi. Once that order of business is complete, Guerin must decide the best way to surround his top talent with a team that can go further than the first round of the playoffs. 

Will the Wild double down with more expensive veterans that fit the same mold Guerin has brought in before? Minnesota’s current roster construction has proven good enough to make the playoffs, but they should have bigger aspirations than just making it. After eight first-round exits, the Wild seem to have outgrown the need for that type of player.