Wild Clinch Playoffs With Win Over Ducks

I predict a sweep... The only real question now is who the Wild will play in round 2...

15 minutes ago, Willy the poor boy said:

I predict a sweep... The only real question now is who the Wild will play in round 2...

'Who' or 'what golf course'?

Merril will hoist the Cup.

Vegas will finish with 108-110 points. They have played at a 108 point pace in the 76 games with Jack Eichel on the ice.

In 41 games Kaprizov played with the Wild, including the 3 while he was attempting to play through an injury prior to surgery, the team accumulated points at a 106 point pace.

In 46 games Eriksson Ek played with the Wild, the team accumulated points at a 112 point pace.

This series could be a lot more evenly matched than people might think based upon the standings or recent struggles by the Wild in games facing non-playoff competition. When the Wild were last as healthy as they are currently(with only Troy Grosenick on the injured list), they were among the top 5 teams in the standings.

Vegas will be favored, but the Wild could surprise them by stealing a few low scoring games. Gus finished with a .914 sv% and 2.56 goals against average. Adin Hill is at .906 sv% and 2.47 goals against.

Vegas will likely get more shots on goal--they are 5th in shots per game while the Wild are at 23rd(the difference was less substantial early in the year when the Wild were healthy). The Wild defense will have to make sure they don't allow too many high danger shots. Having all the regular defensemen back should help the Wild do that, but Gus will need to be at the top of his game.

4 minutes ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

Vegas will finish with 108-110 points. They have played at a 108 point pace in the 76 games with Jack Eichel on the ice.

In 41 games Kaprizov played with the Wild, including the 3 while he was attempting to play through an injury prior to surgery, the team accumulated points at a 106 point pace.

In 46 games Eriksson Ek played with the Wild, the team accumulated points at a 112 point pace.

This series could be a lot more evenly matched than people might think based upon the standings or recent struggles by the Wild in games facing non-playoff competition. When the Wild were last as healthy as they are currently(with only Troy Grosenick on the injured list), they were among the top 5 teams in the standings.

Vegas will be favored, but the Wild could surprise them by stealing a few low scoring games. Gus finished with a .914 sv% and 2.56 goals against average. Adin Hill is at .906 sv% and 2.47 goals against.

Vegas will likely get more shots on goal--they are 5th in shots per game while the Wild are at 23rd(the difference was less substantial early in the year when the Wild were healthy). The Wild defense will have to make sure they don't allow too many high danger shots. Having all the regular defensemen back should help the Wild do that, but Gus will need to be at the top of his game.

Look at the shifts/TOI for the ducks game:

This team is not built to sustain a 7 game series, much less a deep playoff run.  To close out the season with the 'must win' games, Hynsies has been putting gigantic minutes on his top guys....they're going to get burned out in a 7 game series.

6 minutes ago, MrCheatachu said:

This team is not built to sustain a 7 game series, much less a deep playoff run.  To close out the season with the 'must win' games, Hynsies has been putting gigantic minutes on his top guys....they're going to get burned out in a 7 game series.

Possibly, but there aren't any back-to-back games in the playoffs and the first few games are not must-win games. Those guys might be closer to 20 minutes early on if the Wild aren't getting behind. If they have a bad game and are getting blown out early, he might go heavy with depth lines to save those guys assuming it's not an elimination game.

30 minutes ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

Possibly, but there aren't any back-to-back games in the playoffs and the first few games are not must-win games. Those guys might be closer to 20 minutes early on if the Wild aren't getting behind. If they have a bad game and are getting blown out early, he might go heavy with depth lines to save those guys assuming it's not an elimination game.

it's the playoffs, they are all must win games.

Teams that go deep in the playoffs are able to fire four dangerous lines...the Wild simply aren't built that way this season, they maybe have 1.5 dangerous lines with Hynes double-shifting Kaprizov/Boldy.

We're going to need Gus to stand on his head (possible), and then jump out to multi-goal leads.  Protecting a 1 goal lead means over-leveraging JoBro/Fabes...which isn't going to work in the playoffs when they are throwing the kitchen sink at us to end a game.

41 minutes ago, MrCheatachu said:

Look at the shifts/TOI for the ducks game:

This team is not built to sustain a 7 game series, much less a deep playoff run.  To close out the season with the 'must win' games, Hynsies has been putting gigantic minutes on his top guys....they're going to get burned out in a 7 game series.

There are some obvious dogs on that chart. Forwards - Braz, Trenin, Nyquist, and Hartman. Defense - Bogo, Merrill, maybe Mids. What can be done about them? One suggestion was play a 11-7 lineup adding Zeev. I like that to a point. If Zeev proves in sheltered minutes he could supplant Bogo or Merrill, although I thought Mids had a pretty bad game last night. Braz would sit in that lineup. I could see adding Ohgren in for Trenin or Nyquist (who had another poor game).

More than likely, 20 seconds from getting bounced. Leave it to the Wild to make a nail biter to the very end. It's all for naught anyway, done in 4.

The Wild will likely get defeated by Vegas, but maybe they get a win or two.

On a side note, when they showed the Ducks head coach on the broadcast last night, I thought he looked a bit like comedian Drew Carrey. Anyone else share that opinion?