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  • Wild Fall To Hurricanes In Disastrous Loss

    Image courtesy of © Matt Krohn-USA TODAY Sports
    Thomas Williams

    By Thomas Williams -

    Taken from the Minnesota Wild's hands was two points. Two points that they thought they had a grip on to but it was the Carolina Hurricanes who were able to scratch and claw their way to a 3-2 win on Tuesday night. 

    The Wild held a 2-1 advantage over Carolina at one point but thanks to Andrei Svechnikov netting a last-second goal before second intermission and then Stefan Noesen scoring a goal off of his visorto win the game, Minnesota left their own arena empty handed.

    After their pointless -- in multiple ways -- appearance, the Wild fall even further back in this playoff race and might have to give themselves a hard look in the mirror.

    The trade deadline is coming up next Friday and now that they are more than just a couple games worth of points out of the playoffs, do they think there is enough runway for them to really make it? And even if they get there, are they really just giving their full effort to then get trucked over by the Vancouver Canucks, Winnipeg Jets, or Dallas Stars? Or are they banking on being that pesky first-round matchup?

    Too many questions unanswered.

    That's Wild

    • Why don't other teams follow Bill Guerin's model for building a team? [Hockey Wilderness]
    • Wild prospect Riley Heidt was named WHL Player of the Week for scoring a pile of points last week.[The Hockey News]

    Off the trail...

    • NHL trades the staff over at ESPN would like to see before the deadline. [ESPN]
    • Amidst rumors of the Winnipeg Jets failing and a potential relocation because of low ticket sales and interest, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman popped by and gave a press conference in Manitoba. To really make sure that everyone knows that the team is not in crisis.[CBC]
    By Thomas Williams  

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    Citizen Strife

    Here comes the, "They shouldn't have bothered, should have chosen a side when they had a chance, yadda yadda yadda."

    The Wild couldn't predict the Predators would get hot as hell right as the same they did.  They can't combat someone scoring off his face...somehow.  However, what they can control is the end result of facing the Preds tomorrow.  Win, and who knows.  But losing tomorrow pretty much signals the obvious.  That's all they can control right now.

    All I'm glad for is Rossi is fine after being taken back to the locker room (and coming back out later I think).  The season was bad enough already.

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    Imyourhuckleberry

    Would have been nice to get at least 1 point from Carolina, but if the Wild win their next 3, they'll be right back into the playoff hunt. Leap day in Nashville seems like the most important game of the week for them to win in regulation.

    Fluke goal off Carolina face mask for the game winner. How many goals do you see scored from a header? Gustavsson wasn't terrible. He had some nice saves, but a couple bad bounces got the best of him.

    If Wild regroup to win the next 3, it'll still be a good week, but they'll be in a really tough spot if they don't win in regulation against Nashville.

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    B1GKappa97

    Aaand we're back in the top-10! Tankers rejoice! 

    Seriously though, even if we ultimately fail to make the playoffs, as long as we are picking in the top-14 picks I think we've got a chance to land a real stud. Which, of course, means we will be picking #15. 

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    bisopher

    And this is why it will be so tough for the Wild to actually complete the climb into 8th and stay there.  A 7-2-1 stretch got them even with the #8 team at the time (STL), but NSH and CGY have both gone 7-3-0 over that same time frame to leave us 6 points out of 8th still.

    Every team has hot and cold stretches through the season. The Wild's problem is, they need to stay hot all the time, or they'll be passed up by the next "hot" team.

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    B1GKappa97
    10 minutes ago, bisopher said:

    The Wild's problem is, they need to stay hot all the time, or they'll be passed up by the next "hot" team.

    Thankfully we have some matchups down the stretch with the teams ahead of us so there's a chance they can just keep pace with the other teams and still make it AS LONG AS THEY BEAT THEM. 

    Issue is that we apparently suck against Central teams and these guys no-showed the last Nashville game, so... Thursday's gonna make or break the season, I think.

    If we lose, its pretty much game-over. That'll be an 8-point deficit with only 22 games left and only 1 more head-to-head matchup against the Preds. 

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    mnfaninnc
    1 hour ago, bisopher said:

    And this is why it will be so tough for the Wild to actually complete the climb into 8th and stay there.  A 7-2-1 stretch got them even with the #8 team at the time (STL), but NSH and CGY have both gone 7-3-0 over that same time frame to leave us 6 points out of 8th still.

    Every team has hot and cold stretches through the season. The Wild's problem is, they need to stay hot all the time, or they'll be passed up by the next "hot" team.

    We haven't started our run against weak competition yet. Nashville is in the middle of there's but they have a tough 2nd half of March, 1st week of April. That's where we catch them....but....we have to win tomorrow night!!!

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    Willy the poor boy

    I saw the 1'st pariod listened to the end of the 2'nd and didn't see the third, but until the end of the 2'nd they played pretty well. I thought Gus had a great game up till then and was pretty confident hitting the sack that BG would def be a buyer after this one. I really thought I'd wake up to a win, but even with the loss I think we'll be buyers. I'm Okay with that but I've kind of thought we'd be buyers all along. we'll get Marat over here but I can't see BG doing anything to move the needle to much, but I've thought that before and been wrong.

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    Willy the poor boy
    3 hours ago, Citizen Strife said:

    But losing tomorrow pretty much signals the obvious.  That's all they can control right now.

    We've been saying that for a month, It looks like everything's lost and then they get right back into it. Based on last nights game and the way they played, even with the loss, I think BG looks at this team and is a buyer.

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    Citizen Strife

    Also, funny story from last night's game.  I was there ready to work at the arena, and I was behind Russo in the security line.  He was chatting up the scanner guys, something joking like, "God I'm freaking tired, and it doesn't help it's right before the trade deadline."  I would bet he'd be less tired if he spent less time on Twitter.

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    B1GKappa97
    21 minutes ago, Citizen Strife said:

    A buyer of other people's money maybe.  Guerin would be stupid to add more than Khusnutdinov, Chisholm, and Shaw, considering he got them for free.

    Yeah I don't see a scenario where we add guys this year unless they're gonna scratch Freddy G the way they did Calen Addison last year after we got Klingberg. Which I can't imagine will happen. 

    If they trade Duhaime, he's just replaced with Khusnutdinov. Dewar could be on the move, but we have Foligno and Maroon who will need to come in and play eventually too and that'll kick one of Lucchini/Lettieri back down to the A anyhow.

    If they end up trading MAF, I assume that they'd just bring up Wallstedt to get some seasoning since they'd clearly be throwing in the towel.

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    Willy the poor boy
    31 minutes ago, Citizen Strife said:

    A buyer of other people's money maybe.  Guerin would be stupid to add more than Khusnutdinov, Chisholm, and Shaw, considering he got them for free.

    A buyer in the sense of what he did last year, yes...

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    TheGoosesAreLooses

    I've been a big advocate of selling what we can but I honestly say I've liked BG's TDL moves so far. Picking up Chisholm was huge for our blue line. Now if we can sell a piece or two to open the gates for Dino it would be good. 

    I think unfortunately Dino coming over was the death knell for Dewey 1. Hoping he goes to the Canucks so he can enjoy a deep run at the very least. 

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    Rohn

    Other teams will have to lose their way out of their playoff spots for the Wild to delay golfing.  I think it's happened in the recent past that the Wild has simply remained standing while other teams fell down the standings.  

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