Tina Turner

Wild 1, Maple Leafs 4

What's Love Got To Do With It?
My team sucks right now.  My team has sucked for some time now, truth be told.  Nothing's going right.  Players are sufferning from loose grey matter in their skulls or from the dreaded "upper/lower" body injuries, including a plague-like flu bug.  There's dissension in the ranks and the guys want to be anywhere but on the ice or on the team for that matter.  Not that this current death spiral into yet another year of missed playoffs is anything new for the Wild.  Heck, this is the norm for the Wild.  They've self destructed more often than not over the last 4-5 seasons.  This time last year everyone was calling for Todd Richards' firing and just days after the season was over we got what we wanted - his head on a platter.  Some said the Wild's collapse last season was the fault of Todd Richards and the fact that he had no real talent to work with. 
While Todd was soo out of his element here in MN, I've always blamed the last two seasons (and two of the previous seasons to that) of horrid play on the players.  They didn't want to be here.  They didn't feel the need to put in the effort.  They knew better than the coaches: both Lemaire and Richards.  They wouldn't work as a team because they thought individually they were bigger than than the team was as a whole.   
This season, in comes Mike Yeo along with what appeared to be the first really meaningful draft and trade moves made since the Wild's inception.  Havlat (a.k.a. locker room cancer) gone - Dany Heatley in.  We traded Burns for Devin Setoguchi, Charlie Coyle and Zack Phillips.  Dany and Devin were touted as just what the Wild needed in order to make Mikko shine the way everyone just knows he's capable of. 

We were told to cut the team some slack in the beginning of the season due to all of the CULTURE SHOCK surrounding a new coach and his style/system/approach to the game.  We sat through October and November watching as the team rarely, if ever, played a full 60 minutes of hockey - nothing new there.  We waited with baited breath for the emergence of said NEW CULTURE of play to take hold.  In December the team seemed to pick up  what Yeo was laying down and found ways to keep plugging and playing even when down by one or two goals.  The Wild started playing 'catch-up' hockey, making some impressive come backs and gaining the eventual win.  Still the team rarely played a full 60 minutes of hockey.  I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, as were the bulk of Wild fans and the team's beat writer.  The Wild sustained one injury after another, possibly rushing Latendresse back before he was completely healed.  Yet, the team pulled through by calling up Yeo's disciples from Houston.  For one glorious month the Wild were on fire in terms of racking up the wins, regardless of how many goals they were down by, regardless of what star/veteran players were out with aches and pains.  

Then the bottom fell out.  It wasn't a slow painful descent.  It was fast, like ripping off a BandAid from the hairiest part of your body.  It didn't matter who played with who on what line.  It didn't matter who got benched.  It didn't matter who got called up from Houston to replace the damaged, ill or concussed veterans.  Ultimately, fundamental hockey was thrown out the window and players stopped showing up for entire games, not just one or two periods.  The post game quote of "we didn't show up ready to play" was recorded and put on a loop to play over and over after every game.  Bag skates, team building, leadership training, days off.  Nothing seems to be working to get it through the players' heads that they have to show up for 60 minutes each and every game.  They have to get back to working hard for each other.   

And that's where we are today, January 19th.  From first place in the NHL to not making the playoffs if they started today.  We have Wild fans who are shocked and disturbed by the fall from playoff position.  Really?  Have you watched this team the last five years? It doesn't matter who the Wild bring in via trades or waivers or callups.  Unfortunately, the Wild has a history of bringing in players who are on the downstroke (Rich's word and I'm running with it) of their careers and expecting them to miraculously resurrect the stats of their youth.  Even when imported players are coming off 20 goal seasons (and we're THRILLED to get them because that's as awesome of a top six forward as we've traded for or signed outright) they dry up when coming to the State of Hockey.  At the same time the Wild makes franchise icons out of the existing players who would be second line players, at best, on any other team.  Thanks to oversized contracts and horrid personal play these players are not worth anything via trade and we're stuck with them for the rest of this season and beyond.  Thanks to long term injuries there are UFA's in the upcoming off season that will likely walk away while the Wild get zero in return for having rehabbed them and more importantly, having paid them boatloads of money while recovering.

Tell me I'm not the only one who's thinking this isn't any different than when Risebrough was managing the team?  We're at risk of losing money on existing overpaid players walking away for nothing.  We're continually bringing in subpar "star" players to hold us over while waiting desperately for our prospects to turn into the next Malkin, Ovechkin or Hall.  If I'm Mikail Granlund right now I'm thinking that reentering the draft instead of signing with the Wild in June is a good idea.  At least he'd have a chance at getting redrafted by a team that will actually be able to support the next coming of Gretzky.  Pens fans and management have to be wondering if Sid will ever play again at his pre-concussion level.  They'd be chomping at the bit to see Granlund in that insipid baby blue jersey.  Let the flaming by Sally begin in 3...2...1...   ;)                 

So, where does this leave me?  Pissed off, disappointed, discouraged, feeling the need to fly home just to kick some serious Wild ass and put Fire Ants in all of their breezers.  But after all the cursing at the tv, throwing of pillows, stomping all the way down the stairs and back up again with Buster in between each horribiy played period I love my team.  Because?? They're my chosen team and regardless of how craptastic they're playing I stick with them.   
Tina Turner would be proud.   



For Christ's sake, I couldn't even catch a break with double anthem night in Toronto.  Former Minnesota State-Mankato player Chad Brownlee, now a country singer, totally screwed up on O'Canada and sang way off key through the National Anthem.  As Matt Kassian would say on his twitter account: #shinslist.   

For my peeps back in Minnesota: how's winter treatin' ya this week, huh?  To all of you who sent texts, pictures and emails detailing how warm Minnesota winters have become since I moved away all those 2.5 months ago:  SUCKIT!!  I'm in shorts and tshirts for the rest of the week thanks to temps in the 70's.  Muwahahahahahahahahahah!!  Enjoy your 68 degree difference in temps while I'm enjoying Lenten Roses in bloom and tanning at the dog park. 
Evil Dee has spoken.