As we all know, the University of Minnesota Golden Gopher men's hockey team's season has come to an end. As we've seen thus far, the Minnesota Wild's season may be coming to an end right quick if they don't become more consistent offensively and defensively. Diehard Minnesota sports fans have been slapped across the face year in and year out come playoff time with both college and professional sports alike, and this year is no different. Gopher fans across the state were excited when the U of M drew Yale in the first round of the NCAA tourney (not as excited about UND being in the same regional for like 5,000 consecutive years, but that's a blog for another time), however their hopes and dreams were crushed 9 seconds into overtime when Ben Marshall showed why he is not, in fact, a real D1 defenseman*. The Minnesota Wild have their own Marshall on the blue line in the form of Clayton Stoner. Between his mishandled pucks and habit of throwing pucks straight up the middle in front of Backstrom, Stoner similarly shows why he is not, in fact, a real NHL defenseman.**
There are numerous other ways in which the Minnesota Wild and Minnesota Gophers are very much alike, apart from the completely lacking defensive product they put on the ice game in and game out. Here, we'll take a look at the most convincing reasons as to why these two Minnesota hockey teams are one in the same.
*In all fairness, I said from that day on that it could've been any one of the Gopher defenseman & Marshall actually had a really decent season--just so happens it was him so he bears the brunt of this rant.
**There is no caveat--Stoner just isn't an NHL defenseman and has been pretty shitty all season.
#5. Anemia & the IR
Injuries are an expected part of hockey seasons for teams at any age level. Luckily for us (us being a term I reserve for my Minnesota brethren), the Gophers and Wild have been generally injury free *knocks on wood*. Other than a few week to week injuries, the Gophers were relatively healthy during their quest for NCAA infamy. Possibly the most costly injury the Gophers sustained throughout the 2012-13 season was that of Sam Warning's. His absence caused shuffling of the second unit, which only added to the ever-changing line pairings. As a result of losing Warning, albeit only for a month or so, the Gophers scoring woes came to a head.
As for the Wild, their mid-season loss of Matt Cullen has also caused a massive decrease in the team's scoring depth. Not only has Setoguchi been stymied to a measly 1 assist in his last 5 games without Cullen, but the likes of Parise, Coyle, and Clutterbuck have been virtually non-existent as well. We saw the same type of hindered offense for Bjugstad, Haula and Rau when Warning was injured, as well. Whether this was due to the line shake-ups, lack of work ethic, or the Hockey Gods being royal douchebags, we may never know.
#4. The Fourth Line Foreigner
Pierre-Marc Bouchard's words are barely audible beneath his thick French accent. Tom Serratore's words are barely audible due to his lisp.
#3. The Goalie Duel that Wasn't
I think it's fair to say both the Gophers and Wild had question marks at goaltending coming into the season. With the Gophers loss of unanimous starter Kent Patterson and the ever inconsistent Niklas Backstrom, both teams had their fair share of uncertainty. The Gophers expected to split time between Wilcox and Shibrowski early on, until one or the other emerged as the clear favorite. While this occurred the first few weekends of the season, it became clear rather quickly that Wilcox was the man.
Much like the emergence of Wilcox, Backstrom's starting role was determined very early in the season when Harding's first start went to hell in a hand basket real quick. While I'm not the biggest Backstrom fan in the world, even I can admit that he's kept the Wild in games they had no business being contenders in. Not to mention we need to keep him around until I can make it to one of his signing events and bring a Nicklas Backstrom (Capitals) shirt for him to sign and get in a verbal argument about how him and Caps' Backstrom are actually the same person.
#2. The Captain that Doesn't Do Shit
I know I'm going to catch a lot of flack for this one, but to quote the great duo, Shawn Spencer & Burton Guster, "suck it."
First of all before I get burned at the stake here, yes, I think Mikko Koivu is worthless. Criticize me all you want, but prior to his overtime game winner against Phoenix, describe his last goal to me. Maybe a notable play he made? What's that? You can't? THAT'S BECAUSE HE ACTUALLY BARELY ADDS ANYTHING TO THE TEAM. You could argue he's a playmaker, maybe I'd buy that, but I raise you Matt Cullen who's just as good of a playmaker (if not better) and doesn't have a C on his chest. With captainship comes great responsibility, and I have yet to see standout qualities in him that depict leadership game in and game out. Call me a dummy, call me an asshole or a bandwagoner, whatever. You can write your own blog about it.
[Repeat same previous paragraph replacing the names Koivu/Cullen with Budish/Haula, respectively.]
#1. The Tale of Two Teams
If there's one thing the Minnesota Wild and University of Minnesota Golden Gophers have in common, it's their lack of consistency. Both teams have shown/showed they're capable of great things and had the talent to back it up. Their top two lines were full of firepower, grit, hustle and energy. Most of them have great hair. But all that is irrelevant if you can't put together great efforts more than, say, two games in a row.
The extreme parity of the WCHA and lockout-ridden NHL season caused teams to face immense pressure every night they lace up the skates. There was no easy game in the WCHA, and every NHL game matters this year, more-so than in a normal 82-game schedule. The aforementioned great qualities both these teams have/had were often counteracted by completely disgraceful games where fans are left scratching their heads wondering where all the talent disappeared to. Excuses like "we ran into a hot goalie" and "they'll be fine", "don't worry about it", "they'll show up next game" are commonplace in Minnesota hockey fandom. At what point are these excuses not excuses anymore, and are instead ways for us to rationalize the actions of a team that just didn't show up?
These questions and more answered during the 2013-14 inaugural Big 10 hockey season and NHL's 2013 Stanley Cup playoffs...that is, if the Wild make it there.
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