Five for Fighting: Minnesota Wild - Pretenders?

Five for Fighting is a feature where we give two writers a topic and they argue both sides of that argument. The topic in this edition is "Will the Minnesota Wild be Stanley Cup contenders or pretenders this season?" 

This is also Art's first post with Tape to Tape so welcome Art! 

The Minnesota Wild are already being picked by NHL experts and fans to make a run at the Stanley Cup this upcoming season, but are these assumptions justified?  The Wild did win the Zach Parise, and Ryan Suter sweepstakes this summer but how much of an impact can they truly have?

First let’s take a look at how the Wild faired last season; The Wild completed the regular season with 81 points (finishing 4th in the Northwest division), and 15 points out of the 8th spot in the Western Conference. Now, the Northwest division is no powerhouse. Even though Vancouver is in the Northwest (consecutive President’s Trophy winners with 111 points) there were no other teams that challenged the Canucks. 

Calgary came closest with 90 points (second in the division) but they still missed the playoffs. Colorado came in third with 88 points, Minnesota had 81 points, and Edmonton had 74 points. Vancouver was the only team to make the playoffs from that division, and they were eliminated in the first round by the soon to be Stanley Cup champions.

The Canucks played in a very weak division; some would go as far as to call the Northwest a powder puff division. This past season, the Canucks were 3-2-1 against the Flames, 6-0 against the Avalanche, 4-2 against the Wild and 5-1 against the Oilers.  With numbers like that, it was walk in the park for the division title.

Just to show you how easy it was, the Canucks earned 37 points by just playing teams in their division. The St. Louis Blues, who finished second in the West, played in a more competitive Central division and only earned 24 points against their opponents. That is a 13 point difference between the Blues and the Canucks. Which, in my opinion, is a very large difference. The Canucks are not tested enough in their soft division and neither are the Wild, which could lead to another early round exit from the playoffs for the Northwest division.

When you look at Minnesota’s numbers, Suter and Parise could help, but how much can they truly help? Say for instance Parise gets another 69 points in 82 games and that Heatley gets another 52 point. Those numbers are good, but they are not great. When we look at their “star” players’ plus/minus you will see Parise was a -5, Heatley was a -10, and another star Setoguchi was a whopping -17. 
Those numbers aren’t bad, they are down right disgusting. Suter was the lone exception with a plus/minus of 15. Those players can put up pretty good scoring numbers but they are being scored on even more. They aren’t the best two-way forwards and their numbers show it.

The Wild were also the lowest scoring team in the NHL with 166 goals which is an average of 2.02 goals a game. You won’t win too many games only scoring two goals, but the Wild believe that Parise and Suter will help their team score more and keep the puck out of their net.

With the addition of Suter the Wild’s 27th ranked power play will improve because he can quarterback it well. However, Suter is not the NHL’s best defenseman. He is good, but he is nowhere near the caliber of Shea Weber or Zdeno Chara. 

Suter will impact the Wild more than Parise, but the impact will only be slightly, because he no longer has Shea Weber as his partner. Taking away the presence of Weber will surely affect Suter’s play and not in a good way.

Maybe Parise will help the Wild, but I seriously doubt that he will make a significant impact. His defensive numbers are not great and going to a team like the Wild will not help him either. If anything, Minnesota is a downgrade from New Jersey. I believe the Minnesota will improve, but they will be just an average team. I predict they will make the playoffs as a 6th-8th seed and Lord Stanley will never make an appearance in Minnesota.