Look for the Wild to hoist the Cup in the end
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by user Leslie Monteiro
The hockey wonks have labeled several teams as Stanley Cup contenders. The Devils, Red Wings, Sharks, Ducks, and the Canucks are the teams that come to mind.
The Wild are not taken seriously by them. In fact, they expect them to lose to the Ducks in five or six games in the first round.
This is the same people that expected the St. Paul team to lose in 4 games against Stanley Cup favorite Colorado Avalanche in 2003 when the team made their first playoff appearance ever.
Those geniuses were wrong as the team not only took the Avalanche to the max of seven games in the first round, but they beat them on an Andrew Brunette’s game-winning goal to advance to the second round.
This set the fuel for a great playoff run in which they went to the Western Conference Finals.
This team is even better than the 2003 team. They have all the components to get it done. They have great offensive players, superb defense, solid goaltending, and astute coaching. If a team has all of the above, it should be considered a Stanley Cup contender.
A superstar is a must for a team to win a championship. The Wild have that in Marian Gaborik.
He is one of the best-kept secrets in hockey. He does not get talked much about in the same sentence as Ilya Kovalchuk, Alexandre Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, Marian Hossa, and other rising young starts in the league because he plays in flyover country, but he is as good as them.
He can score at sheer will. He can create his own shots and score. He has a good eye of finding his open linemate as he feeds the puck to that linemate and that mate scores.
He has a good supporting cast to get it done. It is not just him that teams have to stop. They have to deal with veterans like Mark Parrish, Brian Rolston, Wes Walz, and Todd White, who are proven playoff performers.
They have done very well in getting done in the playoffs for years. They just find a way to score to stop.
This team has more depth than it had in 2003. Their young players have developed into reliable scorers.
Mikko Koivu, Brent Burns, and Pierre-Marc Bouchard have gone through growing pains of being NHL players. They have gone through ups and downs, but they finally turned it around by being very consistent in scoring when they get the puck.
They just find a way to score in tight games which is important if they want to be productive players in this league. These players have made this team interesting because now they now have a mixture of veterans and young players who can make a difference by scoring and winning games.
There is an adage that defense wins championships. This team has a good core of defensemen in Kurtis Foster, Nick Schultz, Petteri Nummelin, Keith Carney, and Burns.
Wild head coach Jacques Lemaire always has his teams play defense first and offense last. They are very effective in shutting down the other team when they take a lead heading to third period.
They do a good job of frustrating other teams especially on the road, when fans fall asleep with their style of play. It may be boring, but the bottom line is that it works and the team wins games.
The Wild may not have a Martin Brodeur, but they got three goaltenders who are very efficient in the nets. Niklias Backstorm, Manny Fernandez, and future goaltender Josh Harding have done a very good job of winning games all season. They have made the big saves when they had to. It will not be different now that they are in the playoffs.
Great coaching can go a long way. They got the best coach in hockey in Jacques Lemaire.
He is a great gameday coach. He has a special gift of dissecting the other team's weakness. He knows how to get the most out of his team and put his players in a position to succeed. He just has a right knack of getting guys to perform.
No one can teach that in a coach. Great coaches can be a great motivator, but it does not mean much. It is about getting to do well in gamedays which is why Lemaire is one of the best coaches in hockey.
It is a mistake that everyone is overlooking the WIld. It is a lack of respect towards what the players, the coaching staff, and the front office have done in succeeding this season.
Those people are going to be in for a rude awakening.
As long as the team and the fans believe, that is all that matters.
