The United States women’s national team is 2-0 after beating Canada 4-2 and Finland 4-1 in its preliminary IIHF World Championship Games, and will face Russia in the final round-robin game tomorrow morning.
The USA National team drew first blood against Canada on Friday on a two-man advantage when Jocelyne Lamoureux put a puck past Canada’s netminder Genevieve LaCasse. Canada would answer and tie the game on a breakaway, though, when Brianne Jenner beat USA goaltender Jessie Vetter.
USA Hockey
Team USA broke the tie when Hanna Brandt tipped a shot from Kacey Bellamy past LaCasse, and took a 3-1 lead in the last two minutes of the first period when Kendall Coyne capitalized on a power play.
Canada would come back in the second period when Jennifer Wakefield made it a 3-2 game when she scored on her backhand. It would be the last run of luck for Canada, though, as they could not muster more of a comeback. Hilary Knight made the game 4-2 when she crashed the net at 6:35 in the third.
The win was a huge confidence booster to the Americans, who hope to see Canada again in the final championship game.
“It’s very exciting,” said Bellamy in a press release. “Obviously the U.S.-Canada rivalry is what we live for, what we train for. We just wanted to start off on a good note. I think it was a really great team effort out there.”
Team Canada needed to get back to basics, said Canadian Coach Doug Derraugh.
“I think we came to work hard, but I didn’t think we were working that smart,” he said. “We just had to believe in the system and stick to what our game plan was and not just get running around and chasing the puck.”
The United States bested Finland 4-1 yesterday, out-shooting the Finns 53-12. Knight added two goals in the contest, while Brandt and Coyne each notched a goal as well. Knight now has three goals in the tournament while Brandt and Coyne each have two.
Brianna Decker notched three assists in the game.
“Coyner and Knighter and I, we’re all just moving the puck really well, and finding the spaces where we can just make passes easier,” said Decker in a press release.
U.S. Goaltender Alex Rigsby made her debut in a women’s world championship game.
Finland took a 1-0 lead when Finnish forward Susanna Tapani beat Rigsby on their second shot of the game.
The United States answered 28 seconds later when Knight got the puck on her stick and dipsy-doodled her way around Finnish goaltender Meeri Raisanen.
“Obviously they’re veterans, world-class players,” said U.S. Head Coach Ken Klee. “There was no panic in our bench. [The Finns] made a nice play, and we can tip our hat and get right back to it.”
The Americans never looked back. Knight would again find the back of the net on the power play to make the score 2-1. Coyne made it 3-1 on a rebound she picked up from Decker’s shot. Brandt notched the fourth goal when she pulled a drag-and-drop and lifted the puck high over Raisanen’s glove.
Canada blanked Russia 4-0 in their second preliminary game, with goals from Marie-Philip Poulin, Courtney Bichard, Caroline Oulette and Laura Fortino. Team Canada will face Finland tomorrow.
In case you missed it; part 1 of this series was The Atlantic Division. How are the goalies looking as the season ends? Let’s check out the Metropolitan Division (and continue to question how some of these places would be considered ‘Metro’)!
Eastern Conference: Metropolitan Division
Carolina Hurricanes — Now that Marty Brodeur has retired, Cam Ward is the goalie you think of when you go “man, remember how great that Canadian goalie was that time for his team in the Finals? Yeah, I wonder when he retired — woah, wait, he’s still playing?!” As of March 27th, the 31-year-old has a save percentage of .910 and is 19-21-5. He still makes some pretty amazing saves though, including this one against the Penguins.
Anton Khudobin, the only Kazakhstani goalie now that Nabokov has retired, has a current save percentage of .903 and has played 31 games this season. He, along with teammate Andrej Nestrasil, sampled Girl Scout cookies for the first time (spoiler alert: Khudobin loves the Samoan ones so much that he stole the entire sleeve so he and I might be the same person) in a great video on the Canes website.
Columbus Blue Jackets – Poor Sergei Bobrovsky. He, like most of his team, was injured for most of this season and he was so frustrated during one of his first games back, that when a teammate screened a goal in front of him, he glared at the player and then threw his stick down. Oops? With Bob injured for most of this season, Curtis McElhinney has been a pretty steady backup. McElhinney had a terrible injury a few years ago that almost ended his career and “basically shredded (his) pelvis.”
New Jersey Devils – After being Thing 2 to Roberto Luongo and later on #2 to Brodeur and his legacy as a New Jersey Devil for years, this was Cory Schneider’s first season of playing as the starting goalie. And except for a few bad starts very early on, he has gotten stronger as the season has continued. As of March 25, Schneider’s record on the season is 26-27-8. However, as of March 29, Schneider has played 65 games, making him 3rd in the league in starts. His 2.19 goals-against average is good for 4th among goalies who have started more than 50 games. His save percentage of .928 makes him 3rd. Former goalie Steve Valiquette has been saying on MSG’s Hockey Night Live that given how good Schneider’s been playing and the potential length of time the Devils will probably be in the rebuilding process, he should consider getting out of New Jersey while he’s still young and hot.
Since coming to Long Island in that trade, Michal Neuvirth is 1-2-1 with a current save percentage of .915. He hasn’t looked that good as an Islander, but that could just be nerves as a result of switching teams with less than two months remaining in the season. (However, when #IslesTwitter starts making I BELIEVE IN NEUVY buttons à la Harvey Dent, I hope I get some!)
If he wasn’t playing for the Islanders perhaps you’d hear more about Jaroslav Halak and his quiet attempt to change the perception of him as a goalie who has bounced around teams and used as trade-bait into the great goalie he was in Montreal all those years ago (or perhaps you’ll be hearing more about it once the postseason starts and the announcers rehash the same idea over and over again). After years of questionable goalies on the Island (except for Nabokov [who I will fight every single Islanders fan over] whose only reason for doing so poorly in the 2013 postseason was because he was the work horse that won them so many games during the regular season to even get them into the playoffs!), Halak is 35-16-2 with a save percentage of .915 and while he has had a history of injuries (what goalie doesn’t?), some are concerned about what that means going into the playoffs with him leading the goalie battery.
New York Rangers – Did you hear about Henrik Lundqvist? His show ‘The Mask with Henrik Lundqvist‘ is going great (and even if you don’t get the MSG channel, you can watch the episodes on their website. Trust me as a Devils fan, if you like Henrik Lundqvist, you’ll love watching his life flash before his eyes when he’s driving with NASCAR’s Jeff Gordon or him struggling to figure out how to DJ with DJ Tiesto.) It’s a show where Hank talks to his famous friends or people that he admires and they make an awesome (or weird) goalie mask to be worn with all the proceeds going to charity. Or maybe you heard that he and his wife had another daughter. Or, maybe you heard about that weird, wacky, frightening and scary injury that he had in a game on Jan. 31st? A vascular injury that could’ve led to a stroke?? Well. His first game back didn’t go very well on Saturday March 28th against the Bruins (final score was 4-2), but his backups have been nothing short of amazing.
Cam Talbot, 27, from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, was mainly known as being “the goalie with the awesome Ghostbusters mask,” however, after Lundqvist went down with his injury, Talbot, was 16-4-3, with a 2.16 goals-against average, a .929 save percentage and two shutouts as of March 28th. There have even been many think-pieces about who should be in goal for the Rangers going into the playoffs — Talbot or Lundqvist. Most of them were written by NYC’s rag newspapers, but this one in Medium has the best comparison of the two goalies.
Their third goalie this season is Mackenzie Skapski who could be an East Coast Eddie Lack in that every time the cameras caught him, he couldn’t stop smiling–even when the team was losing–just because he was so happy to be on the bench. One of those reasons is because a few years ago, he was in a terrible accident and things could’ve been much worse for the promising goalie. Of course, he isn’t just a happy face — as he played in two games this season (both against Buffalo) — and he won both of them, including his first NHL game, which was also his first NHL shutout and his first NHL win which afterwards earned him a shaving cream pie to the face. He also seems to look a lot like a famous actor as Sean Hartnett (@HartnettHockey) noticed.
Philadelphia Flyers– The Flyers and their goalie situation is always magical. Magical, in this case, is not always a positive. Steve Mason (who, much like Schneider in Newark, has been the surprising thing keeping an otherwise bad team afloat) was injured sometime in February and had surgery on Feb. 10th to repair his right knee. He told the Flyers reporters that he’d only play if it was a super desperate situation and on the 26th, Craig Berube put him in a game against the Maple Leafs after Rob Zepp gave up 2 first-period goals. Not exactly a ‘desperate’ situation. And in early March, the Flyers parted ways with their goaltending coach, Jeff Reese. According to a Philly.com article; The real reason for Reese’s departure, according to a Philadelphia Daily News report, was that Reese had dared to support Mason and question the Flyers’ handling of his injuries. This was no minor move for Mason: He had been a lost soul over his final three seasons with the Columbus Blue Jackets, and Reese had helped him rebuild his career in Philadelphia.
Better goalie news for the Flyers? With Mason’s injury, Rob Zepp was the feel-good story of the winter as he made his NHL debut for the Flyers at age 33. He was originally drafted by the Atlanta Thrashers in 1999 but spent most of his career in the ECHL and Europe where Danny Briere and Claude Giroux had spoken very highly of him as he was their teammate during the lockout in Berlin for Eisbären Berlin. In 10 games played, before going back to the Flyers AHL team after Mason’s healthy return, he was 5-2-0 with a save percentage of .888. During that stretch, he won some pretty big games against the Predators and Capitals.
And Ray Emery has a one year deal that ends this season where he is 10-10-6 in 29 games played.
Pittsburgh Penguins– Marc Andre Fleury is doing his usual “you are the best/you are the worst goalie in this game” that drive Pens fans (and the people who love them) insane around this time of the year. As of March 29th, his save percentage is .921 and he’s 32-17-8 as well as breaking a Penguins’ record with his nine shutouts this season. Of course, none of this will matter for most fans of Flower and the Penguins if his postseason stats aren’t as good.
Thomas Greiss is one of a handful of NHLers from Germany (West Germany, in fact, as he was born in the 1980s) and is most famous for being the youngest goalie in the 2006 Winter Olympics tournament at age 20, where he had a 35-save performance on 40 shots against Team Canada. He has a one-year contract with the Pens after playing as Mike Smith’s backup last season. He’s played 9-5-0 and has a save percentage of .913 (but, again, much like with Fleury, what will really matter will be how he does in the postseason). He’s also most famous (in my world) for making a drunk Devils’ fan believe I was a Penguins fan because I actually knew who he was (Tomas Vokoun retired so I have no goalie to love unconditionally anymore; I might as well join the German bandwagon!). Also on March 29th, he won 3-2 against his former team the Coyotes.
Washington Capitals– Braden Holtby is still one of the best emotional and .gif worthy goalies of the Twitter golden age. On March 28th, Holtby gave up three goals in the 1st period to the Nashville Predators and was pulled from the game for Justin Peters (the Preds ended up winning 4-3). The next day, in Madison Square Garden, Holtby was back in net with the Caps winning 5-2 and he was the 3rd star of the game. While not as consistently inconsistent like Marc Andre Fleury, Holtby’s ability to bounce back will be good if the team makes it to the postseason. Justin Peters (née the Carolina Hurricanes) is his backup and has a glow-in-the-dark Abe Lincoln dog themed mask. Yes. I know what words I just put together into a sentence. Goalies are magic.
The sting of a loss. One game is doable, you get over it and move on. A string of losses allows the funk, the doubt, to set in and you start to question if it’s something you can overcome. When you’ve lost more games in your season than you’ve won, sitting below the .500 mark, every game becomes a test of your mettle. Sometimes the puck luck just isn’t in the cards.
There are teams who know the painful path of loss intimately. The Edmonton Oilers and the Toronto Maple Leafs understand consecutive losses in a row and what it means to be in the basement, playoff hopes vanishing even before the All-Star Break hits. Some teams, like the Minnesota Wild and the Calgary Flames are climbing the stairs, no longer bottom dwellers but actual contenders in the playoff picture. Other teams have been spoiled. Who can remember when the Detroit Red Wings didn’t make the playoffs? Exactly.
It’s been one of those years. One where you know in your gut that your team just isn’t good enough. Glimmers of the team that could are there, but like a mirage, the closer you look the more the team just isn’t what it seems.
This season has not been kind to Northern California hockey fans. It has been torture on the heart. At the NHL level, the San Jose Sharks, after having an epic collapse in the the 2014 Playoffs to the team that shall remain nameless, have pretty much sealed their fate for this year’s playoff race; they won’t be in it. The math just doesn’t work out. Eleven years of consecutive playoff appearances comes to an end for Team Teal and the golf clubs will come out early just like the warm weather did this year.
The Stockton Thunder, Northern California’s only ECHL minor league hockey team, lost their bid for the playoff race a few weeks ago and will finish the season in all likelihood, in last place. I could count on one hand the number of times I witnessed the Thunder win at home this season. The team that has called the Central Valley home for the past ten years is leaving too, to be replaced with the Stockton Heat, AHL affiliate of the Calgary Flames for next season. It’s a disappointing end to a team that has been such a powerhouse in years past.
What do you do when your team doesn’t win? When they don’t make it into bonus hockey territory? The natural reaction is to tear the team apart. It’s the time of the year when every hockey fan becomes a GM and a Coach. Should have. Could have. Didn’t. Do you not renew your season tickets to show your disdain? As hockey fans we may have flashes of anger but ultimately, we keep going back. In the end, regardless of how the team plays, the love for the game runs deep, even after a 10-2 loss. Our passion for the puck is inconsolable. The ice runs thick in our veins.
So if the season comes to an early end, you could always hit the links along with your favorite team.
Saturday´s game againt the New York Rangers was a big game for the Boston Bruins. It was an early afternoon game on Saturday and fortunately, because I am a Bruins fan, it was a must win for Bruins. The last two games, I wore skirts, so I knew today I was going to wear leggings. I am a huge fan of leggings and I wear them all the time. I think they are really practical and you can dress them up for an elegant style or keep it simple for a sporty style. And they are really comfortable as well. So I went with leggings for this Saturday’s game.
The blazer is another piece of clothing that I consider essential. I wear them often. I love the leggings and blazer combination. To be honest, my favorite color is black, and I wear many black clothes. But this game I had originally planned to wear a blue blazer until I realized that I this could look like I was supporting the Rangers. It is never good to show partisanship on press level. So instead I went with a black long blazer from H&M. If you combine these black leggings and the black blazer with some yellow top or blouse, it would be a perfect Bruins outfit. Yellow is really not my favorite color in clothes and like with the Rangers, I shouldn’t show support for the Bruins either. Instead of yellow, I went with a top in a nice shade of nude, which is one of my favorite colors. And it allowed me to wear my new nude pumps from Express, which I love.
The year is 2015. The place is the east coast of North America on the planet Earth. People all over the planet are in awe and are standing in fixed stares. A game is being played in a different and unique way. A game to watch with their family and friends. A game which is old but is watched by many. Take a look at the new spin on an old tradition! Come out of your comfort zone and catch the new and exciting world of the New Women’s Hockey League or N.W.H.L. for short.
Yes Virginia, there is an American women’s league!
Wow! It is about time! I have been waiting for this since the 70s!
Four teams make up this unique league: Buffalo Beauts, Boston Pride, New York Riveters and the Connecticut Whale. The season is from October to March which includes the preseason and the playoffs. There will be nine home games and nine away games. My heart is beating faster all ready and my palms are starting to grow sweaty! I wonder if I could join? Ok, I am a bit older, some say over 50 while I say 25! But I am in good shape still! Maybe a water girl then or a skate sharpener?
The N.W.H.L. is a non-profit foundation that helps the growth of hockey with the financial support of teams and players. The foundation also aids in the education, training and opportunities for females to enjoy the sport. One of the goals is to teach core values like the other hockey leagues, which includes: loyalty, teamwork, sportsmanship, commitment and such.
There is so much good stuff to this so come out and see how an old sport is played in a new way!
Going into the game against the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday night the Boston Bruins knew that they were on the outside looking in at the playoffs. After having five straight at the beginning of March, the Bruins had most recently compiled an equal streak in the opposite direction having lost their last five—three of those losses given up in regulation. It was critical that they get take the two points Thursday evening.
There was some line shakeups as David Krejci was pronounced cleared to play. Many wondered if head coach Claude Julien would put Krejci back together with his longtime line mate, Milan Lucic. During Krejci’s latest injury recovery, Ryan Spooner had been recalled as his replacement. However, with this recall Spooner appears to have found his stride. In fact, it was Lucic, Spooner and David Pastrnak who had been on quite a point streak for much of the time the Bruins were winning.
There was also the question of how the Bruins would hit the ice in the first period. They have struggled with consistency and in bringing the necessary energy for a full 60-minute game—especially in the second period. If there was any silver lining before the puck dropped was that the Ducks had shown difficulties in the middle frame of their games.
Just a little over two and a half minutes into the game, Lucic and Ducks Simon Despres were each called for slashing. About four minutes later Adam McQuaid and Corey Perry would also be called for matching slashes. Anaheim would then be called two more times, first a hooking to Patrick Maroon and then a tripping by Francois Beauchemin. Despite the open ice for four minutes during the two four-on-fours, and the two times they were on the man advantage the Bruins were unable to capitalize. As the buzzer sounded the end of the first twenty, neither team had scored and the shots on goal were almost equal at 12-11 in favor of the Ducks.
Ryan Spooner (Photo: Alan Sullivan)
The second period appeared that it would be another of north and south pay with little to show for either team when just past the halfway mark Maroon was able to snap it past Tuukka Rask to get the Ducks on the scoreboard first. Two and half minutes later, Despres was called for his second slashing of the night. The Bruins had their first power play unit on the ice and Spooner would get his sixth goal of the season with assists from Patrice Bergeron and Krejci just 19 seconds into the power play.
Just 32 seconds before the end of that second period, with the score tied, Despres would take his third penalty of the night, a tripping on Lucic. The teams would end the period tied and with the Bruins carrying that man advantage into the start of the final period.
Loui Eriksson would get the go ahead goal for the Bruins 27 seconds into the third period. And it would perhaps not be surprising that with just 39 seconds remaining regulation the Ducks Perry would tie the game.
In the end the Bruins would have to settle for a point on the night and the fact that the New York Rangers would defeat the Ottawa Senators in regulation. The Bruins and Senators are now tied in points but the Bruins remain on the outside of the playoffs because the Senators have a game in hand.
After the game, Julien discussed Perry’s tying goal and Matt Belesky’s contact with Rask that, when reviewed, did show that Rask was unable to properly defend his crease.
“There was no doubt goalie interference there and that’s why they talk about reviewing those kinds of goals and coaches’ challenges, because you can’t allow those kinds of goals,” said Julien. “This was a big point we lost tonight on a missed call. Those are the things that are hard to swallow right now.”
The stitches to Lucic’s face during the second period from a missed high stick was another missed call that would have given the Bruins a four-minute power play that could have been a game changer as well.
In the end some positives can be taken from the game. Getting assists on both of the goals the Bruins scored marked Krejci’s return. The team was able to capitalize on the man advantage, something they had been struggling with again. And perhaps more importantly, it appeared that the team had found a chemistry on the bench—perhaps a result of the fact that all of them had participated in the Cuts for a Cause benefit just two days before.
The Bruins face the New York Rangers—the team whose win on Thursday aided the Bruins—in a matinee on Saturday. The Rangers have been without the talents of their best goalie, Henrik Lundqvist for some time, but this hasn’t been a problem for the team as Cam Talbot has been rock solid for the Blueshirts.
It’s make or break time for the Black and Gold. They have only eight more games in regulation. They need to win every one of them if they have any hopes of making it to the playoffs, and the longest winning streak they have had all season was five games. Of course, the Bruins are often at their best when their back is against the wall.
Post game review from Winter Adams and Rhonda McClure:
The good news is that the Reading Royals managed to clinch a spot in the playoffs this past week while playing in Brampton, Canada. They played the last place team of the Central Division team, the Brampton Beasts on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. Unfortunately, Thursday night ended in Brampton’s favor with their center Justin Donati scoring just 34 seconds into overtime. On Friday and Sunday night, however, the Royals managed to slay the Beasts with scores of 6-3 and 8-3. Many players were glad to get a chance to visit with their families, but as Wednesday came around they had to return to Reading to take on the first place team in the Eastern Division, the Florida Everblades.
1st
The bad news is the Royals ultimately flopped last night for their 1000th game in franchise history. Just 33 seconds into the game Reading allowed Florida’s forward Ray Kaunisto to sneak in and bank the puck off Connor Knapp’s pad and into the net. The Royals would seem to play rather flat afterward and only managed to take a total of 4 on goal.
Before the period’s end, Florida would claim their second goal of the night. At 13:25 while the players scrambled for the puck in front of the Royals net, Nicolas Deschamps was able to nab the puck and shove it under Knapp for Florida’s second goal of the night. To make a long story short, the Royals were outshot 20-4 and outscored 2-0.
Pat Mullane later commented, “Obviously not the start we wanted, giving up a goal in the first shift. I think they were just a little more prepared to play. You know, I think we had, I don’t want to say an easy weekend, but we definitely faced an opponent that wasn’t as talented as Florida last weekend. Maybe we weren’t ready to play or as focused. Whatever it may be, we just didn’t come out with the start we wanted.”
2rd
In the second, the Royals showed improvement, but were still greatly outplayed by the Everblades. Once again Florida managed to score within the first minute. At just 19 seconds, defenseman Bobby Preece scored on a deflected snap shot from Carter Sandlak. Although neither team would be able to score for the rest of the period, the Royals were able to out shoot the Everblades this period 15-7.
Luckily, Florida didn’t score within the first minute this time, but at 4:21 Forward Mike Aviani managed to score on a deflected shot from Spencer Pommells. With a 4-0 lead and time ticking away, there seemed to be a decent chance of the Everblades claiming a shutout by the night’s end.
With less than three minutes left Brett Flemming finally scored the Royals’ first and only goal on Florida goalie Matt Ginn. This goal would raise tension in the stadium. Within the next play, Mike Aviani would come barreling down the ice into Brandon Alderson and send both of them, as well as Ginn and the net back against the boards. Avanie received a ten-minute misconduct for the act, and left the ice with only minutes to go.
After this bit of drama, the Royals decided to pull their goalie. Unfortunately, this would only lead to Florida scoring their fifth goal of the night. While in their defensive zone, Mike Little chucked the puck down the ice where Adam Brace out-raced everyone to nullify the icing call. Brace quickly slipped the puck back to Matt Marquart, who pounded it into the net for the final goal of the game. Coach Larry Courville commented, “To be honest, we haven’t been playing good hockey in two weeks. We haven’t seen a lot of great teams and this was a really good team.”
Although the Royals faced a tough 5-1 loss last night, they aren’t ready to accept defeat just yet and are already looking forward to their next game as well as the playoffs. Pat Mullane explains, “When we’re getting down to the final stretch here, I think we’re going to be facing a lot of good teams and in the playoffs we’re going to be facing a lot of good teams and if you’re not ready to play right off the bat then you’re going to find yourself behind the 8-ball and you know, climbing uphill all game, so just be more prepared and more focused that first period.”
What’s Next?
Next up on the agenda, the Royals will play Indy Fuel in Indianapolis on Friday. Indy is currently in 6th place in the Northern Division. On Saturday they will take on the 4th place Nailers in Wheeling. The Royals have clinched a spot in the playoffs, but will continue to push for good positioning in the playoffs. They also have to watch out for South Carolina who are currently on a 22-game winning streak and trailing the Royals by only one point.
As the Minnesota Wild‘s season comes to a close, they approach what is undoubtedly their toughest stretch of the year.
The Wild are currently fighting to stay alive and make a run in the playoffs, as they currently hold one of the two wild card spots in the Western Conference. With 91 points on the season, they are only five points ahead of the ninth place standing in the Western Conference, which would leave them without a playoff spot. What makes this fact even more intimidating for the Wild is that one of teams fighting for the same wild card spot as them is last season’s Stanley Cup Champions, the Los Angeles Kings. The Kings have moved up into the sixth playoff spot recently, but since their division is so competitive, they could be pushed down into a wildcard spot. Since the Kings are last year’s champions, they obviously are still a very skilled team, as they only lost veteran defenseman Willie Mitchell, Colin Fraser and Andrew Campbell over the offseason.
With the season wrapping up the Minnesota Wild have many important games to finish on, one of the most important being against the Los Angeles Kings on March 28th. Beating the Kings would help the Wild a lot, because as mentioned before, the Kings are probably the biggest threat to the Wild’s playoff chances, since they are both potentially fighting for the same spot. Along with this one, the Wild do not have a single game they can afford to lose, as at this time in the season, every point counts. With that being said, this task requires them to play at their best, because every team they have to face for the rest of the year currently has a playoff spot, or is very close to one. (Here is a link to the schedule, if you wish to see who they play: http://wild.nhl.com/club/calendar.htm)
The Wild, as are their fans, are hopeful to secure a spot in the playoffs, and if Devan Dubnyk, along with the team in front of him perform well, it is likely that they will successfully make it through the tough ending of their season. The Wild may have an extremely tough schedule to wrap up the season, but they are also a tough team; one that overcame a terrible slump earlier in the year. Not many other teams can say they came from being a lifeless looking team, to the best team since the all-star break; which makes many believe that they will finish off with a winning record, and hopefully, a playoff spot.
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