The Minnesota Most Retarded Name In Pro Sports are leading in the league in standings points (Philly's got them beat in winning percentage, and with four shootout wins and two overtime losses, numerous teams have 'em beat in adjusted percentage) through a little over a third of the season, shocking many (like me!) who had them pegged for somewhere between 7th and 11th. They're getting an Everyone Finally Noticing Him year out of Mikko Koivu, the longtime lesser of the Koivus, plus Heatley and Setoguchi from the Sharks, but mostly they're doing this with good old party-like-it's-1995 trapping and goaltending. Hm: Minnesota emulating New Jersey. Call 'em the Prairie Home Sopranos.

Backstrom and Harding have been giving the Hawks trouble for a few years now, so their being a part of the team's success is no news. It's just that during the last two seasons before Yeo and after Lemaire, the Wild sort of lost their commitment to being an insufferable system team, instead playing the sort of awful, "aspirationally uptempo" hockey played by talent-deficient teams who don't run traps, like the Columbus Blue Jackets since last year and the Carolina Hurricanes since forever.

The Wild have the league's fourth-best goaltending at 2.097 allowed per game, though they're not far off Boston's league-leading 2.000. Hawks goaltending is much more suspect, 20th with 2.967. The numbers look much better on the scoring side, with the Hawks in 4th at 3.200 scored per game versus Minnesota's 2.452, good (or bad) for 24th.

6:30ish puck drop on Versus because apparently nobody in the Twin Cities works past 4.

prospective lines:

Stalberg - Toews - Kane
Sharp - Kruger - Hossa
Bickell - Bolland - Frolik
Brunette - Mayers - Carcillo
Keith - Seabrook
Leddy - Hjalmarsson
Montador - Scott, because when I need puck-moving defensemen and outlet passes to bust a trap, I dress John fucking Scott!

Emery in goal

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Wow, worst team name and ugliest sweaters, and starting next year we get to see them even more!

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team Mully & Hanley
team Meatpants

The Wild's logo looks similar to the one promoting Minnesota tourism. That's not the ugliest NHL team logo though. That belongs to the Carolina Hurricanes.

I don't follow hockey too closely so I had no idea there were two teams named the "Sharks".

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The Court will accord substantial deference to the government's immigration policies, particularly those that implicate matters of national security.

Yeah, this shuld be the Cannots' primary logo:

They have it in the set, they just don't use it much.

The Wild's logo is actually pretty cool. You look at it and think it's just some generic outdoor scene but then you realize IT'S A BEAR!!! Shame the name blows. The NHL should've vetoed any proposed relocation of the North Stars. What kind of hockey league withdraws from Minnesota? That's like the NBA deciding they'd better pull the plug on this New York thing.

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These guy say hi...

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Haruuuumph. Its readily apparent that the water creature in the Canucks logo is an Orca and not a shark Mr Man.

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

Have you seen this week's update on Cumfiesta? Her name is Minnesota Wild and she blows too.

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The Court will accord substantial deference to the government's immigration policies, particularly those that implicate matters of national security.

hey asshole, don't spoil it for me, I'm still 2 weeks behind on my Cumfiesta updates!

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Carbomb=

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I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

Yeah, that was ill-advised. Carcillo sucks in staged fights. His forte is to just start punching a dude. Same with Mayers.

Hawks are trying their best here.

Hell of a play from Keith. 5 on 3 for 45 seconds here. If they don't score now, they never will. Yeah, EVER.

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Trip penalty shot ...there'll will be a make up call

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I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

I don't think he was legally on a breakaway. Must've had someone parallel to him or something.

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Wasn't a penalty anyway, he lifted his stick and the dude fell down. Hawks have a lot of jump tonite, they've earned both goals

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

There's the makeup call, I guess. Way to not call icing.

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That plus having Scott and Montador both out there on D is just asking for trouble

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

This team gets pantsed in a line change every night. Shouldn't they have figured out how to change on the fly by the time they're in this league?

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Who the hell waved off the icing? Linesman obviously had his arm up and then just kinda decided "ennnhhh no"??

That one was all Bickell's fault. Brought the puck over the blue line and the failed to get it deep like the little bitch he is..puck goes the other way and hawks get caught changing. They need to send his ass down to the minors for an extended stay, fucking bum.

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I don't think Bickell has waiver exemption anymore; a team like Dallas or Phoenix would intercept him.

Way to go, Toews. They'd better not try to sit on this lead. Even Minnesota can catch you pulling that.

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Too much play in our own end this period. Uncharacteristic for Minnesota. Reminds me of the Islander game.

EDIT: son of a bitch they're gonna lose this in the shootout

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No more ties.

Let's see how badly Emery gets embarrassed in this.

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Yeah not the person you want in there. Foley just sounded shocked.

That was slow motion. How close was he going to get?

They are the most hetro team in the NHL then.

Ya that was really frustrating. I still want to blame John Scott for that though. Both d caught behind the net there, but I can't come up with one reason that wasn't icing.



And uh, nice move Kaner.

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Team Cutler.

These guys again.

Hawks are 6th in goals scored with 3.140, 17th in allowed with 2.837
Wild are 29th in goals scored with 2.233, 5th in allowed with 2.116

Thought I'd revisit the aggregate real/adjusted/expected rankings again, having done them last around the end of December. The Hawks have moved down, of course. So too have the Wild.

1 Boston 0.622
2 New York 0.552
3 St. Louis 0.399
4 Vancouver 0.379
5 Detroit 0.344
6 Philadelphia 0.319
7 San Jose 0.253
8 Chicago 0.211
9 Washington 0.057
10 Nashville 0.056
11 Toronto 0.055
12 Florida 0.041
13 Dallas 0.040
14 Pittsburgh 0.034
15 Los Angeles 0.011
16 Ottawa 0.010
17 Minnesota 0.001
18 Phoenix -0.047
19 New Jersey -0.051
20 Winnipeg -0.081
21 Colorado -0.151
22 Calgary -0.155
23 Montreal -0.180
24 Buffalo -0.210
25 Edmonton -0.253
26 Tampa Bay -0.280
27 Long Island -0.393
28 Carolina -0.436
29 Anaheim -0.438
30 Columbus -0.637


It gets interesting when you graph it.

What this tells us--if we suppose that weighing wins by margin of victory and lack of shootout tells us anything--is that the Bruins and Rangers are still on another level, the Blackhawks round out the league's upper echelon, there's a lot of parity in the big Blob of Mediocrity ranging from 9 to 20 (22 if you want to be very generous), and the Blue Jackets still suck tremendous ass. It also tells us that while the Blackhawks have been banking points, their quality of play has paled not only to that of the hated Red Wings and Canucks, who win more games more soundly, but to the Blues, too. This is a troubling sort of purgatory, as they're clearly not good enough to contend as presently constituted, but have kept their names in the papers just enough to shore up and surpass teams like the Sharks and the can't-be-this-good Blues. But at what organizational cost? What do you sacrifice to jimmy your window back open in a year where the Bruins, Rangers, and to a lesser extent the Canucks tower over the rest?

Latendresse, Bouchard, and Backstrom out for the Wild tonight. Harding has given us trouble in net. Heatley-Koivu-Setoguchi (the Shark Finns?) is a legit line; muckers on down from there. Hope we don't need shootout magic this time.

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The puck sure seems to find Jimmy Hayes a lot. I like him, looks like a keeper.

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

Strange, he looks like a forward to me...

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team Mully & Hanley
team Meatpants