It's amazing what great goaltending can do for a team.
Heading into Wednesday night's game against the Calgary Flames, the Minnesota Wild had compiled a 7-0-1 record, leading the NHL with 15 points. The Wild's strong start comes in spite of an unremarkable defense and an abysmal offense that would leave most teams struggling to find ways to win.
The Wild are the top team in the NHL due solely to their goaltending duo of Niklas Backstrom and Josh Harding.
Backstrom earned the starting job in Minnesota after his solid performance last season when he went 23-8-6 in 41 starts. Those numbers weren't just due to the Wild's offense: he posted a 1.97 goals-against average, with five shutouts and a .929 save percentage to lead the Wild to a playoff berth. The 29-year-old seemed to have no difficulty adjusting from the Finnish National League where he had played a majority of his previous seasons. Backstrom has continued his stellar performance again this season, posting a 5-0-1 record, with a 1.48 GAA, two shutouts and a .943 save percentage.
Josh Harding has gotten the other two starts in net for the Wild and has been even better than Backstrom. Last year he had a mediocre season with a weak Houston Aeros club at the AHL level. After the departure of Manny Fernandez in a trade with the Boston Bruins, Harding earned the backup spot behind Backstrom.
In his two starts, he has notched a 2-0 record with one shutout. He allowed just one goal in his other start for a 0.50 GAA and an incredible .986 save percentage. His performance to date has been outstanding, but it is virtually impossible that those numbers will continue as he sees more time in goal.
Other than the goaltending, little else has gone right for the Wild. Their power-play unit is the fourth-worst in the NHL, with an awful 11.8 percent conversion rate. They have managed to score just four goals in 34 opportunities with a man advantage.
The Wild's power play actually gave up two goals in those 34 chances. However, Minnesota's power-play line seems to be improving, as the Wild scored three of the four total power-play goals in the last two contests.
Still, the offensive production in general has not been good for the Wild, including at even strength. The Wild have scored only 20 goals in the season, which puts them at 21st in the NHL. They have posted a shots-per-game average of 29, but have failed to capitalize on the scoring opportunities they create, shooting just 8.7 percent, 22nd in the league.
These statistics may seem like a broken record. The Wild are consistently in the bottom third of the league in every offensive category. Their offense is just putting enough pucks in the back of the net to win, provided that they get superb goaltending performances. Without the goaltending, the four lines of the Wild are looking more like the Nashville Predators, who are currently on a six-game losing streak and have scored just one goal in their last three games.
The Wild's defense this year has been adequate, but has a tendency to allow too many shots on goal (an average of 29 per game). If that number looks familiar, it is because that is how many shots per game the Wild are taking on offense. Keeping ahead of the opposition in the shooting game is an advantage the Wild have been unable to obtain thus far.
Part of this is due to their intensely physical style of play. They are 10th in the league in penalties, with 131 cumulative minutes, and as a team, they average 15 hits per game. This defensive aggression has minimized quality scoring chances for the opposition, but has the Wild spending plenty of time in the box.
The defensemen of the Wild must make sure that they can minimize silly hooking and tripping penalties, and keep opponents off the board on the power play for their defense to remain effective. Fortunately for the Wild, their penalty killing line is one of the best in the league. The Wild are fifth in the league with a 90.2 percent kill rate. They have also notched one shorthanded tally in their 41 penalty-kill attempts.
The Wild have had a hot but unsustainable start. If Backstrom's GAA keeps pace with last season's, it will creep dangerously close to the team's goals-scored average of 2.5. Harding similarly will regress to the neighborhood of his previous performance levels.
Without an improvement in offensive conversion, the Wild will remain in the uncomfortable position of depending entirely on incredible goaltending. So far the Wild have proven that you can win without consistent scoring. If Minnesota can bring its offense up to the level of its defense, the Wild could emerge as a darkhorse team in the playoffs this year.
