Perched on the precipice

Minnesota, where optimism lasts as long as a Kardashian marriage or mayonnaise left in the sun.

 

Roughly 3 weeks ago, on the 7^th of January, I returned from Mexico to a state that was giddy with optimism. The Gopher basketball team was 2-0 in the Big Ten, the NHL lockout had just ended, the Wolves were hanging gamely in the playoff chase, and the USA hockey team had even managed to capture gold at the World Juniors. All was right with the world as I stepped back on to MN soil, it felt like we were finally poised to shake off the funk that’s been plaguing our winter sports franchises for too long.

 

That sense of optimism ended almost immediately.

 

Kevin Love was diagnosed with a broken hand, the Gophers went in the tank, and the Wild’s 2-0 start is looking like fools gold with each passing game. We live in a reactionary world, and among the overreactors, I may be king.  But trust me when I tell you that tonight is a very big night for two teams in need of an immediate turnaround. Both the Gophers and Wild welcome teams that they not only should beat, but really need to beat if they intend to be anything more than the same squads we’ve been dealing with for years.

 

It’s still possible to put a silk head on this pig of a four-game slide the hoops team finds itself on. After all, Indiana and Michigan are among the best teams in the country, Northwestern just has our number, and Wisconsin will always be a really tough place to play. While it can’t be denied that there have been some ugly moments over the past couple weeks, but with plenty of time left in the season and a favorable schedule, nothing is totally f*cked just yet. Unfortunately, it’s going to get that way pretty quick if they can’t find ways to win the next two games on the slate.

 

Nebraska and Iowa have played some good teams tough, but they’ve also been routed by a few and are locks to finish in the bottom half of the Big Ten. Facing these two teams at home before traveling to East Lansing to play a Michigan State team that looks to be hitting it’s stride, two wins are the only acceptable result.

 

Blowouts would be preferred, comfortable wins would be acceptable, but a win of some kind in each game is absolutely required.

 

There is no way around this, with three ranked teams, and five "tough" opponents, in the six games following, these two contests absolutely fall into the "must win" category. Lose one and you’re deservedly out of the Top 25 (probably should be already), lose both and you’re on the fast track to possibly playing your way out of the NCAA tourney, as well as one of the most epic collapses ever witnessed. At the moment, they’re in a flat spin, heading out to sea, and if they don’t pull out of it, starting with tonight’s game, Goose is as good as dead.

 

The Wild’s situation is less dire, but that’s only because they’ve had fewer opportunities to screw up.

 

Every question asked this week has been prefaced with a "is it too soon to be drawing conclusions" or "acknowledging that we’re only five games in", but as Yogi Berra would say, things are going to get late early. This team opened up with a favorable schedule and has gotten amazing (and unsustainable) production from it’s top line, yet hasn’t really played a full 60 minutes of hockey so far in this young season. There may be encouraging signs, none more so than a strong game against perhaps the league’s best team last Sunday. Unfortunately, even that effort featured a series of lapses that turned it into an overtime loss, something that’s becoming a recurring issue in the early going.

 

The sky isn’t falling just yet, but by the end of the week, we’ll be 1/6^th of the way through this abbreviated season, and things could be looking dicey. Columbus comes in tonight as a bad team playing a back-to-back.  As a standalone opponent, that combination should translate into a win.  When you throw in concerns about defensive breakdowns, lack of secondary scoring and the next two games looming on the schedule (6-0 Chicago in town Wednesday), all the sudden the sense of urgency surrounding tonight’s tilt gets pretty strong.

 

Dropping tonight's game makes a 2-5-1 start pretty likely, which is not only a long way from what we had in mind a few weeks ago, it’s getting into uncomfortable déjà vu territory. If the modern NHL has taught us anything, it’s that holes aren’t easy to dig out of when 3 points are being handed out in most games down the stretch.

 

For comparison's sake, the Gophers are at a DEFCON 2, with the Wild only hovering around DEFCON 4. The former is poised to go flying off the rails, while the latter is simply cause for a raised eyebrow so far. But years of psychosis courtesy of these two squads can’t be so easily forgotten, and the same warning signs are starting to pop up. Tonight could very likely be a turning point for both teams, let’s hope it leads to new territory, instead of more of the same.

 

But on the bright side, you could be someone who doesn't like sports, then this would be just another random Tuesday in January.