The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Positive Numbers: Wild (Last Week: -2).  When you have an unbeaten screening Week (3-0), and you win all those Games on the road, and if you're riding a four-Game winning streak, and the last of those victories was an emphatic 6-2 triumph in Denver against a team seen as a Stanley Cup contender, you're going to stand atop a Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey, and most likely in Positive Numbers.

But there's more.  Small sample size, of course, but people are starting to notice that this isn't your father's Wild club.  For the first time in a long time, the Minnesota Wild have youth.  And skill.  And speed.  And excitement.  And that manifested itself Wednesday in the form of Kirill Kaprisov, potentially the most dangerous scorer to don a Wild uniform since Marian Gaborik, the franchise's inaugural draft pick.  I mean, look at this:

FSN did an iso-cam version of that Kaprizov shift and sped it up pic.twitter.com/gRQqklj7ja

— CJ Fogler #BlackLivesMatter (@cjzero) February 25, 2021

He's acting like fucking Michelle Kwan out there.

Kevin Fiala is starting to get into gear.  Mats Zuccarello, who's old and who I thought was a bad signing, is red-hot since getting sidelined for COVID.  And don't forget Kappo Kahkonen, the backup Goalie who was thrust into the pipes after starter Cam Talbot got injured.  Players are stepping up, and that's allowing veterans like Zach Parise to go down a line where they may have an advantage over other teams' third-liners.  If this budding movement is for real, the Wild will experience a force multiplier that will thrust them into playoff contention and may give an adrenaline shot to this organization.  Things might be looking up, for the short- and long-term, is what I'm saying.

A quick two-Game home series vs. Los Angeles Friday and Saturday before they travel to Las Vegas and play the Golden Knights Monday and Wednesday. 

#0: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: 0).  Swept Michigan St. at Mariucci last weekend by scores of 4-2 and 5-1.  Even with the non-use of the PairWise, I cannot believe that the Gophers won't make the NCAA Tournament -- well, unless there's an outbreak of COVID-19 with the club.  They're in good form, they're a good team, and I hope they don't underwhelm like other Twin Cities sports teams once tourney play begins.

They were scheduled to play Penn St. for two at State College this weekend, but because the Nittany Lions are experiencing an outbreak, that has officially been "postponed."  However, with news that the Big Ten has moved up the conference tournament by a few days, that series is most likely "canceled."  (Aside: I keep seeing on USCHO.com all these rescheduled, postponed and canceled Games in top-flight men's college hockey.  It seems as if there are more Games affected by COVID-19 there than in top-flight men's college basketball.  And it affects that sport's season more because there are way fewer teams.)  So these young men have the weekend off to get the coronavirus heal up.

#-1: Gopher wrestling (Last Week: -1).  I give these guys a lot of shit, and I still will.  But they have finished the regular season 7-2 and, after a 29-10 home upset of Northwestern (the Wildcats, surprisingly, were ranked eleventh and the Gophers twelfth), they have won their last five Duals.  Gable Steveson, top Heavyweight in top-flight college wrestling, Technically Felled his opponent; his remains the North Star for this team's tournament success.

Conference championships in two Weeks, being held at Penn St.

#-2: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: Positive Numbers).  No shame suffering the squad's first loss of the season since it happened in Nebraska.  And that followed a four-Set win, so a split in the most successful program in top-flight women's volleyball today is a sizable accomplishment.

Unfortunately, this weekend's series against Michigan at Maturi Pavilion has been postponed due to coronavirus concerns emanating from the Wolverines.  I thought the entire Michigan athletic department had already shut down because of COVID?  OK, so these young women have the weekend off, too, just like the Gopher men's hockey team.

#-3: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -6).  Finished the regular season going up to Bemidji and bullying the Beavers last weekend by scores of 6-1 and 9-1.  However, the 11-7-1 record has taken its toll on this team, and now they are in some jeopardy of missing out on the NCAA Tournament.

There are two series that ends conference play this weekend.  This doesn't affect the U., thankfully, but if the WCHA is going by winning percentage, Minnesota will, in all likelihood, wind up fourth in the league.  The top four squads will play this Year's abbreviated conference tournament (held, as always, at Ridder Arena), but as the four-seed, the Gophers will, possibly, play the top-seeded Wisconsin Badgers, a team that Minnesota has not beaten in regulation this season.  Moreover, there remains a lot of uncertainty on how the NCAA is going to select its field of (supposedly) eight schools.  If they somehow defeat the Badgers, is just an appearance in the WCHA Tournament Final going to be enough?  Or will they have to beat either Minnesota-Duluth (a team they have only played twice due to virus concerns, although those contests were a sweep in Duluth) or Ohio St. (a team that beat them four-of-six tilts, including the last two at Ridder), too?  Using their sweep of Bemidji St. as a start to a momentum swing would be advisable.

#-4: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -3).  Got killed at Maryland -- shouldn't have let Brenda (Oldfield) Frese go, Maturi! -- but pulled away from Nebraska at Williams.  This team is 8-11, 7-10 in-conference.  And that's all I have on this team.  Host Michigan for the final home Game of the Year Sunday afternoon.

#-5: Gopher soccer (Re-Entry!).  Yeah, finally, the Gopher soccer team finally starts its delayed season.  Saw the opening whistle for its first Match Sunday afternoon, at home to Nebraska, except that it wasn't at Cowles Stadium but instead was in the Recreation And Wellness Sports Field Complex.  Weird to see this XI play under a bubble, especially when Cowles Stadium is underrated for its beauty.

Anyway, they drew scoreless with the Cornhuskers.  They then lost 2-0 to Michigan yesterday/Thursday afternoon.  This Week: At Michigan St. Monday ... morning at 8:30?!?!  They then come home to face Northwestern Thursday afternoon.

#-6: Timberwolves (Last Week: -4).  A winless (0-4) screening Week, and the team has lost six in a row.  But the big news, of course, is that Ryan Saunders was fired just after the Woofie Dogs' loss Sunday night at Madison Square Garden to the New York Knicks.  And in a move that was unusual but makes very clear this was in the works for some time, General Manager Gersson Rosas plucked an Assistant Coach from another team -- Chris Finch of the Toronto/Tampa Raptors -- to become not the Wolves' interim Coach, but immediately the Head Coach.

A word about Saunders, and by extension Owner Glen Taylor.  I guess at the time he was elevating into the HC spot on an interim basis, Saunders was considered a rising star in the NBA coaching ranks.  But he was (and I believe he still was once he got canned) was far and away the youngest Head Coach in The Association, and for that reason alone I didn't think he this was a good hire.  His record speaks for itself, but I sympathize for him because even though Saunders coached for three seasons, none of them were full: He got hired in the middle of one, got fired in the middle of one, and last year was cut short because of the COVID-19 pandemic.  He never really, really got time to coach the way he wanted to coach, especially with Karl-Anthony Towns (and, later, D'Angelo Russell) shuttling in and out of the lineup.

But there is another very good reason (at least in retrospect) elevating Saunders was not a good move: This clearly was a Glen Taylor joint.  It seems obvious now (and, according to some people, was obvious when the move was made) that Taylor wanted Saunders to be the Head Coach because he is the son of Flip Saunders, the greatest Head Coach in this franchise's damned history and, apparently, a man whom Taylor loves on a personal level.  And when Rosas came in and had the chance to evaluate HC options and opted to rip the interim label off of Saunders, it seemed obvious at the time that Taylor told Rosas to keep Saunders.

This seems like yet another way Taylor doesn't get how to act like an Owner of a professional franchise.  The hiring of Saunders was something a mom-and-pop shop does -- autocratic and with no consideration for the success of the operation itself.  He wanted Saunders as HC not so much because he was a "player's coach" that could relate to Karl-Anthony Towns et al. in a way Tom Thibodeau refused to do, but more because he wanted him to have the job.  And this appears to be another in a long line of moves that shows that Taylor does not know how to run a successful sports team.

And yet, and I know I really shouldn't harp on this after a Head Coaching change, I still am grateful for Glen Taylor because at least (and I don't want to "at least" all of you, but it's important) he is keeping an NBA franchise in Minnesota -- at least for now.  I'll take an incompetent Owner who saves an NBA franchise for the state instead of a super-sharp one who takes our Timberwolves away from us and gives it to, say, Seattle or Las Vegas or Kansas City or Louisville or Tampa or. ...

Anyway, this Week: At Washington, home for Phoenix and Charlotte, then in New Orleans.  And even though this team has hit rock bottom, what was inevitable has been done, so in that sense things can only go up from here (I've said that a lot about the Woofs too, I know), which is why this club is not last in this Week's WMNSS.  The same cannot be said for ...

#-7: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -5).  This Week truly was rock bottom for the University of Minnesota male b-ballers, and this was a spectacular fall from grace.  They have now lost four in a row after getting annihilated by Illinois and embarrassed by Northwestern (which had been on a 13-Game losing streak) at The Barn, a place where they had lost only once this season.  They're not on the bubble; they've burst through the bubble and into the craggy, soapy floor below it.

Liam Robbins was the linchpin of this entire team.  The Drake grad trans was a reliable inside option.  With him hobbled with an ankle, opposing players could just double Marcus Carr, and none of his other teammates have been able to step up.  Meanwhile, it is hard to imagine that the Golden Gophers, who came through a hellacious first half of a conference schedule with impressive victories over Iowa, Ohio St. and Michigan (the latter two being projected as #1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament, the last of which still the Wolverines' only loss this Year), would get completely undone by a relatively tame second half.  Maybe they ran out of gas.  Or, maybe this is more of an indictment on Richard Pitino as recruiter, player developer, and Game manager.

This squad plays its last two road Games of the season this Week, versus Nebraska and Penn St.  They have yet to win on the road, but their recent track suggests a victory away from home is too little, too late.