Again, just for the record, since this is a New Year, we are changing the Day of the Week The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey is published for 2022 to Saturdays. Not Saturday's ... Saturdays.
#-1: Gopher men's hockey (Re-Entry!). We start the New Year by giving the top spot (though not non-negative numbers) to the Gopher male icers. This was the holiday season, so the U. generally stops for a couple Weeks before going back to playing in that limbo Week between Christmas and New Year's, so these guys just got back on the ice to start a two-Game set at Michigan St. ... and they get off on the good foot, with a 4-1 victory featuring a pair of Goals from Ben Meyers. The line of Meyers, Chaz Lucius and Matthew Knies tallied three Goals and five Assists -- maybe this has the makings of a powerful line?
The downside to doing the WMNSS on Saturdays is that weekend college hockey contests are now split. I recap the Friday Game but wait until the next Week to recap the Saturday Game, at which point I will also have to do the Friday night tilt. Saying that, the U. plays the Spartans again tonight/Saturday night, then begin a two-Game set at Mariucci versus Alaska. There used to be two top-flight programs in the state of Alaska, but both were abandoned by the WCHA and therefore forced to become independent, and then one of the programs (I think it was Anchorage?) got shut down (even though people are trying to revive it), so instead of playing Alaska-Fairbanks, they're playing just Alaska.
#-2: Gopher women's basketball (Re-Entry!). Some tribulations with this squad. First, their New Year's Eve battle at home vs. Northwestern was postponed due to a COVID-19 outbreak in the Wildcats' program. Then, Head Coach Lindsay Whalen needed an appendectomy and thus missed her team's tilt at Rutgers Thursday. But, they won! First time ever over the Scarlet Knights, 62-49. Doesn't seem like the greatest of omens that the Gophers won without Whalen.
Don't know if she'll be back, but the next tilt is a tall order: Hosting Maryland Sunday afternoon. They then visit Wisconsin Wednesday night.
#-3: Timberwolves (Last Week: -1). It's been a busy eight Days for the Wolves. Didn't start out well; they lost in Utah New Year's Eve and then got clipped in L.A. by The Team That Was Stolen From Us v.1.0. But then they stayed in Los Angeles and beat the Clippers, then took both ends of a home-and-home vs. The Bastard Seattle Super Sonics to complete a 3-2 screening "Week." They are thoroughly in the mix for a playoff spot (well, if you count the Play-In Games, and maybe you shouldn't). Moreover, they got Karl-Anthony Towns and D'Angelo Russell back from COVID protocols before the home-and-home. You may not know it, but the Starting Five that the Timberwolves want to trot out if everybody is healthy -- Russell, Patrick Beverley, Jarred Vanderbilt, Anthony Edwards and Towns -- is the best Starting Five in the NBA when it comes to, uh, the advanced metric of Net Rating. I should see for myself how good this particular unit is, but if it is, it is good to finally see this team, this organization, both build and luck into something good. It is beyond time for these guys to stop being ass.
They're on the road this Week, at Houston, New Orleans and Memphis.
#-4: Wild (Re-Entry!). When the Winter Classic finally rolled around after a Year's postponement, the Wild hadn't played since the 20th. The opponents for all the Games that had to be called off all suffered coronavirus outbreaks. Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but for all we know, either Minnesota or the St. Louis Blues could have had an outbreak on the eve of the Game but it would not be disclosed, because the Winter Classic is the centerpiece of the NHL's regular season, and this contest could not be delayed a Day beyond a second Year.
I have already detailed how I felt while I was at Target Field. As for the Game, well, the Wild were rusty and were without their top two Defensemen (Jonas Brodin and Jared Spurgeon), and the Blues, who had recently passed Minnesota in the Central Division upon their recent (well, not really recent, they'd been off since the 20th), made short work of the Wild, scoring five times past Cam Talbot in the Second Period of a, let's face it, humiliating 6-4 result. Wild fans after the Game were commenting on Minnesota not getting a Winter Classic for the next half-century because of this emasculating Loss. It doesn't work that way; as far as I can tell, no franchise has doubled up on hosting Winter Classics yet (although a couple teams have served as the guest on more than one of these Games, and that's a matter of finding a quality opponent only). I'm sure that every team will get to host a Winter Classic before they go back and give organizations a second one. Nevertheless, this was an embarrassment for the home team, and this survey recognizes it.
They broke their losing streak (which was at five) Thursday at Boston, but in that tilt, Kirill Kaprizov was taken out of the Game by the Bruins' Trent Frederic. At first I didn't think it was a dirty hit, but I saw on Twitter someone take isolated screen shots which showed that Frederic had ample opportunity to swipe a loose puck and go down the ice, and instead he went after and through a defenseless Kaprizov, whom Frederic took to the boards. Now Kaprizov is out indefinitely, and as a result two Wild wunderkinds, Matt Boldy and Marco Rossi, were called up from AAA Iowa to play for the Wild in Boston. Boldy, a Massachusetts native, scored in the Game, becoming the first Massachusetts native to score in his NHL debut, in the city of Boston, but on the other team.
Home to Washington tonight/Saturday night, then host Anaheim Friday night.
#-5: Gopher men's basketball (Re-Entry!). Again, first-Year mulligan and all, but the rubber was always going to meet the road for this club once Big Ten play began. And Tuesday evening's 76-53 drubbing at the hands of Illinois at Williams Arena may be the first of many, uh, humbling memories this team will see. In particular the Gophers just don't have any size down low. The Illini almost doubled up on the U. when it came to Rebounds, 39-20, and did double up on them when it came to Offensive Rebounds, 13-6. That is going to continue to happen the rest of this season, I'm afraid. Now, the big thing Head Coach Ben Johnson has to guard against is his team losing confidence as the losses mount, and they will mount, especially (I'm afraid) this Week as they travel to both Indiana and Michigan St.
#-6: Gopher wrestling (Re-Entry!). The annual Dual versus Iowa is a rivalry in name only these days. Doesn't help that the Hawkeyes are ranked first in the nation right now. No upset here as Iowa beat the ever-living piss out of the Gopher grapplers in Iowa City, 22-10. The U. won only three of the ten rounds, including at Heavyweight, where Gable Steveson, ranked first in the nation in his class, beat fifth-ranked Tony Cassioppi by Major Decision, 17-7. Iowa wrestling fans, possibly the most knowledgeable in the country, actually gave Steveson a standing ovation, mostly for his performance in winning gold in the Summer Olympics. That's really cool.
The first of three consecutive Duals at home come this screening Week: 23rd-ranked Northwestern Sunday, Nebraska Friday.
#-7: Vikings (Last Week: -2). And it's all over but the shouting. Defeating the rolling Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field was always going to be a tall order. Then what many thought inevitable finally happened: Kirk Cousins, whose follies obeying the NFL's health and safety protocols while insisting on not taking the COVID-19 vaccine, finally got pinched for the coronavirus and had to sit out the Game. Sean Mannion got the nod. It was his third-ever start, and the first that mattered, and this one really mattered. And the result was, heh-heh, a 37-10 Loss that officially eliminated the Vikes from postseason play. People said Mannion has a cannon for an arm. His statistics: 22-for-36, 189 Yards and his first-ever NFL Touchdown to K. J. Osborn, late in the Third Quarter, that made the score 30-10 Pack.
Jon Krawczynski, who ripped the Timberwolves a new asshole for their lack of effort in November, had a great thread on Twitter refuting the thought by some that the Vikings were playing like a team this season but just did not make enough plays to win Games. Krawczynski, whose main beat is the Wolves for The Athletic, went back to the unrefuted fact that the Vikings were the team with the lowest percentage of vaccinated players going into the regular season. Cousins was the third of at least three Vikings to miss a Game because they tested positive for the coronavirus. The others? Dalvin Cook missed the Game vs. the Rams, and Harrison Smith missed Games against Baltimore and the Chargers. Of those Games, Minnesota only beat the Chargers. Now, I'm not exactly sure how those players would not have missed Games had they been vaccinated and then caught the virus. And I'm not sure they would have beaten the Packers, Rams and Ravens even if they were playing. I think what Krawczynski was saying is that Mike Zimmer's players in fact haven't done everything for the team. They made the decision to be anti-vaxx because they were thinking of themselves first. You may not be able to draw a direct line from A to B, but it's more wrong to think that one has nothing to do with the other.
And so the Vikes walk into U. S. Bank Stadium, probably in toxic conditions (I'll be shocked if fans don't wear paper bags over their hands or don't break into "Fire Zimmer!" chants), to play the Bears who, like Minnesota, possible/probably will fire their Head Coach. Will General Manager Rick Spielman stay? Will he be fired? Will he in fact be kicked up to a higher-level position within the organization? The Spielman/Zimmer window has lasted eight Years, and while I believe an overhaul is in order, some people think that retooling around the edges is all this squad needs. So, does Cousins go? Does Cook? Smith? Adam Thielen? Anthony Barr? Eric Kendricks? I could go on, but we might know a little more about the direction the Wilfs will go this time next Week.
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