Tuesday, the Wild took 9 penalties in their game against Calgary. 7 of those penalties, resulted in a Flames power play. Luckily for the Wild, Calgary has a worse power play than them, so the Flames ended up going 0-7 in a 3-0 Wild win.
Yesterday, the Wild were sent to the box 6 times. 5 of them, resulted in a Sharks power play. And as we saw, their power play has sharp teeth. The Sharks got two power play goals from Patrick Marleau in the second, and coasted to a easy 3-1 win over Minnesota at HP Pavilion.
After the game Mike Yeo acknowledged those power plays his team has been handing out too frequently saying, "We played a game of chance in Calgary and won, played a game of chance tonight and lost."
I guess its nice that Yeo has acknowledged his teams bad play in the last two games, but my concern is that it has to be fixed sooner rather than later, especially when your next three games are on the road (two of which coming against tough opponents in Los Angeles and Anaheim).
The Wild are not as talented as many teams in the Western Conference, just yet. So they have to rely on playing a very disciplined, hard working kind of hockey game to come out with a win every night (No better example of that then the November 3 game vs Vancouver). So taking all these trips to the penalty box on a nightly basis really dampens their chances of winning a game, and playing more games in the spring.
So please, for the love of all things hockey, stay out of the penalty box. Or it will undo that nice 5 game winning streak we just enjoyed...
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