Goon's Illegal Curve article.

Here my aritle that was submitted to the illegal curve.
1. Minnesota Wild by Eric Burton of Goon’s World

Last night on Versus I had the opportunity to watch the Wild and the Capitals play a non-conference game. Minnesota raced to a convincing and almost unheard of four goal lead. At this point in the game you expect a Wild team to go into their patented defensive mode where they shut down the opponents in the offensive zone and make it almost impossible to score.

In Monday’s game that was not the case and before the third period was over, the Wild had tried to give the game back to the Capitals allowing them to score three goals in under four minutes from Matt Bradley, Alex Ovechkin and Niklas Backstrom. For the Wild that is very uncharacteristic.

I think it is an enigma to see the Wild score four goals in a game, in fact it is almost unheard of. The Wild are known for their stifling defense and lack of offensive prowess. The Wild are offensively challenged and are in the bottom of the league for goals (49) for and are only ahead of lowly Phoenix (48). Breaking it down further the Wild have only scored four or more goals in a game only five times so far this season. Wild goalie Nicklas Backstrom should sue his forwards for lack of support.

The Wild had been getting a most of their scoring from the big three: Mikko Koivu (5-4-19), Andrew Burnett (6-5-11) and Anti Miettinen (6-7-13) finally got scoring from two unexpected sources last night as Kyle Clutterbuck (2) and James Sheppard (1) scored their first goals of the season.

There have also been some disappointments so far this season. Pierre-March Bouchard that signed a big contract in the offseason has been invisible so for going (2-4-6) in 16 games so far this season. That is unacceptable for a player of Bouchard’s offensive talent.

Defensively the Wild have been solid getting great offensive play from Marc-Andre Bergeron (2-7-9), Marek Zidlicky (3-5-8) and Kim Johnnson (1-6-7). Also in the mix is Brent Burns (3-4-7) who has been hurt earlier this season and sat out four games has now been asked to play at forward for the Wild because of the Wilds lack of offensive dept.

I think the Wild are going to have to get some balanced scoring or they won’t be able to remain in the top part of the western conference. They are going to have to eventually have to score more than 1-2 goals a game to win. Backstrom is good but he is going to have stretches where he is going to be well, human.