Wild Offense Continues Free Fall in Latest Loss

The Minnesota Wild are in serious danger of losing their playoff spot with limited time remaining in the regular season. The team's latest game resulted in a 3-1 loss to the New York Islanders, marking their sixth regulation or overtime loss in the last 10 games.

The game against the Islanders was the Wild's chance to break out of their offensive slump. Instead, the Minnesota offense continues to free fall and sputter. As a result, so is their place in the standings and any playoff ambitions they had.

It's been an unending problem since injuries took Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek out of the lineup. Since then, it's like all of the power has been sucked out of their offense, and they've become stagnant.

The big issue is that they have little depth. Opposing teams can place all of their defensive focus on one line right now - Matt Boldy, Marco Rossi, and whoever else is on the other wing - and know they can snuff out a majority of Minnesota's scoring chances.

The rest of the current lines are quite easy to beat. MoneyPuck data shows that a variety of their offensive line combinations are struggling to produce quality scoring chances. The expected goals for percentage, used as a piece of the puzzle when determining a line's effectiveness, are often below 50%.

For example, their fourth line currently has Justin Brazeau, Devin Shore, and Yakov Trenin. The trio is a gritty group, and goal scoring is not expected. The problem is that they get absolutely dominated when playing 5-on-5 and cannot muster any quality offensive chances. Their expected goals percentage after nearly 60 minutes of ice time together is a dismal 27.5%. Unsurprisingly, their expected goals per 60 minutes are 1.44, while the expected goals against per 60 minutes is 3.79.

The current second line of Frederick Gaudreau, Marcus Johansson, and Mats Zuccarello is faring better, but it's not enough. Their expected goals % is hovering between 50 and 51% after over 100 minutes of ice time together.

For a quick comparison, the Los Angeles Kings' top two lines are putting up expected goals numbers closer to 60%, and their offense is viewed as a huge advantage for the team heading toward the postseason.

It's a troubling development that the Wild must fix. Even more troubling is how little time remains for them to fix it. It could end up costing Minnesota its spot in the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs.