Play for the full 60

The Wild turned the page from an abysmal January to a post-All-Star Break February. A fresh start and step in the right direction hasn’t exactly happened though, with a pair of bad losses against New York teams. The annual slump for this team is in full force. Fans and the team seem frustrated at what’s happening, and there is plenty of finger-pointing and looking for answers going on. Here’s one aspect of what’s troubling this hockey team.

The length of an NHL hockey game is 60 minutes. That’s split up between three, 20-minute periods. It’s probably a good idea for teams to play the entirety – or at least not check-out for entire periods – of the 60-minute games.

Yes, I’m going somewhere with this, besides giving you basic and boring facts about hockey games.
Not playing a complete game isn’t a new problem for the Wild. It didn’t just start happening once the calendar flipped to 2016. I’ve noticed it all season that the team doesn’t focus and compete for the entire game sometimes.

Specifically, it has gotten off to slow starts more often that I’d like to remember. You know, when the boys would come out for the start of the game and produce a lackluster effort for the first few, 10 or even 20 minutes. Then you’d hear that intermission player interview or read quotes later about how the team just came out flat, wasn’t ready to play, etc.

It became a broken record. Now, I’m obviously not saying this happens all the time, every game. Not at all. They’ve had their share of solid games – which is actually what makes the fall-off-a-cliff slumps so frustrating.

But sometimes, they don’t always play full games. If it’s not a slow start, maybe it’s coasting a little bit in a game. Or forgetting to play the second period, like Thursday at Madison Square Garden.

I’m not saying everybody needs to be flying around for odd-man rushes and scoring chances every single shift. There’s a happy medium between that and skating around like it’s open skate time at the local ice rink. If you get a quick 2-0 lead in the first period, continue the intensity and keep pressuring. If one of your teammates breaks a scoring slump to tie the game, try to keep the momentum and not give a goal right back.

After the loss to the Islanders, Yeo said something in his postgame comments about his team finding different ways to lose. He’s got a point. First it was a lack of scoring. Remember the shutouts? More recently, they were pumping in some goals but had defensive breakdowns which lead to high tallies for opponents. Giving up a slew of unanswered goals, empty-net goals and giving up game-winners late in regulation. All different ways to lose.

It’s frustrating. No question. It’s hard to watch a team lose games in such a deflated manner. It’s tough because this team was supposed to be more. The roster is loaded with talent. They’ve played well at times. They’ve played good games.

They’ve shown they can play well enough throughout the course of 60 minutes to win hockey games. They’ll need to get back to that basic premise if they want to come out of this slump.
Just play the full 60 minutes.

This was originally posted at WildXtra.com.