Wild 2016-17: Swooning Out of the Playoffs

Minnesota Wild (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Minnesota Wild ended their NHL season in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs once again, in five games to the St. Louis Blues this time.

The Wild had their best regular season ever with 106 points, challenging the Chicago Blackhawks for the right to be best in the Western Conference and a favorite to win the Cup.  Under first-year coach Bruce Boudreau, many of the players had their career years.  Most importantly, they didn't fall victim to the usual mid-season slump that forced them to scratch and claw for a playoff spot.

Instead, the Wild's annual slump came in March, weeks before the regular season ended.  It was so bad that they ceded the conference and the Central Division to the Blackhawks, but managed to hang on to home ice advantage.  Which is why what happened next was almost predictable.

The Wild did not score much or win a home game against the Blues, who were the ones struggling to get into the playoffs this year.  It was a combination of Jake Allen's star turn in goal and the game plans of coach Mike Yeo, who knew the Wild all too well as Boudreau's predecessor in Minnesota.

(If it's any consolation to the Wild, the Blackhawks were swept out of the first round by the Nashville Predators.)

So what happens now?  General Manager Chuck Fletcher doesn't have many options.  He just hired Boudreau a year ago, whose teams in Anaheim and Washington also flamed out in the playoffs, so at least he now knows what kind of coach he's got.  Too many of his players are under long-term, big money contracts.  Though he did get Eric Staal on the free agent market and traded for Martin Hazal at the deadline, Fletcher had to give away most of his draft picks in the process.  And there's not a Conor McDavid or an Auston Matthews to be found at the Wild's minor league affiliates.  Or maybe it's time to blow everything up and start over?

Because if teams like the Minnesota Wild want to get within a sniff of Lord Stanley's cup, you have to have a lineup that's built for the playoffs.  Sure, winning a division title is nice, but there's more than one way to get where you're going.  The Wild aren't there yet.

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Our Stanley Cup finals pick:  Anaheim Ducks vs. Pittsburgh Penguins.

NBA: The Rest of the Story

English: LeBron James playing with the Cleveland Cavaliers Español: LeBron James con los Cavaliers (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They say regular seasons in professional sports are too long.  The NFL spreads sixteen games per team over seventeen weeks.  Major League Baseball teams play 162 games over a five month period.  The NHL plays 81 games per team over six months.  All this to eliminate a few teams from the playoffs, which usually last a month or two longer.

The NBA has an 82-game regular season schedule over six months.  In response to this, some teams--which happen to be marquee names like the Cleveland Cavaliers, San Antonio Spurs and Golden State Warriors--have taken to giving star players like LeBron James and Stephen Curry the night off so they could rest their weary bones.  It doesn't matter if the game is on national television, or if fans paid good money to see the best players in the league, only to see him on the bench in a suit and tie.

Usually when a player sits out a game, it's either because he's injured, in foul trouble, or has a disagreement with his coach.  You could limit the number of minutes your typical millionaire superstar athlete plays during a game, but that doesn't mean he's not going to turn an ankle or worse on the court.

It's not exactly a glamorous life on the road.  There are the plane flights, hotel accommodations, practices, meet-and-greets and all that other stuff before they get to the arena.  When the game is over, it's rinse-lather-repeat.  Now multiply that times forty.

The NBA has tried to remedy the player fatigue by scheduling fewer back-to-back games during the season, and mandating a week off during the All Star break.  But that hasn't worked.  It seems the more likely your team is going to make the playoffs, the more likely it is that the best players are going to sit as the season winds down, whether they need to or not.

Come playoff time, however, your team had better be up for it because it only takes four games to determine whether you move on or move out.  Unless, of course, it's the first or second round and your team has a commanding lead in the series.  So you rest your stars for the next series.

The NBA is in kind of a bind here.  They could reduce the schedule, force stars to play in national TV games, or restrict nights off to home games only.  But that would run afoul of the players association, certain franchise owners and the league's numerous business partners.

Don't be shocked if this trend of resting athletes hits other sports.  Concerns over injuries, concussions and other issues of players' safety have become paramount in recent years.  Or it should be, as long as the leagues make sensible decisions regarding when, where and how long their players should play.  That, and a good refund policy for fans who want their money back when they don't want to see no scrubs.

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The Minnesota Timberwolves ended their 2016-17 season with a 31-51 record.  That's slightly better than last year, but still not good enough to make the playoffs for the 13th consecutive time.  Now coach Tom Thibodeau will put on his front office hat, and decide what to do with yet another lottery pick in the NBA Draft to go along with his phenoms Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Wiggins.  But hey, the Wolves have a cool new logo and a refurbished Target Center to look forward to, if nothing else.

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Finally, here's our off-the-wall NBA Finals pick:  Cleveland vs. Golden State. 

Pot Shots '17: Volume 1

English: University of North Carolina Tarheels Interlocking NC logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tar Heels The Final One

North Carolina won the NCAA men's basketball title Monday night with a 71-65 victory over Gonzaga at Glendale, AZ.  This is the Tar Heels' sixth championship and third for coach Roy Williams, with the last one coming in 2009.  Gonzaga, who finally made it to the Final Four after being tournament regulars for decades, got to prove they could play with the big boys.  The game was no classic, what with ragged play and the officials making every call they could possibly make.  But it was still close before UNC put things away in the final seconds.  Now it's time to see whether Carolina's success holds up in the face of alleged academic fraud.

South Carolina Wins UConn's Title

South Carolina defeated Mississippi State 67-55 to win the NCAA women's basketball title at Dallas Sunday, giving coach Dawn Staley the championship she never had as a player.  But all anyone will remember from this Women's Final Four is how MSU ended the University of Connecticut's 111-game winning streak, when Morgan William's overtime buzzer-beater struck down the Huskies 66-64.  It was, by most accounts, the greatest women's basketball game ever played.  had this not happened, coach Geno Auriemma's team would have gone for a fifth straight national championship, and Staley would not have had the chance to cut down the net.

NHL Says No More Olympic Rings

After months of hemming and hawing, the National Hockey League has decided not to send its players to the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in South Korea.  The owners and commissioner Gary Bettman, it seems, no longer want to suspend the league's schedule for a couple of weeks in February every four years,  just so its players could go halfway around the world to help promote the game.  They also don't care much for the chintzy manner in which the International Olympic Committee is treating them.  Instead, the NHL would rather promote its World Cup of Hockey, which got off to a rip-roaring start in Toronto last fall.  The players are not happy about this, and Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals has said he'd go anyway to play for his Russian countrymen.  NBC isn't happy either, because its telecasts of Olympic hockey draws better numbers than most NHL games outside of the Stanley Cup playoffs.  So thanks to this short-sighted decision, we are about to turn the clock back to 1994, which was the last time Olympic hockey teams consisted of college kids and alleged amateurs.  Any chance of a "Miracle On Ice" here?

The Boycott That Wasn't

The U.S. women's hockey team is currently playing in the world championships in Michigan.  But they almost didn't go due to a pay dispute with USA Hockey, the sport's governing body.  See, the players were being paid next to nothing outside of the Olympics, so they threatened a boycott.  This would have given the world championships more publicity than they normally would get, and for the wrong reasons.  Both sides did come to an agreement with the players getting most of what they asked for.  That's a big victory for women's hockey in America, but the struggle for acceptance goes on.  The University of North Dakota recently announced that it is dropping its women's hockey program.