Claimed: Wild Look to Topple the Giant

[MD9 139]

Wild Look to Topple the Giant

 

 

 

Last year, the Saskatoon Wild came closer than anyone could have predicted to defeating the Las Vegas Aces, winning two games against them in the VHLM finals. This season, the Aces have had a rather average start to the year, and look to have lost what set them apart last season. While nobody should count the Aces out, it is the Oslo Storm that has taken up the spot they previously held, appearing as a nearly unbeatable super-team, with all of the media attention and discussion to match. With an 18-2-1 start, they sit in first place by a very healthy margin, trailed by the Wild 13 points down with a 11-6-2 record. Things aren't quite as drastic as they were last season when the Aces were still in the midst of a record winning streak, but the league isn't exactly what you could call balanced. While last season the five teams below Las Vegas were all fairly even, this season the Yukon Rush are suffering with a 2-16-1 record, and the third place team is still 8 points down from Saskatoon (21 points from from Oslo).

 

This could mean a couple things. First and foremost, the league desperately needs its current crop of players to outgrow it so that some sense of parity can be restored. However, with distance being made between the number two and number three slots in the standings, the Saskatoon Wild may well have distinguished themselves as a more powerful team than they had last year, breaking away from the pack (a pack that, in itself, is far less equal than before). Where last season they failed to defeat the dominant Aces, the greater skill, experience, and depth of their line-up may well mean that this season, the Wild really can play the role of giant-slayer.

 

Without a solid starting goaltender, the battle will be an uphill one, but the Wild do boast the kind of players that can get it done. While Oslo has had more all-star performances by the likes of Quill, Laflamme, Forsberg and Raven, the Wild possess the league's leading goal-scorer, and the playoff MVP (on a losing team!) in Gabriel McAllister, along with a healthy supporting cast including Charles Murphy, Ay Ay Ron, Jake Scheel, Daring Do, and Emil Martinov to name a few. That being said, the Oslo Storm have been crushing them in the season series, with the Wild holding just a single win over the other team. But during the playoffs, that sort of thing can change dramatically.

 

Nobody in Saskatoon is deluded enough to think that making it to the finals again will be easy -- to even have a shot and claiming an underdog win over Oslo, the team has to contend with other highly capable teams, all of which have something to prove themselves and could easily look to Saskatoon as a perfect opportunity to show why they deserve to be looked at as the league's best chance to defeat this year's super-team. Making it to Oslo will be the first challenge: after that, the Wild have to actually show that they can make good where they failed last season, and really bear down come the playoffs to exploit the few weaknesses that Oslo has.

 

It won't be easy, and the playoffs are a long way away -- perhaps the first step Saskatoon needs to take is to shore up its own weaknesses, namely by acquiring a goaltender if any become available, and aim to play hard in the regular season to close the gap between themselves and Oslo.