By Marnix
THE NEW YOR ISLANDERS AND MINNESOTA WILD HAVE DECLARED A RIVALRY! On the eve of the very first game one team is playing lights out coming off a shutout last night and going 8-2-0 sitting atop the Western Conference with the other struggling to find a scoring touch and sitting at the bottom of the Eastern Conference with a pathetic 9 points after going 3-5-2 in their last 10. As eluded to the Islanders are having a real challenge finding team chemistry and getting solid goaltending from last year's team MVP Richard Bachman who is posting a very sad .885 save percentage and has only 2 wins in 8 starts. Flip to the opposite side and you have a Wild team sitting T2 in GA and Calvin Pickard with a save percentage at .938 T3 in league, T1 in SO with 3 in 12 games, T1 in wins with 10! Pickard is red hot and will look to shut down the Islanders in their own building tonight. ADVANTAGE WILD
Islanders Top line of Howden-Neighbours-Reichel combine for 11g, 15a, 26 points after 12 games
VS
Wild Top Line of Byfield-Eklund-Debrincat combining for 10g, 10a, 20 points after 12 games
Edge Islanders but does not tell the full story as the second line of the Wild drive play. Wright-Kane-Nyquist putting up 14g,15a and 29 points and really outshine most teams early in the season. GM Vanturennout has a few tricks up his sleeve for tonight's bout and hopes it is enough to get a win in what they are hoping will be a close tight rivalry to come.
On the defense side if you look past the plus minus this is an even matchup on paper as the top 4 on both sides are pretty solid so we expect a closely contested series despite the results thus far this season, only time will tell which team will come out the victor, a deeper dive into special teams shows us both PP are below average with NYI firing at 12.9% which is almost double the lowly WILD at a dismal 6.8 %, ADVANTAGE ISLANDERS if they can draw some penalties, but with both teams in the TOP 3 on the PK at over 96% it will be hard for anyone to have an advantage.
Nothing to do until the puck drops
8/4/2025 - 385 words
