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Wild Blog: A Strong October Start

When the NHL schedule came out this past summer the Minnesota Wild knew they had their work cut out for them. Eight of their first nine games were against teams that made the playoffs last season. A strong start could give the Wild an edge in the Central Division while a slow start could derail their playoff hopes before the month was even finished.

It turns out Minnesota did just fine in October, winning six of their first nine games as they currently sit in third place in the Central Division with 12 points.

The month started out with a home and home sweep of last years Central Division champion the Colorado Avalanche and finished with a shootout win over the San Jose Sharks.

In between the Wild took care of business at Xcel Energy Center, winning all four of their games with the most impressive victory being a 7-2 win over Tampa Bay last Saturday. On the road however it has been a different story as Minnesota is just 2-3 away from St. Paul.

That stat is a little misleading as the three games the Wild have lost this year were by one goal. Two of those losses came as a result of a bad third period, one against Anaheim and one against the Rangers. The other loss on the season happened against the defending Stanley Cup Champions where Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick turned away 40 of 41 shots.

With the month of October over the players in the Wild locker room are pleased with their start so far.

"I think overall we've been pretty good," forward Jason Pominville said about the play of Minnesota over the first month. "If you look at our possession and out shots on net we've had a chance to win every game we have played in. We are giving ourselves a chance to win and that's important. We keep doing that we'll get more results."

Forward Jason Zucker echoed Pominville's comments, saying, "It's huge. Obviously we wanted to come in and show we are a top team in the NHL and the conference. The Western Conference is very very good but as long as we keep playing our game we'll be OK."

While the Wild did have a successful first month of the season there are still things to work on, the biggest of which being the Power Play. On the season, Minnesota is 0 for 27 with the man advantage and the only team in the NHL that hasn't scored a Power Play goal. However when Pominville was asked about it he seemed confident that things would be well soon.

"Fixing the power play is going to be huge," Pominville said. "Guys are starting to get on board. I think early on we were struggling to put the puck in the back of the net and now it coming a little bit more. I think we have a team that can score goals. If we can get everyone on board it's going to help us win more games."

Now that October is done the schedule won't get any easier for Minnesota On Tuesday night The Pittsburgh Penguins come to town and that will give the Wild another chance to see how they match up with one of the elite teams in the Eastern Conference.

But before they do that Minnesota must get ready to face their division rival the Dallas Stars on Saturday.

"Playing Dallas on Saturday won't be any different than playing any other team," Zucker said. "It's in our building so we have to bring the pace and tempo and make sure we are playing hard."

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