January 8th

WILD SERGE

Following a bad month of December in which they went 4-9-1 (9pts) and suffered through a franchise worst six game losing streak, the Minnesota Wild have started the New Year on the right track going 2-0-1 (5pts), and counting their New Years Eve Win over the Sharks have beaten the top team and each conference (San Jose & Boston) and lost to the number two team in the West in overtime (Detroit).

There are several reasons on why the Wild are playing better in January and had a horrible December, which range from the question of Marian Gaborik's status to the club not signing veterans and instead having several rookies going through growing pains having to develop in the NHL instead of in the AHL like in past. In all sports what tends to get overlooked is that every team goes through at least one or two slumps during the course of a season, and sometimes that slump happens in the playoffs. Usually the bottom five teams will suffer through 4-6 dry spells over a miserable season that puts them out of the playoff hunt and the chance for winning record a 1/2 to 2/3 into the season.

For the last several years it seemed like around late February/early March the Wild would suffer a slump, and with an unusual bad early month in the season it caught us all by surprise. With the Flyers, Blackhawks, Ducks, Maple Leafs, and Canucks among the remaining games in January, we should know come Feb 1 how the rest of the season will shape up as Marian Gaborik elected to have surgery and won't be back until the last half of March with about 13 games left in the season.

While it took almost the first half of the season to know what was wrong with Gabby, it is a little disconcerting that he won't be ready to skate again until after the trading deadline which puts Minnesota in a bit of a pickle. With rumors flying around about how he reportedly turned down a contract offer from the Wild, you wonder what's going to happen when he does come back. Will Doug Risebrough try to trade him him before the deadline to get something for the free-agent to be, put him on Long Term Injury status (LTI) and add his $6.33-million cap hit to the payroll, or resign him to maybe a lesser multi-year contract with the uncertainty of his future after the surgery.

Keep in mind that whoever signs Gaborik will only have a handful of games to determine if he's worth an Alexander Ovechkin type contract in terms of years and money that he was reportedly asking close to, or if it'll be just a multi-year deal of say 3-4 years for $24 to 40-million now that he's had surgery on both his hips.

Wether it's with the Wild or someone else, Gabby will be well rested and fully recovered for the 2009-10 season, and the main question that will have to wait a few years to be answered is, Will the 40 goal 80 point scorer emerge or will he just be another player that had the potential to be one of the games best but was cut down by injuries?