Game Thread: Oilers vs Wild - Oh No, Not The Wild

The Minnesota Wild are in town tonight. For fans in Edmonton this means that if you discussed the game with a co-worker this afternoon that you probably heard something similar to "The Wild are so damn boring." That was absolutely the case once, irritatingly when the Oilers and Wild used to face off eight (EIGHT) times a season, but it's not really true any more. At even strength the Wild are 15th in goals per game, 17th overall in all situations. The 1980's Oilers they're not, but neither are the Oilers, who rank 29th and 22nd in those same categories.

True or not though, the idea that the Wild are a boring team lives on in Edmonton, and I would assume around the NHL as well. In much the same way that the Oilers are a bad hockey team will likely live on long after the Oilers start winning games and make me rethink my position on the NHL's need for relegation. Assuming of course that that does eventually start to happen which is far from guaranteed; the last time I checked in on that the timeline had been moved from "Next Year, For Sure" to "Check Back After the Draft."

But yeah, it'll be the Wild that'll make tonight's game worth avoiding.