The Minnesota Wild have gone six games without picking up a victory, but the hometown team will look to change that on Monday night as a sort of post-Christmas present to the fans. Extra meaning is added, too, as it comes against the rival Colorado Avalanche.
The Wild are mired in their rut while the former Quebec Nordiques have posted wins their last four games, but Monday night's game on Fox Sports North should be a fun one according to the fine folks at Hockey Wilderness.
The Wild, as you all know by now, and mired in a rut so deep they need a special forces operation to climb down and save them. Six straight losses, just two points out of the last possible twelve. Not a great stretch of hockey by any means. Blame injuries, blame regression, say it always should have been this way. Whatever the reasoning, the Wild are in a bad place right now and need to find a way out of it.
The return of Mikko Koivu tonight should be a boost. Emphasis on should. Whether or not that is the case will be the story of the night. Since he fell out of the lineup, things have gone from bad to worse. It happened last year, too. Why they continue to wait for him is completely unknown, but they do. Tonight, they get what they were waiting for.
It remains to be seen if Koivu's return is what was needed, but his return certainly can't hurt.