Written By Tom Schreier
Aside from establishing how the Minnesota Wild stack up against the surprising Nashville Predators in the NHL’s Central Division, the Wild’s most recent contest told us something else: Minnesota legitimately has bad blood with every team in their division. This is understandable given that they are in relatively close proximity with most of the teams (Winnipeg Jets, Chicago Blackhawks, St. Louis Blues), and those that don’t have a special place on the Twin Cities’ hit list: the Colorado Avalanche are often a playoff opponent, and the Dallas Stars were once the Minnesota North Stars.
Nashville was the last domino to drop. There’s no reason for Minnesota to have a rivalry with a team from the south, but the Predators are notorious for being both defensively sound and pesky to play against — sound familiar? They are basically the old Jacques Lemaire Wild: an expansion team that had success based off of strong defensive principles and minimal scoring. The entered the league around the same time (1998), had the same coach for a long time after they expanded (Barry Trotz was just let go this year), and have about the same status: Not bad for an expansion team, but not considered a serious contender yet. Familiarity breeds contempt, and these teams are more familiar then what initially meets the eye.
Look at the Timberwolves division, however, and it appears to be a bunch of misfits thrown together because they don’t really belong anywhere else in the league. Portland, Oklahoma City, Denver and Utah are all kind of in the Northwest, but really they’re just not in the Pacific or Southwest. The Nuggets and Jazz are the most similar teams geographically, of course, and the Thunder are the old Seattle Sonics, which would have a natural rivalry with the Trail Blazers. But even if the Thunder were still in the Emerald City, the Wolves are the odd team out in the Northwest Division.
They not only belong in a different division but also a different conference. The Wolves would be a natural fit with the Milwaukee Bucks, Chicago Bulls, Indiana Pacers, Cleveland Cavaliers and Detroit Pistons. These are cities that Minnesota typically competes against: The Twins play against the Chicago White Sox, Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians in the AL Central; the Vikings play against the Green Bay Packers, Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears in the NFC North; and, of course, the Wild now compete against the Blackhawks in the Central. Even going beyond professional sports, the University of Minnesota and Indiana University are both in the Big 10.
NHL getting it right
The Wild and the Avalanche do share the NHL’s Central Division, but Colorado is kind of an outlier in that grouping of teams, much like the Predators. Nashville appears to have gotten the short end of the stick in terms of division pairings throughout their history. Under the old alignment, they were the only southern team not placed in the Southwest Division (Atlanta Thrashers, Florida Panthers, Carolina Hurricanes), but rather the old Central (Detroit Red Wings, St. Louis Blues, Chicago Blackhawks). Meanwhile, Colorado has made out pretty well. They are a holdover rivalry from the old Northwest Division, where the Wild and Avs got to match up against struggling Canadian franchises like the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames, and only really faced stiff competition from the Vancouver Canucks.
What this means is that the NHL did pretty well this time around when it comes to realignment. Not only were the Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets placed with other teams in the Eastern Time Zone and the Stars moved away from teams on the Pacific Time Zone, but Vancouver belonged in the same division as the California powerhouses, and Minnesota never really developed a rivalry with the teams they played in the old Northwest Division.
The Canucks rivalry was always one-sided because Minnesota never had the sustained success to regularly compete with Vancouver, and Calgary and Edmonton never were really a big threat to the Wild. The Avs despised Andrew Brunette and the 2003 Wild for offing them in a year where Patrick Roy could have potentially brought another cup to the Centennial State, and Minnesota was upset by Colorado in 2008 when they won their division for the first (and only) time. This rivalry might have existed, however, if Colorado wasn’t in their division, and it’s difficult to manufacture a rivalry when most people can’t stay up at night to watch the big games because they have to get up to work. Now that the division games are played in the same time zone, it means better viewership for away games and more hype when Central opponents come to town.
In truth, the Wild have legitimate bad blood with every team they face in their division now.
Chicago Blackhawks: Eliminated the Wild in the past two years and had a rivalry with the Twin Cities dating back to the North Stars days.
Colorado Avalanche: In addition to getting beat by the Wild in 2003 and beating them in 2008, they nearly kept Minnesota out of the playoffs in the first year of the Zach Parise and Ryan Suter era.
Winnipeg Jets: Another city that lost its old team to a Sun Belt location. The rebranded Arizona Coyotes still exist … but that’s about it. And now the former Atlanta Thrashers have a rabid fan base that realized how much they loved their team once it left — much like Wild fans in the early 2000s. The fact that the Jets fans pack the Xcel Energy Center when their team comes to town means this matchup is only going to get juicier as time goes on.
St. Louis Blues: Another sports-crazed Midwest city. Like the Wild, this team is built for the long run. These games are always physical, and both teams are built to last, meaning, like the Winnipeg rivalry, this one will only get better with time.
Dallas Stars: Once were the Minnesota North Stars. Norm Green still sucks. Enough said.
Nashville Predators: As stated before, this team is similar to the Wild in odd ways. As long as the Predators can sustain some success, things will get unruly on the ice, and fans will start to pack the stands for this game despite the fact it is a southern team.
Contrast this with the Wolves, who are basically in the same spot as the Wild under the old NHL alignment: Games are played in the Pacific or Mountain Time Zone, making it harder for working people to stay up and watch them, meaning there’s no real rivalries between the cities. There is some bad blood with Portland because of the Martell Webster and Nicolas Batum situations, as well as former coach Rick Adelman and current assistant coach Terry Porter’s connections to the franchise, but that’s about it — and that probably would have happened regardless of if the Blazers and Wolves were in the same division. Minnesotans thrive off of Midwest rivalries, and that’s why the Wolves need to be in the same division as Milwaukee, Chicago and Cleveland.
The Timberwolves obviously have to start winning in order to pack the Target Center again, and playoff berths will go a long way to assuring that these rivalries flourish. But while rivalries are cultivated in winning seasons, they keep fans coming out to games during losing seasons. They are the lifeblood of any sports league, and it’s why — among many other reasons (i.e. playoff imbalance between the Eastern and Western Conferences) — that the NBA should realign in the coming years. The Wolves would stand to benefit greatly from it; just as the Wild did when they moved to the Central two years ago.