Minnesota Wild: Is Winning This Season a Bad Thing?

With the Minnesota Wild's 2-0 victory over the Vancouver Canucks Monday night, they surpassed both the Montreal Canadiens and New York Islanders in the overall league standings.

Josh Harding looked very good between the pipes, stopping 33 shots and recording his second shutout of the season. Was it a good thing though?

Considering that Josh Harding is working on a one-year contract with the Minnesota Wild after missing all of last season with an injury. and having missed some time this year due to injuries, it was a very certain possibility that the Wild could once again re-sign Harding to a very inexpensive one-year deal to back up Niklas Backstrom.

The problem though, is that if Harding continues to play well down the stretch with Backstrom out with injury, his asking price will most certainly go up. For a team that has a lot of questions about who will be playing in front of their goaltender next season, it would be a great help to have Harding back to be Backstrom's backup next year.

Even more troubling about the win though, is where it places the Wild in the upcoming draft. With the win Monday night, the Wild went from having the No. 3 overall pick in the draft to No. 5. While that may not seem like a big drop, it is enough to take them out of contention for either of the top two scoring prospects in the upcoming draft.

Consider this: the numbers guys over at Sports Club Stats have the Wild with a one percent chance of making the playoffs, if they win their remaining 10 games. Looking at the remaining schedule for the Wild is all it takes to realize that winning their final 10 games is a near impossibility, especially after how well they played earlier in the season and the best they managed was a seven-game winning streak.

While it is true that winning games would go a long way to appease the fanbase in Minnesota, it certainly won't help the team in the long run.

Is it time for the Wild to bring up some more youth to get NHL experience?