Minnesota Wild Go to Music City, Hope To Hear Something Sweet

The Minnesota Wild have been on an impressive streak the past month, going 10-5-1 and beating some playoff-bound teams like the Phoenix Coyotes (twice), Colorado Avalanche, Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins.

But they have also lost to some bad teams in there too, like the Ottawa Senators and the Columbus Blue Jackets.

The question is: Which Wild team will show up tonight? 

The one that struggles to hang with teams with mediocre talent and no chance of making the playoffs, or the one that finds ways to win and works hard for an entire 60 minutes?

That is the question coach Todd Richards has been asking all season long and as far as anyone can tell, no one has the answer.

Tonight's game against the Nashville Predators is a big game for the Minnesota Wild. The Wild sit two points out of a playoff spot and lost to the Predators only a couple weeks ago (Dec 31, at home losing 4-1). 

And that was an ugly, ugly game for the Wild. 

It only took about five minutes into the game for the Predators to take control of the scoreboard and it wasn't much longer than that that the Predators took complete control of the pace of the game, constantly holding the Wild in their own zone and out shooting the Wild by a final tally of 30-23.

Niklas Backstrom was in net for that game, making 28 saves on 30 shots; the final two Predators goals were empty net goals, making the score more closely reflect just how bad the Wild had really played, after Backstrom made stop after stop to keep it close.

But tonight will be different. Backstrom is hurt, having flown to Vail, Colorado to see the surgeon who performed his hip surgery following the 2008-2009 season.

With Backstrom having been sidelined for the past five games, backup stopper Jose Theodore has put on a pretty good showing, going 4-1 with 92.9 save percentage and a shut out over the Pittsburgh Penguins (who did play the game without NHL point leader Sidney Crosby).

Theodore has never lost to Nashville and the Wild have been playing great road hockey with an 11-6-3 record. 

And with the NHL All-Star game just 19 days away and the Wild only having seven games left in that stretch, tonight is a big game for the Wild to come away with the win to get some much needed momentum going to head into the second half of the season (which officially started for the Wild on Sunday, as it was their 42nd game of the season). 

Making this seven-game stretch even more difficult they will be facing four playoff teams, five if you take San Jose into the mix, who at any time could start playing like they should.

Making matters even worse is the fact that they are on the road for five of these seven games, with the only two home games coming against two playoff teams that happen to be division rivals.

Hopefully, tonight is the start of something great, as the Wild certainly do need it if they want to make it to the playoffs this year.