Minnesota Wild vs. Anaheim Ducks - 10/5/13

Anaheim Ducks (0-1-0) at Minnesota Wild (0-0-1)

NHL Hockey: Saturday, October 5, 2013 at 8:00 pm (Xcel Energy Center)

The Line: Minnesota Wild -136 / Anaheim Ducks +124 --- Over/Under: 5 See the Latest Odds

TV:

It was an ugly debut for the Anaheim Ducks as they were routed by the Colorado Avalanche. There were antics at the end of the game with Bruce Boudreau and Patrick Roy yelling at each other from the benches, but that was about as much fight as the Ducks showed all night. The Ducks didn’t get on the board until there were seven seconds remaining in regulation as Jakob Silfverberg broke the shutout up. Viktor Fasth allowed all six goals on 29 shots as Anaheim just looked like they weren’t ready to play in this one. Expect to see a much better effort on Saturday night in Minnesota but it’s hard to feel good about anything that Anaheim did in this one. This is still a good hockey club and one that will make noise this year but they weren’t prepared for a young and hungry Avalanche club the other night.

Minnesota also struggled out of the gate but their loss was in more heartbreaking fashion. They had the Los Angeles Kings on the ropes, leading 2-1 late in the third period before allowing the Kings to tie it and eventually win the game in the shootout. Matt Cooke scored in his first game as a member of the Wild just over a minute into regulation and Jonas Brodin’s late goal in the first period looked like it might hold up until Jeff Carter tied things. Scoring goals again looks like it will be a problem for the Wild so they’ll need Niklas Backstrom to be strong in goal. He only faced 18 shots in this one which is why it’s so disappointing that the Wild couldn’t hang out. They need to find a way to start putting up some crooked numbers if they’re going to be taken seriously in a tough Western Conference.