Has Thomas Vanek finally found his groove with the Minnesota Wild?

Having been traded twice last season and signing a three-year deal with the Minnesota Wild to basically “come home,” one would think Thomas Vanek would have continued his scoring ways coming into this season.

Well, that wasn’t exactly the case. And the critics noticed. 

The 16-11-1 record the Wild had to start off the season made it somewhat easy to forget about Vanek his slow start, where he only had one goal in the first 20 games of this season. 

Vanek stated to the NHL.com’s Dan Myers:

“I went from left to right, to right to left, and finding linemates hasn’t been as steady as you’d want it to be…That’s what happens when you come into a new place, you try and find chemistry.”

Minnesota Wild Forward Thomas Vanek

Myers went on to state in his article on NHL.com (Thomas Vanek finally found his way with Wild) that “Vanek began the season on the second line and went nine games without scoring a goal. He requested to play next to Zach Parise and Mikael Granlund on the first line, but that didn’t work either. With few other options, Vanek spent time on the fourth line, trying to get his game going.” 

Earlier, Vanek has joked that he has “played with every Wild forward in his two months with the team, and it’s hardly an exaggeration.” (Chad Graff, twincities.com, 12/10/2014). 

Mike Yeo stated this back in December about Thomas Vanek to Chad Graff from the Saint Paul Pioneer Press:

“It's not like he's trying not to work…It's just other things get on your mind and you forget about the little things. Quite often when I talk to players afterward, they actually think that they are working hard, and that's because they don't see the other parts of the game that are missing."

One can also speculate that Vanek’s slow start this season could also be tied to a gambling investigation out of New York (the investigation came to light shortly after Vanek signed his three year deal with the Wild). 

Fast forward to the present:

Since starting out with 7 goals and 18 assists in the first 42 games of the season, Vanek has found a good spot on the Wild's third line playing left wing on a line with Charlie Coyle at center and Justin Fontaine on right wing. 

Myers wrote, "It took sometime for Yeo to figure out how to use Vanek. A right-handed shot, Vanek said he feels more comfortable at left wing. But when the Wild couldn't find consistency on the right side early in the season, they needed Vanek to fill in a top-six role there. 'I think he's more effective on the left side.' Yeo said. 'He creates a lot more from there. I think we've seen that lately.'"

Vanek told Myer, "Coyle is a big man down the middle and I think he creates room for us on the sides, especially when I have the puck on the left, I think he's good at opening up space in the middle...Fontaine is a good playmaker, good in the corners. He can shoot the puck but he can also find Coyle and myself." 

After last night's game against the Los Angeles Kings, Vanek currently has 20 goals and 30 assists. Vanek scored his 20th goal of the season Friday night against Calgary, making it his 10th straight season where he has scored at least 20 goals in a season. 

One can imagine the goals Vanek would have had if he was on that third line with Coyle and Fontaine all season. Hopefully the line of Vanek-Coyle-Fontaine will be intact next season....

To read Dan Myers' article, go here. 

Wild Coach Mike Yeo Went Lashes Out At His Players In Practice. Was He Right In Doing So?

JP Parise with former North Stars teammate and good
friend, Tom Reid.

First off, my thoughts and prayers are with Zach Parise and his family during the difficult time they are facing right now with his father’s battle against stage 4 lung cancer. Zach didn’t play last night against San Jose after it was revealed his father, former Minnesota North Star JP Parise, stopped chemotherapy treatments and is now in hospice care. 

Zach's status for the Wild’s next game against Chicago is uncertain. (I am going with the assumption that Zach won’t be playing). He was not in practice on Wednesday, either. 

After the Wild's 7-1 drubbing in Dallas and the overtime loss to the Sharks on Tuesday night, Mike Yeo lashed out at his players Wednesday in practice. The Wild have lost 13 out of their past 20 games. The Wild have a tough stretch in their schedule after having played the Sharks last night, playing the Blackhawks tomorrow night, followed by games with Nashvile on Saturday afternoon and an upcoming road trip that involves Chicago and Pittsburgh. As of right now, the Wild are eight points out of the second Western Conference wild-card spot for the play-offs. 

According to an article posted on nhl.com, "Yeo laced into his team Wednesday with a tirade that, according to the Minneapolis-Star Tribune, demanded more effort and execution, detailed how poorly the Wild have been playing and lambasted the players for having the "audacity to show up and practice like this!" After screaming for about a minute, Yeo skated toward the visiting bench, slammed his stick into the glass, skated toward the Wild bench and left the ice." (nhl.com) (Video is here, courtesy of KSTP.com)

Was he right in lashing out? Yes. In my opinion, he should have lashed out at them earlier--instead of waiting until today. Thomas Vanek stated this to the Star Tribune's Michael Russo:

“I think Yeozie finally lost it here… He’s been pretty good with us, staying upbeat. We played well last night. It’s not good when you lose a hockey game. That was his message. He didn’t like how some of us practiced and came out, so those things happen.” (startribune.com, 1/7/2015)

Mike Yeo made this statement, which was in Michael Russo's column today on startribune.com:

“That’s everything that we’re in right now…We’re in a difficult spot and we’ve got a tough road ahead of ourselves. We might have guys out of the lineup and that’s fine. But the one thing you can always control is your work ethic and your attitude and everything else follows suit after that…We played a crappy game in Dallas and aside from that I’ve been happy for the most part with our games post Christmas. Do we just accept that hey we got a point? We lost the game but we played well? No. We can’t. We have to be better. The way we were practicing today, we weren’t practicing with the purpose of getting better. We could’ve just went through the practice and we might’ve been fine tomorrow, but that’s not the attitude that we need as a team right now. We need the attitude that we can’t just accept—and it’s going to be hard. We might play well again and we might lose. I don’t know. But whatever it is, every day we come back to the rink and we’ve got to find a way to be better.”

The question is how is the team going to respond after Yeo's lashing. I think that question will be answered tomorrow night against the Blackhawks and next three games after. 

Yeo did also mention that the pressure is starting to get to goalie Darcy Kuemper, who left practice early today due to a "minor, unspecified injury." Kuemper didn't speak to the media after last night's game and he didn't speak after leaving today's practice.  Yeo did finally state that he is displeased with Darcy Kuemper's play as of late. (It has also been reported that General Manager Chuck Fletcher is now searching for a goaltender). 

Will the Wild start to turn things around? That remains to be seen right now. I will say that Yeo should have lashed out at the team earlier than today and that he should do it again, if the Wild's play warrants it.