Who would have ever thought defense wins championships?
It's not a new idea by any means but the Minnesota Wild are just getting around to the concept, and it seems to be paying off now a quarter of the way through the season.
In recent games the Minnesota Wild may have not scored many goals, but they haven't had to because of their defensive efforts and stellar goaltending from Niklas Backstrom.
When Wild General Manager Chuck Fletcher took over for Doug Risebrough a little over a year ago, he promised to bring a more exciting and faster paced game of hockey to Minnesota.
The focus of the transition from a defense-first style was to incorporate an offensive attack style of play where it would create more freedom and opportunities for the offensive players to score more goals and apply more pressure to the opposing defense.
However it seemed ironically that there was one thing missing: defense.
The Minnesota Wild gave up more short-handed goals last year than any other team and allowed a much increased number of odd-man rushes against them.
For a team who led or was near the top of the NHL for many ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by Nick Maxson
Minnesota Wild: Putting Defense First Creates Winning Formula for Team
November 18th, 2010 by Nick Maxson Leave a reply »
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