I guess I should introduce myself this being my first post on a totally new website and all. I’m Drew Quandt. I’ve been a Wild fan since the logo vote and a Gopher fan since I was born. The Twins and T-Wolves are teams from my past, but that’s another story.
Big Rusty and I wrote and produced a Northwest Broadcast News Association Award-winning sports talk show back in college, but since graduation we had went our separate ways. The word “had” being prior to this blog post. Now the “Sports Weekly” crew is back together, and perhaps podcasting will make a return, but for now you’ll have to deal with my sarcasm in text.
That said, I’m about to write my first article of the Wild season entitled “Who’s Number One?” And unlike that asinine ESPN show, this one may not have a finale in the near future.
Since the return of Josh Harding off a debilitating ACL and MCL tear which kept him out all last season, anyone looking objectively at the Wild’s first games would be hard pressed to tell you who’s on top of the depth chart at the netminder position. (For the sake of argument, let’s just say they don’t know Backstrom is historically the top guy.)
The numbers leave plenty of room for ambiguity.
Harding is 4-1-1 in 6 starts with a .948 save percentage. Those include two wins over Detroit and a victory over the defending Western Conference champions — three victories where Hards saw just under 100 shots total.
A Finnish Olympian during Vancouver 2010, Niklas Backstrom is 5-4-2 on the year, with a respectable .927 save percentage. He ranks 18th in the league with 341 shots against (an average of 31 shots against per game) while standing 21st in goals against. Two W’s against Calgary are the only standout victories on his record this season.
The numbers say Backstrom has played twice as many games, but recorded nearly the same number of victories and exactly the same amount of shutouts, each earning one. The eye test was saying that Josh Harding is the top goaltender on the team after 17 games, looking more confident in net and downing much better competition overall.
Then comes a five-game road trip, which ends Tuesday night with a likely walk over of Columbus. Backstrom starts off the trip with a shutout victory in Flames territory and responds to that with a decent performance in a storyline-ridden loss against the Sharks. Harding attempts to right the ship at the Staples Center, but not only falls flat on his face allowing some easy goals, but dings himself in the second period, setting up Backs to come in for the clean-up loss. Backstrom continues a strong trip with a victory over the formerly “Mighty” Ducks and likely the start and win versus the Blue Jackets.
The variables in this equation should be noted as well. The Wild’s defensive effort against San Jose was poor on Thursday and despicable on Saturday in L.A. Backstrom starting twice as many games will influence the numbers he produces, likely skewing them lower than normal. Also, Harding seems to consistently start and produce against the Red Wings, likely because of the large number of Fins and Swedes on the team that have played against Backs many times in their careers both in the NHL and overseas.
Before the trip I would have said Harding is the top goalie on the team. After this trip it’ll be hard to argue against Backstrom. Next week, flip another coin because who knows the health of Harding’s elbow and if Backs can retain his focus.
And after several paragraphs, the starting picture slides even farther from blurry to non-descript. Tuesday night’s game against Columbus and an upcoming home-stretch will go a long way in determining who truly is the starter, or if the two-headed monster days reminiscent of Roloson and Fernandez have returned in full.
Either way, to answer the question of “Who Is Number One?”
Well, no one, so far.
