Wild’s Yeo and Granlund Getting Early Recognition

January 22, 2013

Mikael Granlund scored in his NHL debut for the Wild. (Photo Courtesy of foxsportsnorth.com)

The strike-shortened season is going to be a sprint to the playoffs. 48 games in 99 days. There will be no rest for the weary at any point this season. Minnesota’s taking advantage of every opportunity so far. With the third home game of the season tonight, Minnesota is 2-0 with impressive victories already against Colorado and Dallas. Now they face the Nashville Predators and Ryan Suter’s former team.

Yesterday we looked at preseason predictions to make the playoffs from ESPN’s analysts. While are giving the Wild much chance to make some noise this season, the individual performance predictions are seeing a little more love in the Wild’s favor.

Mike Yeo received a nod from Scott Burnside to win the Jack Adams award for coach of the year. With all the new talent he needs to fit into his system, he’ll need a great coaching performance to piece it all together.

In addition, Mikael Granlund was predicted by four experts to take home the Calder Memorial Trophy, the NHL’s version of rookie of the year.

Check out all the picks here. We expect big things from both Granlund and Yeo, but we expect Koivu to have the biggest impact on the team this season. Nice to see some Minnesota love spreading.