Wilderness Walk: Thanksgiving Power Rankings Edition

The Wild lost to the Kings last night, so instead of talking about that bummer of a game, let's focus on today- Thanksgiving! What are you grateful for?

Yeah, yeah. The Wild fell to the LA Kings 4-0 on home ice, and that's very sad. You can read/discuss it in the Game Recap from last night. Today, we're going to talk about things that make us happy. Here are my Thanksgiving Power Rankings for things Wild fans should be thankful for. What do your Thanksgiving Power Rankings look like?

5. Darcy Kuemper's Hot Streaks- Darcy is still more than capable of giving efforts where he seemingly just doesn't have it, as attested by the fact that his Save% is only .911. Despite this inconsistency, Kuemper looks every bit like a #1 goalie when he's on, and has bailed out the Wild a few times this season. Now, if only he can reduce the number of games the inverse of that has to happen, but I assume that'll come with time.

4. The #FancyStat Leap Forward- With Parise's admission that he's a total nerd that's never played the game and lives in his mother's basement, the Wild have made it clear that they were emphasizing things that led to good possession numbers. To their credit, they've been able to do it. Through one quarter of the season, the Wild have maintained their first-place status in terms of out-possessing their opponents when the score is close, despite a few clunkers in recent games. Last year's Wild team fell apart at the slightest hint of injuries, but the Wild have already lost Zach Parise, Jared Spurgeon, and Jonas Brodin for 5+ games. Still on top. Hasn't led to a ton of goals yet, but it's kept the Wild in the playoff hunt despite an embarrassing 9% conversion rate on the power play.

3. Varlamov Choking (In Game 7)-

Beautiful.

2. Snark- When things are going badly, what are you going to do? Cry? Be angry? Turns out, there's a much better way to utilize your anger and sadness- by converting them into jokes! Without your snark on Twitter, or even better yet, your snark transformed into poetry, it's tough to get through a game-day gone south.

1. Garth Snow- Garth Snow, before taking some genius pills before this season, was the dumbest General Manager in hockey. Even two glancing encounters with Chuck Fletcher turned into major boons for the Wild. First, it was non-tendering Jared Spurgeon, where the Wild scooped him up and turned him into one of the most underrated defensemam in the league. Then, the Wild got Nino Niederreiter for a song. Garth Snow is the best, and you should do well to thank him first and foremost tonight.

On to the Walk.