Sometimes it has felt that the Flames have the Wild's number.
I've watched some Wild this year and their big issue has been that they haven't found good forward units beyond the Koivu-Parise pair. That used to include Heatley but now they've put him on the second line, which to me still seems like a dumb thing to do.
So the thing is that they have to be prepared to play hard against their first line or they will end up being pushed around the boards by them. They're coming off a hard-fought 2-1 win against Nashville, so they're likely to be squeezing their sticks less than they have in recent games.
They're already putting some youth into their lineup. Coyle is on the first line and looks like an NHLer. Granlund has been struggling with the rest of the secondary scoring. It's been a tough situation for him to transition to the NHL. The big name right now is Brodin who is the youngest defenseman in the NHL and basically playing first-pair minutes for them.
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