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Minnesota Wild
Overall: 62
Title track: 84
Ownership: 46
Coaching: 64
Players: 91
Fan relations: 42
Affordability: 76
Stadium experience: 16
Bang for the buck: 72
Change from last year: -25
The Wild have made it to four straight playoffs -- the longest such streak in the franchise's 15 years in the league -- and what did they get for their trouble? A precipitous 25-spot drop down our Ultimate Standings. All told, Minnesota fell in every one of our categories, save coaching (welcome to the frozen tundra, Bruce Boudreau!), and plummeted double-digit slots in title track, ownership, players, fan relations and affordability. We think the locals are getting restless, stuck in the purgatorial space between good and not-quite-great. And that's what we call Minnesota ... not-so-nice.
What's good
The home of hockey in the State of Hockey is still a much-beloved meeting place for Minnesotans, with the X checking in as the No. 16-ranked stadium experience overall and sixth best in the NHL. Yes, the Xcel Energy Center is creeping closer to Year 20, but between the arena's homage to local hockey greatness (a ring of 215 jerseys representing nearly all the boys' and girls' high school hockey teams in Minnesota lines the suite level) and nightly, raucous crowds, home-ice advantage remains as real today as it did on Sept. 29, 2000, the night it opened.
What's bad
About that purgatorial space? Despite seven playoff berths in 15 seasons, the Wild haven't been a true postseason force, reaching the conference finals just once (in 2003), and getting bounced in the first and second rounds in each of the past three years. That won't cut it in the state that prides itself on fostering hockey mega-talent: 230 NHL players, in all. Witness: Minnesota's sub-optimal No. 84 ranking in title track, a 17-spot drop since last year, and its lowest turnout since the pre-Zach Parise, pre-Ryan Suter era. But Boudreau, the new coach on the block, is out to transform the Wild from playoff contender to playoff power -- and make sure the Minnesota Wild of the 2010s don't become the Minnesota Timberwolves of the 2000s.
What's new
Parise and Suter, the Wild's onetime shiny, new toys, have proved to be tigers more on paper than on ice. Parise hasn't topped 62 points in his four years in Minnesota; Suter was great last season but abysmal the year before -- so that circa-2012 euphoria, when the team swept free agency on a breathless, giddy day in July? It now feels like a distant, gauzy memory. So too, does the Wild's respectability in our players ranking, where they land No. 91 overall, 46 spots lower than last year.
Next: Columbus Blue Jackets | Full rankings