Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Minnesota’s first two lines will actually be impressive this season

New Look Wild Hockey

Dany Heatley is introduced as a Minnesota Wild hockey player during a news conference in St. Paul, Minn., on Monday, July 11, 2011. Heatley and Devin Setoguchi, wingers acquired in separate trades with the San Jose Sharks, will be relied on to help rev up the offense while the Wild regroup under new coach Mike Yeo and try to return to the playoffs for the first time in four years. (AP Photo/St. Paul Pioneer Press, John Doman) MINNEAPOLIS OUT MAGS OUT

AP

After the busy offseason the Minnesota Wild have had there’s something interesting happening in the state of hockey. Fans are reinvigorated and excited for the new year now that the team has more than one offensive weapon to play with. The additions of Dany Heatley and Devin Setoguchi give the Wild a pair of guys whose job is to score lots of goals. The Wild haven’t had that sort of thing since Marian Gaborik’s healthy days.

Now with training camp rolling around in just a couple weeks, the anticipation is building and Wild fans are curious as to how new coach Mike Yeo is going to arrange things on his scoring lines. With Heatley and Setoguchi joining guys like Mikko Koivu, Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Matt Cullen, and Guillaume Latendresse things could get interesting for the Wild.

Michael Russo of the Star Tribune had a chance to sit down with Yeo and talk about how he’s going to run things (video) and we’re actually excited ourselves to see how his plans work out. Yeo tells Russo that he’s got his top two lines set to go to start training camp and they shake out very interestingly.

Yeo’s top two lines will be:


  1. Devin Setoguchi - Mikko Koivu - Dany Heatley
  2. Guillaume Latendresse - Matt Cullen - Pierre-Marc Bouchard

That top line gives team captain and top centerman Koivu a pair of linemates who already know each other well from San Jose. Having Koivu get to work with them will be the real test for his abilities. Let’s face facts, going from working with guys like Bouchard and Latendresse to the likes of Heatley is a massive change. Heatley has 40 to 50-goal ability and Setoguchi will get big time minutes to see if he can be a 30-goal guy. Koivu will need to be the set-up man on this line and he’s got great talent, but whether or not he can keep the other two guys moving and motivated remains to be seen.

For the Wild’s second line, they’re still keeping guys together from last year’s squad and they’ll be hoping that Latendresse can stay healthy and go back to playing how he did when he arrived in a trade with Montreal. If he can do that, the Wild have a potential 30-goal guy on the second line. Cullen is a solid center and a guy that will play hard but he has never really been asked to be an offensive styled player before in his career. Bouchard is the wild card here as he’s shown he’s got playmaking ability in the past and can score 20+ goals too. His bugaboo has always been his health and everyone is hoping he can steer clear of any further concussions.

The potential here for Minnesota is sky high with these two lines and with how badly Wild fans are looking for excitement from their team, we’re hoping it works out. We know they can get great goaltending from Niklas Backstrom but the offense has always been a sore point. Wild GM Chuck Fletcher has made the moves to help them be better offensively, now they have to show it.