There was a time not too long ago when it seemed as though the Timberwolves might not win a game in the month of December. But now, as reader Jeff notes, there exists the possibility that the Wolves and Wild will win the same number of games (three) this month. Now, that would only happen if the Pups win at Dallas and the Wild loses to San Jose. But hopefully you get the point: for as much as folks pile on the Timberwolves (1-0 in the Love/Mayo battle royale after last night’s OT victory) and Kevin McHale, the team skating over in St. Paul just might be the most disappointing team playing this winter in the Twin Cities. Pretty much everybody expected the Wolves to be in another year of rebuilding. Reasonable people expected 25-30 wins, which still could happen if Minnesota continues to figure out how best to run its offense and can at least provide effort on defense to offset a lack of any great individual defenders. (Unreasonable people, of course, expected a minimum of 38 wins).

The Wild, you might recall, won its division last year. The club has since subtracted far more talent than it has gained while getting the worst of both worlds with Marian Gaborik. Minnesota is in a three-way tie for 11th in the West right now. An optimist might say the Wild is just a hot streak away from 7th or 8th. A pessimist — and there are a growing number in Wild Country — might say they are a couple weeks away from plummeting all the way to the bottom.

This all begs two questions:

1) Which team do you consider the bigger disappointment: Wolves or Wild?

2) Which of these recent Twin Cities teams do you consider the biggest disappointment: 2001 Minnesota Vikings (won five games after going to NFC title game two of previous three seasons); 2004-05 Timberwolves (missed playoffs after Western Conference finals season); 2003 Gophers football (heartbreaking loss to Michigan, followed by loss to Michigan State, turned what could have been a Rose Bowl year into a good-but-not-great season); 2007 Twins (Just 79 wins after magical 2006 campaign); 2008-09 Wild (3-9-1 this month and 11-16-1 since a 6-0-1 start). Feel free to rank those in order or add others you think are more worthy.

Fasola-link! Inside the Red River recruiting rivalry. [We were excited that the NYT was writing about North Dakota until we realized this was about the Red River of the south. Pish.]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 at 8:44 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.