Wild's Penalty Kill needs to be better

The Wild currently have the league's worst penalty kill, converting at under 70 percent. Not being able to kill penalties effectively has hurt the Wild a lot this season which can be contributed to the Wild's 3-4-2 start on the season. 

Last season the Wild had a top ten penalty kill in the NHL, ranking tenth. They converted a successful PK, exactly 82 percent of the time. This year the Wild are in dead last, converting only 67.9 percent of the time. 

In the playoffs last year the Wild's penalty kill was the second worst in the NHL, converting at 62.5 percent of the time. This allowed the Dallas Stars to stomp on the Wild in six games. 

This year has shown that the bad penalty killing has continued right where it left off. Special teams is a big part of the game and in a playoff series, we have seen how important it is. 

I don't think the Wild will finish the season under 70 percent effective on the penalty kill but they do need to be a lot better if they want to have more success and pick up a few extra wins as the season goes on.

It isn't just the penalty kill though, although it ranks dead last in the league. The Wild need to be better in other areas as well, like the power play. The Wild's power play is 24th in the NHL and they rank near the top in most goals allowed at 5v5 as well. 

As you can see by this visual from JFresh Hockey, the Wild rank in the top ten in scoring and finishing but have been among some of the worst teams in the league in allowing goals. 

Ranking 31st in goals against and 28th in expected goals against tells you this is exactly what has been predicted based on how the Wild have played. They have the worst penalty kill in the NHL and their power play isn't much better. They also rank among the bottom three teams in the NHL with the worst goaltending right now. 

Again it's early in the season and the Wild have only played nine games but they need to fix some of the glaring problems before it's too late or the Wild will be set to miss the playoffs for the first time since 2018-19 and the second time since 2012.