It's only early in the season but things appear to be going downhill rapidly for the Minnesota Wild .

Having made sweeping changes in the front office and behind the bench this past summer the Wild have had little success thus far in translating those changes into victories on the ice, due in no small part to a rash of injuries to key players.

Bad enough off-season additions Martin Havlat and Petr Sykora are day-to-day with injuries but Pierre-Marc Bouchard (concussion) and Cal Clutterbuck (leg) are out indefinitely, making it difficult for the Wild to generate any offense.

Only the Nashville Predators, Toronto Maple Leafs and NY Islanders have scored fewer goals thus far.

GM Chuck Fletcher admits he’s talking to some of his peers but he’s not going to be rushed into making a quick-fix trade.

He does possess a good bargaining chip in backup goalie Josh Harding, who has starting potential but isn’t going to get that opportunity in Minnesota, but even he's not off to a good start. Still, some desperate teams might be willing to take a chance on Harding's game improving with a change of scenery.

With the Maple Leafs struggling between the pipes perhaps there might be a fit there if Leafs GM Brian Burke is considering shipping out a scoring forward? Just sayin’…

- Speaking of the Leafs, here’s a nightmare season ending scenario I recently kicked around with a reader.

“The Leafs finish dead last in the overall standings, their first round pick for 2010 which they shipped to the Boston Bruins ends up the first overall pick, the Bruins win the Stanley Cup and then announce their selection with the first overall pick in the 2010 draft, held at the ACC in Toronto”.

Betcha that would have Brian Burke awakening in a cold sweat…

- With all due respect to Sportsnet’s Mike Brophy, the early surprise team is not the NY Rangers. It’s the Colorado Avalanche.

Even though I and others picked the Rangers to miss the playoffs we suggested they at least had a shot at being a playoff contender. Nobody gave the Avs a chance given their poor performance last season leading to a significant off-season rebuilding process.

In their first seven games the Avalanche were 5-1-1, tying them with Chicago for the best record after seven games in the Western Conference, as well as placing amongst the highest scoring teams in the league.

The biggest factor behind the Avs surprisingly strong start was goaltender Craig Anderson, who despite seeing the most shots after seven games of all NHL goalies was among the league leaders in wins, goals-against average and save percentage.

Signed by the Avalanche to a two-year contract as a UFA this summer worth over $1.8 million per, Anderson could become the steal of the 2009 NHL free agent market.

He’s giving the Avs something they didn’t have last season: quality goaltending.

-Speaking of surprise teams and quality goaltending, whilst the dwindling number of hockey fans in Phoenix haven’t noticed, their Coyotes currently sit third overall in the Western Conference and first in the Pacific division.

A big reason is the play of netminder Ilya Bryzgalov, who’s currently the league leader in goals-against average, save percentage and shutouts.

Yeah, I know, that probably won’t last, but if you’re a Coyotes fan you take whatever good news you can!

- I predicted the Washington Capitals to become one of the 2010 Stanley Cup finalists, but if they don’t do something about their dreadful defensive play they won’t even get within sniffing distance of the Eastern Conference Final, let along the Cup final.

The good news for the Caps is as of October 17^th they ranked fourth overall in goals-scored. The bad news is they’re 15^th in goals-against.  Unless that figure shows significant improvement over the course of the season Capitals fans can forget about their team winning it all this season.

- And finally, I don’t like to pick apart my pal Eklund’s trade rumors as I used to in the past. Call it maturity on my part, or at least I like to think so, but a recent one suggesting Nashville’s Dan Hamhuis to Montreal for Tomas Plekanec makes me think of South Park’s famous “Chewbacca Defense”: it doesn’t make sense.

Now I realize Ek published this before Hamhuis was recently injured, and I’ll acknowledge the possibility the Habs are keeping lines of communication open with some teams in case Marc-Andre Bergeron doesn’t work out for them if and when he finally gets called up, but trading away Plekanec only creates another problem, in that the Canadiens would then be without a decent second line center.

Considering “Pleks” has been Montreal’s best forward in recent games I doubt very much he’s going to be going anywhere anytime soon.