Minnesota Wild 2008-09 Fantasy Hockey Preview

We are now at the start of training camp for the 2008-09 NHL season, and my hockey-crazed brother and I have begun work on our own fantasy hockey magazine, predicting the stats for every player on the starting roster of an NHL team.

We hope we can accurately predict most players' statistics and we hope to help you with your fantasy hockey teams. A new article will be posted every couple of days at the most, and some teams will come even sooner. We will be doing this in alphabetical order.

Minnesota Wild 2008-09 Projected Lineup

Andrew Brunette-Mikko Koivu-Marian Gaborik
Owen Nolan-James Sheppard-P-M Bouchard
Stephane Veilleux-Eric Belanger-Antti Miettinen
Derek Boogard-Colton Gillies-Benoit Pouliot

Brent Burns-Kim Johnsson
Nick Schultz-Marek Zidlicky
Martin Skoula-Marc-Andre Bergeron

Nicklas Backstrom
Josh Harding

Fantasy Stud: Marian Gaborik

This young speedster finally put together a healthy season last year and this may be the year he hits 50 goals.

Watch out for: Marian Gaborik

I realize that I picked the same player for both categories but there is no point in ignoring Gaboriks injury history.

Individual Scoring Predictions for 2008-09

Player                             GP-G-A-P
1. Marian Gaborik              77-48-40-88
2. Mikko Koivu                  79-20-49-69
3. P-M Bouchard              82-18-48-66
4. Andrew Brunette          75-22-38-60
5. Marek Zidlicky             79-8-38-46
6. Owen Nolan                76-16-24-40
7. James Sheppard          80-12-24-36
8. Brent Burns                80-12-22-34
9. Antti Miettinen            82-10-19-29
10. Kim Johnsson           77-6-21-27
11. Eric Belanger            73-7-19-26
12. Marc-Andre Bergeron 71-7-19-26
13. Stephane Veilleux      77-8-13-23
14. Colton Gillies            78-7-14-23
15. Benoit Pouliot          76-10-12-22
16. Nick Schultz            82-3-14-17
17. Martin Skoula          79-1-9-10
18. Derek Boogard         59-0-2-2

Goalies
Nicklas Backstrom 32-19-9 .921 SVP 2.19 GAA
Josh Harding 10-10-2 .910 SVP 2.40 GAA