Alexandron

Same opinion. I put Blues in 6. It seems Binnington is a better goalie than Jones and who, probably, will be a huge part of Blues team's efforts against Tuuka Rask and the Boston team in finals.

Kunin is impressing me more and more. I just read a nice recent article about him at the main Wild weblink. Most games last season he played for our big club, he also was playing at AHL for our farm club as well as he successfully participated(6 goals) at all 11 games of the Calder Cup playoffs Iowa Wild run. Now I was pleasantly surprised that he joined our USA team few days ago at the IIHF World Championship in Slovakia and played already a game against Germany team on May,19. According to that article he had a hard time to reach Slovakia country because of his plane emergent landing, and he was using a car to drive in Europe(6 hours) just to get to that world tournament. It seems he made a solid/ serious efforts this season by playing in NHL,AHL,Calder Cup Playoffs and the World Championship. Sincerely, I am proud that we have him in our team. At the end of the article he was asked what type of transport he would like to use in Europe. He answered - cars. I still would prefer to use train - the most cheapest and safest way of transportation there. Regarding Ek, I am not sure of his bigger roles at this moment. Hope maybe some day. He is more type of Koivu style of game play. We need some more highly productive players. Second recent article from same main Wild link is dedicating to Kaprizov. Nice interviews were taken during the World Championship in Slovakia from different Russian NHL players about a Kaprizov's readiness to NHL level. Hope we will see him next year. Agree about Cullen - nice experience, a great teacher, as well as he was the most productive player for the 4th line in the Wild history.

Kevin Fiala had his 4th goal on IIHF World Championship in a game against a team from Austria, which just finished recently. Switzerland team is doing well there - 3 wins already. Kevin put a very nice goal into the net just below the goaltender's bottle, which flied away like a bird from the nest. You can see it on a Fiala's goal reply from that link: [Hidden Content]

I do not think so that he is capable for Staal's 2 years ago (42 goals) performance and very skeptical about his new extension then. It is a time for his nice retirement in one year.

I agree too. Overall, it was a good (11 games in 2 rounds) team's effort for the first time in their Calder Cup playoffs participation history. Hope , next year they will have a better and deeper success. Specially would like to mention our forward Gerald Mayhew and our goaltender Andrew Hammond who kept us in most games(maybe except just one game out of 11). I like also that finally, Sokolov was involved into the last 11th game of these playoffs run. Thanks that at least he played one game just to feel a real atmosphere of such a difficult Calder Cup playoffs series. I would like to present the last game summary against Chicago Wolves. Interesting, that the most efforts in that game came from Mayhew (5 shots) and our 3 defensemen (Soucy, Prosser, and Warner). Each had 3 shots into the opponent net. And yes, Chicago Wolves is extremely good team, but we were a pretty competitive to play against it. [Hidden Content]

Did as well. Boston will be a huge challenge. I am still not sure if Mrazek is good enough against Rask. Maybe McElhinney is a better option against him?

2019 IIHF World Championship started today in Slovakia. 1st game and 1st surprise - team of Finland was able to upset team of Canada and win with a score 3:1. Interesting that Finland team has only 2 NHL players. Present interest also that 2 goals out of 3 to Canada net put ranked#2 top prospect eligible for the 2019 NHL entry draft Kaapo Kakko. Team of Russia won over Norway team with a score 5:2. 2 other presenting an interest games are scheduled for this evening (8:00 p.m.): USA team is playing tonight against Slovakia team and Czech Republic team against Sweden.

Agree. They should, because it is a very rare event for the Minnesota Wild organization. Interesting that Chicago Wolves is a farm club of the Vegas Golden Nights organization since 2017-2018 season. According to Wikipedia "The Wolves are the only AHL team with a full television package. All 76 regular-season games, plus playoffs, are broadcast on WPWR-TV (CW50), and WCIU-DT2 (26.2, U Too)". Hope, someday Minnesota will do same way too for attracting more interest and more fans to it.

Iowa WILD WIN again!!! in game 4 against Chicago Wolves with a score 2:1. Series tied 2:2. Gerald Mayhew put 2 goals in that tough game and having already 9 goals and 1 assist in 9 playoff games. Hammond stopped 33 shots out of 34. Next game is on Friday.

Our Wild prospect Kirill Kaprizov was included into the team of Russia for participation at the World Hockey Championship of 2019, which is going to start soon in Slovakia on May, 10. IMO he will get very nice experience because he is going to play together with a most Russian NHL professionals - Ovechkin, Malkin, Kovalchuk, Kucherov, Kuznetsov, Orlov, Anisimov as well as with a very promising now Vegas player Gusev and some other Russian NHLers and KHLers. Our young forward Kevin Fiala was included to a Switzerland team there. And our Wild veteran defenseman Ryan Suter is going to play for the US team as well. It seems teams from Canada, USA, Russia, and the Chech Republic having the strongest rosters this year. And teams from Sweden and Finland also bringing surprises too. Here is a link about rosters and a schedule to read: [Hidden Content]

Just a small things to share. The Wild fans made a certain success in 1 year( since May of last year), which I would like specially to mention for this month of May (kind of our home birthday). In one year we have got a 2nd place at this hockeyforums.net site after the Flyers. We passed already a Pittsburgh team with their 13593 posts. And also after the Nino's trade from Minnesota to Carolina, the Hurricane team moved from the last place at this site to the 2nd place from the bottom by passing the Dallas team.

Of course, I agree with you. The author did just fine. I liked his article. And agree also, Nino certainly is a part of what Carolina is accomplishing. He isn't bigger but still is a valuable part of it (team's success). Since his trade to Hurricanes (Jan.17) he was able to make 30 points (14 goals;16 assists) in 36 games of the regular season. I am not sure if Rask was capable for that performance there. Definitely, he(Rask) was our disappointment for the Wild this season. Or maybe he(Rask) was a part that we missed playoffs this year?

It is a very nice article. One thing the author did not mention that the playoffs participation picture became really visual for Hurricanes team this season as soon as Nino Niederreiter was traded from the Wild team to Carolina on January 17,2019 for Victor Rask. Author mentioned that the team was on 13th place of Eastern Conference at the mid of January then, but did not mentioned that the main contributor was a Nino's trade from Minnesota which initiated Carolina team's success.

IOWA WILD WINNNN!!!! with a score of 2:0. Kunin put the 1st goal, and Matt Read assisted to it. At the end of the game Read put one into empty net from an assist of Greenway. Donato and Belpedio had a nice efforts too each by placing 4 shots towards the opponent net. Overall, it was extremely hard game on our home ice.

We are 1:0 after 2 periods in game 3 against Chicago , but Wolves out shot us 20 to 13 in 2 periods. A very tough one goal game so far.