Alexandron

I do not think he was very noticeable here. In 103 games he had 5 goals and 12 assists; +/- -11 for the Wild team. But according to eliteprospects.com link has not bad a total playoffs experience. [Hidden Content] [Hidden Content]

Davey, We are getting older and older.

I forgot to mention an invitee's goalie Shepard, which I liked too. It seems he merits our attention.

Not yet. I think the second one is an answer. Plus we are missing a really "hot our own goaltender" for years/decades too. Probably, once we had a duo hot goaltenders one playoffs season to reach us to the Western Conference finals. Roloson played 11 games and Fernandez 9 games during that playoffs success then, practically evenly distributed those games . Here is an interesting link from Wikipedia about our Wild team of 2002-2003 season. Please, check to the right side of the page how many rotating captains we had during that season. One Russian player -Sergei Zholtok was also a captain for a month too, but mainly Brad Bombardir was a captain for 5 months (Oct-Nov; Feb-Apr.). [Hidden Content]

Good idea. Capitals took Alexander Alexeyev. Will see how he will perform there.

I watched also a full scrimmage from Sunday, both(30 min.each) half's of the game between a White and a Green teams. And would like to notice invitee's Cates(#33) 2 goals during the second half of the game and his pretty good goal in a shootout. Even goaltender was not happy how he put it into the net. It seems a very smart guy from Stillwater,MN.Wish to have him in our team. Interesting that he played together in the line with Sokolov(#74) and Khovanov (#62). Puck control was pretty good among them too. I also liked a few diagonal passes between Sokolov and Khovanov. Khovanov likes to go to the net, and worked well in front of the net, which is a good sign. During the first half of the game and during a 3-on-3 OT Khovanov played together with Lodnia(#54). I think Lodnia played well. In general, both teams had a nice speeds too,not bad at all a puck control, which I liked.

Still I do believe sooner or later Sokolov will make it out of Iowa. If not with our Wild team then definitely with a different NHL team. It seems so far he is a gifted scorer which the Wild does not realize in full yet. We should have inserted him 2 years ago into the Wild to evaluate his scoring abilities for the parent club same way as we did with Ek, Kunin and Greenway. What we did get out of them besides their defensive play? Practically nothing so far – minimal production (in goals and assists). Just do not understand such a blind vision, such a stupid deep stubbornness of the managing decisions. What are we waiting for? To make Dmitry in a superb shape, to look like a Ronaldo player out of the Portugal soccer team at the World 2018 Cup in Russia? Or to make him nothing out of the Wild questionable system of drafting, selecting, evaluating, training, and dietitian strict control? In a Wild’s 18 years of existence we had only 3 players capable to pass 30 goals level during a regular season. First one was Gaborik, and 2 (Staal and Zucker) last year. Is that a lot of players? Did we have at least 1 player who had 90-100 points per season in a Wild’s history? Gaborik had at maximum 83 points for the Wild. Did Gaborik had a superb defensive skills? I do not think so. Do we have a superb achievements in those 18 years? Just once we were able to reach long time ago Western Conference Stanley Cup finals(2002-2003) and also had 6 years of consistent playoffs appearance during the last 6 years. If we have a defense, but not capable to score enough in playoffs for many years, that is not a solid Wild team. Without scoring is no success. We badly need talented scorers, especially, for the playoffs. Again Sokolov was playing in OHL during 2,5 seasons for the worst extremely bad defensively playing team - Sudbury Wolves and a half of season he was playing with a much much better team – Barrie Colts. He had -12 for the Wolves and + 15 for the Colts during the last season. Team’s play means a lot in player's statistics too. In 3 OHL seasons he was able to put 128 goals (30;48;50 respectively) and 92 assists with a total 220 points. For the last regular season he had 96 points (50 goals,46 assists) and in 12 playoffs games for Colts he had 15 points(8 goals and 7 assists) last year. For Russia-U20 team in 14 games he had 4 goals and 5 assists. Is that means nothing? Then I do not know what else I could add to the plate of Sokolov’s presentation, his positive progression. Personally for me, so far, he costs even more for the team than Kaprizov. Team needs to develop him into a treasure like they did with Zucker. Initially, Jason also was not very good defensively minded too, but gradually developed into a nice professional 2 way hockey athlete, which I hope the Wild will sign him.

In my opinion, a ping-pong practice for our prospects between a farm club and a parent club is a normal routine practice. Huston Aeros team was affiliated with Minnesota Wild team from 2001-2013. But we had a chance to reach twice a playoffs finals(won once a Calder Cup in 2003) when we were playing in Huston as well as multiple times had playoffs appearance during those years then despite our players were flying back and forth. In 13 years in Huston, we missed playoffs there only 2 times(2007 and 2010). But that nice history never happened yet with the Iowa Wild team in 5 years of existence. It seems really something wrong in the water between 2 clubs. Here is a link to Wikipedia about Huston Aeros club history: [Hidden Content]_(1994–2013) I also found an interesting link at eliteprospects.com( I do not know if that is a final current Iowa Wild roster for 2018-2019 season). According to it, Sokolov is going to play in that team too as well as new goaltenders, which is already intriguing for the making a first playoffs appearance in Iowa Wild history. [Hidden Content]

Some thoughts about the water and what is in the water. A water filtration and, of course, purification and rejuvenation are helping a lot. Those are the main goals for water to make it drinkable and healthy. Sometimes it takes awhile to make it clean. It depends on how dirty it is. Patience is the huge helper for awhile too.

Ryan should make a second opinion at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. They have very professional specialists. Rehab, rehab and again rehab there too. I believe he is a brave warrior capable to restore his professional skills and strengthen his mentality also. Agreed, the rush is not a helper.

Thanks for posting. I like Belpedio a lot , had a goal also. Sokolov and Khovanov played together and had nice chances too.

Then hope, the new Iowa Wild coach will be able to bring the team there at least to the playoffs appearance in a coming 2018-2019 season. I am getting exhausted to see any positive results there for the last 5 years. Hope again , this season will be full of positive excitements getting out of the Wild team in Iowa. Otherwise, we will see a stagnation again.

And again those 33 goals scorers do not grow on a trees. Agree with LIG - Jason Zucker is a very solid regular season soldier with an opened heart and soul. And not only in hockey, but in his life out of the hockey too. Last regular season Jason scored in few winning games(3) in a row when no one in our team was capable to score including Eric. Unfortunately , he has no luck yet in playoffs , and even for Eric Staal (42 goals last regular season) in our team too. Jason sincerely recognized that and planning to work harder towards improvements during a playoffs time. Tell you a truth , if he will not be signed with our team then it will be my huge personal loss as his fan for years.

I also would like to add for that current topic - Iowa Wild and other Wild prospects discussion. Tell you a truth, I am getting more and more frustrated /disappointed about our team in Iowa. Especially, after the last year team’s play there – finishing the year without a character, but having a nice chance to reach in Iowa for the first time just a playoffs. I am patiently waiting for years and years without a success. But we practically do not show any results since we moved the team to Iowa from Huston . 5 years already passed. It does not sounds right. What is that means? Probably, we do not have a superb prospects with a tough character for the NHL in Iowa Wild team. If I remember , we were able to reach playoff finals in Huston and many prospects from Aeros team are still successfully playing or for our team (Granlund, Zucker, Spurgeon and etc.) or for other teams (Scandella, Khudobin, Kuemper and etc.) in NHL. As less results we are having in Iowa as less promising prospects we are going to get to the parent Wild club for years. In my opinion, for a better AHL results as well as a better evaluation/selection our new prospects for the NHL future we should see in Iowa Wild more younger youngsters like Ek, Greenway, Kunin, Mason Shaw, Lodnia, Sokolov, Khovanov, Kahkonen, McBain and etc.. Let’s insert them fast into the Iowa Wild to evaluate them quicker and to build some better chemistry among them. Or may be to look for a better coaching staff there? In conclusion, personally for me, " home grown" fruits most of the time having a better taste than traded one from other sources. .

Our former kind of "home grown" prospect Folin was signed by Philly. Not a bad choice by Flyers. I think our defense was the most defensive one when we had Spurgeon- Suter, Brodin-Folin, Scandella-Dumba. After that our defense became more questionable. Quincey was a complete weak choice for 18 games last year. Yes, we had a better production (more goals and assists) last season out of our defense, but we lost more goals too, which means also we helped less to our goaltenders last season comparing to the season before.