Alexandron

Just found on a YouTube a pretty fresh interview with a coach of a defending champion team Blackhawks at the Traverse City Tournament of the last year : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DeTM0_u0pM We are still waiting for the announcement of the Wild roster there. Most teams did it already. Also from my understanding, our defenseman Simon Johansson it seems is not going to play for the Wild team during that tournament, because the players who are planning to play for European teams this year are not supposed to participate at the upcoming Traverse City Tournament. Probably, as well as Filip Johansson too.

Those funny but sour nicknames sound too depressively pessimistic. For me so far among all our drafts, Zucker stays second in a row after Gaborik, especially in gradually making a steady progress in production. In general, our team during the last 2 seasons is still among the top teams in our Western Division. Look how Chicago team fell last season despite having so good superior stars, as well as a good St.Louis team did not make playoffs either. Probably, the last 2 regular seasons were best in a Wild history in overall points and production during the regular seasons. The Wild team still need to find out the way how to fight successfully with a more difficult animal - Stanley Cup playoffs and to be more creative in youngsters scouting and their insertions into the big club in a consistent but flexible matter tryout.

Last weekend it was a U20 Four Nations Tournament in Sweden. Our prospect Simon Johansson who was drafted this year by the Wild was named the best defenseman at that tournament. Here is a link to read about him and watch a video how he put one of his goals for Sweden team during this tournament. It seems he has a pretty nice shot. https://dobberprospects.com/prospect-ramblings-u20-four-nations-tournament-in-sweden/

New York Rangers announce 2018 their Traverse City Tournament roster. They are in same Division as we are and going to play against us on September 8 next week. Here are a couple links to it: https://www.nhl.com/rangers/news/rangers-announce-2018-traverse-city-tournament-roster/c-299868722 https://www.blueshirtbanter.com/2018/8/27/17787968/rangers-announce-2018-traverse-city-tournament-roster

Me too.

Here below is a schedule for up coming soon a Traverse City NHL Prospect Tournament. We are in a Ted Lindsay Division against of pretty good teams. Interesting who is going to play for our team this year? Last year we played not bad at all. I think in general we had a good pretty solid team. We lost only one last game then. Kunin, Ek, Greenway, Sokolov, Lodnia, Mason Shaw, Soucy as well as other players from Iowa Wild played there too. Unfortunately, Mason Shaw was badly injured(ACL tear) during that tournament and missed the entire season after. Hope, Khovanov will play this tournament together with Sokolov. I liked that's pair chemistry after development camp this summer, may be because of their better communication, which is important too. Hope, also to see Belpedio and both Johanssons . Those tournaments bring lots of heart plays, which I like it for years. https://www.centreice.org/page/show/483955-nhl-prospect-tournament

We have reached today 3000 posts on our Wild forum which is a 6th place among other posts of other teams forums. The most impressive part of it, that we did reach that level in about 3 months. Our leaders continue to be the same - LIG, Rotty,and KA.

Let's say 2 full seasons (164 games). I think one season definitely is not enough to determine a significant draft success.

It is a very good question IllaZilla– What is significant means for a hockey player and for a fan watching that player’s play? How to determine right his significance for the team and for the fans as well? I think significant means the real value, the real production, the real influence for the team in helping to advance to the top of Stanley Cup. I do not think the significant means how many games and how many minutes the player played in NHL, because even he played lots of games there he still could present a weak significant ballast/ be very unnoticeable for the team during that time.

I was thinking a lot where to put this message - at the prospects topic or at the free agent signings topic? I chose in favor of prospects. WHY? I never understood for decades why we need to sign every year lots of free agent signings? I just understand maybe 1. They usually mainly old-ish, not productive , not flexible, not perspective used material stuff to work with. Very rare when we got a treasure (for example, Eric Staal,which is a hard working machine). Why we signed so many of them this year? Why we wasted so much money of our cap to sign them instead of saving for our new promising prospects? In my opinion, we should build attentively our team from the best selection to chose out of our NUMEROUS prospects( I am always believe that we can find/or even to build a treasure out youngsters we have) like from a new flexible scratch instead of choosing every year from the old stuff by creating multiple puzzles of who is who and how to use this who with whom. I think it is going to be a tough one for the Boudreau this year and looks like few free agent signings will sit on a press-box bench, because we do not have much room for them.

Fargo, IllaZilla's username was KISS(KissArmyman).

Welcome to the new boards Fargo! I was patiently waiting for you to sign for 3 long months. Just do not imaging our board without you. And I am still waiting for Hockey-78 to sign too. Because you always able to raise I would say the voltage level in our discussions.

About playmakers we said enough, but I would like to say a couple words about pierogi. For some people Russian pierogi or even American burgers could be a very addictive stuff. The most difficult part in a human’s life is to fight with their own exclusively personal addictive or even destructive stuff. The winners have a special personality, but the losers do not have it. I am more on a losers side, because very like both - Russian pierogi as well as American burgers.

Yes. We do. Believe is going to be even better, because we (the Wild fans) will add to this site lot of talents in knowledge, in smartness, and in attractive writing.

Agreed Rotty. It's just the off-season.

He is almost matured and had exactly the same style of beard as Khovanov had at the Development Camp this summer.

We have a good news. If you look for a main hockeyforums.net page, then you will be able to find that we have got a solid first place (with 2700 posts)in a last couple months among fan posts at our Central Division. Second place is for Chicago there with 1653 posts. To reach Flyers fans with their more than 164000 posts, probably, is impossible in a nearest future, but to beat a second team there( Penguins fans with their more than 13000 posts) we have a real chance in a couple years. Our leaders so far are CreaseandAssist (aka LIG); rottenrefs(commonly named Rotty) and IllaZilla(aka KissArmyman). The most active fans it seems are among the teams from Atlantic Division.

Last week it was published a nice article regarding Sokolov, Belpedio, and other prospects at our local Star Tribune. Here is a link to it: http://www.startribune.com/wild-notes-russian-dmitry-sokolov-has-a-knack-for-the-net/488242901/ According to that article, it seems the most Andrei Svechnikov's success last year was done by the help of Dmitry Sokolov too because they built together a pretty effective chemistry then.

Yes, NHL message boards for every team were shut down. That was a long time ago for one day (May 30- June 1), then all boards were opened again. But few days after just our Wild message board was shut down permanently, and most of our active fans from that board moved here by looking for something ( maybe for a hot news; maybe for a diversity of opinions; maybe for a hot discussions; or even maybe for some sharp jokes and laugh). We were all different there for years and years like a members of a large family, and then (in May) most of us found a new home/like a pier for a large ship at hockeyforums.net

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.). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002–03_Minnesota_Wild_season

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: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Aeros_(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. https://www.eliteprospects.com/team/14907/iowa-wild#players

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.

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.

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. .