CreaseAndAssist

Cates had a pretty good season in Waterloo. It will be interesting to see if he is noticeable at camp. This isn't exactly a star studded group.

Thanks! I hope its insightful...

Wild Prospect Camp, player thoughts, etc I wrote up a summary of the upcoming Prospect Development Camp, including player thoughts. Enjoy!

The telegraph works in all weather...smoke signals, not so much.

What is this 'internet' you speak of? The telegraph works well enough for me...

Fair enough, as I thought you were being serious.

No, its called getting prime minutes both 5-on-5 on most important offensive zone draws and power play time. Gretzky, really?

Again, I agree with you 100%. Anas signed on for another two seasons, but still...that had to hurt on some levels when you see the guy who isn't doing half of what you are gets the call up just because of where he was picked in the draft.

Also, the fact that maybe they recognized Kunin seemed to be uninspired to lead the way in Iowa...prompted them to try to stoke his confidence by calling him up to the big team where he thought he belonged. IMO, and I think you agree...players should earn that call up.

I agree with you 100% on that one. Hell even Kloos deserved another call up before Kunin did. I also agree that Anas was more than deserving. Kunin was pretty blah by what I could tell listening to the games. Kloos and Anas, even Mayhew sounded like they were all over the ice. Do you think a lot of this is about a GM trying to save face on the guys he drafted so he calls them up hoping they'll make him look like a genius than really wanting to know if they're playing so well they deserve the promotion?

The brutal answer is they began a really brutal part of their schedule. It was very divisional heavy and against the clubs which really were battling hard for the post-season. The offense kind of dried up, the goaltending started to struggle...and they had a horrible tendency to throw away games / points in the 3rd period. Even Lalonde kind of mentioned in his interview how the month of March was a collective implosion in just about every area of the team. I think Iowa losing Seeler to the big club also hurt quite a bit. I think they want a winning culture in Iowa. Even Kurt Kleinendorst talked about that before he got the axe, as did Torchetti. But last year they didn't have many prospects developing there...hopefully that starts to change now.

That isn't as big of an issue as it used to be, the team loaded up on smaller, skilled players because we didn't really have any prospects that were ready to go. They had their best season with that group of smallish forwards. Kloos, Anas, Rau and O'Reilly were not too bad. Unfortunately the wheels fell off in March in just about everyway possible. Goaltending, defense (partly due to call ups), and scoring all tanked and Iowa came up short again. The real problem is our guys that are 6'2", 6'3", 6'4" play on the perimeter like they're 5'5" and 5'6".

Nashville is laying low after making some more deals; most notably the trade for Kyle Turris. Yet even though they gave up a lot to get him; they still have Eeli Tolvanen on the way. Dante Fabbro and David Farrance look very serviceable. The Predators are still in great shape, prospect-wise. Tyler Moy is a darkhorse. The truth is, the Predators draft and develop very well and its pretty rare when they completely strike out in any draft year.

I'd still guess it shuts down for good tomorrow. Honestly, why would they make a post like that for a temporary shutdown?

Its just a matter of time for Boeser. Either him or Bo Horvat.

I posted a tweet out about the forums. I also made sure I tagged DJRicky (Wild fans know who I'm talking about) who is a Canucks fan and maybe they'll migrate this way. Or maybe they won't.

Yea, what a difficult time it must've been for Kevin logging in maybe once every 6 months

One thing I've learned, Kevin...he may have gotten healthier...but his ego has gotten a lot BIGGER.

Derek Lalonde talks about Iowa's 2017-18 Season For a wild.com piece this is surprisingly honest. Having followed Iowa as closely as I did (listening to most of their games online) he's 100% right about the late game collapses in that critical stretch just being painful. The team kept finding ways to fritter away points and wins. It was awful. I don't really disagree with any of what Iowa HC Derek Lalonde had to say...

Nice!

If memory serves me correctly, 42% of his points were 2nd assists. I posted it on Twitter and I had a bunch of people falling over themselves to tell me how great Suter is and how dare I criticize a player that was tied for 12th in the league in even strength scoring...shame on me!?!?

Because Suter holds the zone so well...teams give him tons of space because they want him to shoot the puck. It is so laughable that this team continues to use him in that capacity when the book is so known that he's going to take that unscreened wrist shot from the point. The sad part is no one is willing to stand in front of the goalie to either deflect it or take away the goalies vision. They wouldn't want to 'steal' a goal from Suter.

Norfolk Admirals is a nice sweater. I have a Dropkick Murphy's Hockey sweater and a few high school teams I didn't put on there. I'll add them...

Its your site...do as you please.

And they don't want guys that will cut into the amount of time with the puck for #9, #11 and #20.