IllaZilla

Too bad Iowa's poor season won't result in a better draft pick. And does anyone on that team know how to play defense? My God, -19, -12, -15, -11, -20, -28???

Still can't figure out why that wasn't boarding or at least a cross-check penalty...

But now there will be fisticuffs because “The Code”…

Johansson ties it up…

30 seconds? Are you kidding me??!

The only thing I remember from King of the Hill was “That boy ain’t right…”

Well, that’s what happens when you constantly draft in the 15-20 range. You get a bunch of nice players, but not great players. Wallstedt and Yurov were projected as bona fide NHLers. #3-5 were projected as good players but probably not top six. #6-15 were projected as third line to depth players, maybe even topping out as career AHLers.

The Athletic has been ranking NHL prospect pools in February. The Wild have come in at #11, down from #1 last year (graduating Marco Rossi, and Brock Faber and losing value with 2023 #1 pick) The top prospects are: 1. Jesper Wallstedt G - projects #1 goaltender 2. Danila Yurov C/LW/RW - projects top six forward 3. Liam Ohgren LW - projects top nine forward 4. Riley Height C - projects top nine forward 5. Marat Khusnutdinov C - projects third liner 6. Charlie Stramel C - projects bottom six forward 7. Daemon Hunt LD - projects solid NHL defenseman 8. Carson Lambos LD - projects 3rd pairing defenseman 9. Caedan Bankier C/LW - projects AHLer, maybe bottom six 10. Adam Beckman LW - projects AHLer, maybe bottom six 11. Hunter Haight C - projects all over the place 12. Rasmus Kumpulainen C - projects 4th liner 13. Rieger Lorentz LW - still developing 14. Jack Peart LD - projects depth defenseman 15. Ryan O’Rourke LD - projects #6-#7 defenseman

Yup. But Craig wants that Playoff money, so…

Unfortunately the Wild are committed to winning. They just don’t have the talent to do much. They’ll probably do just enough to get into the playoffs and then flame out. Or just miss the playoffs and get a 15-20 pick. Continue the cycle of mediocrity and the “Wait ‘til NEXT season!” mantra…

My issue with him is his whole "I don't want to be part of a rebuild" attitude, bad mouthing team mates for doing fly-bys after scoring, and the "Woe is me, we can't win" when his big fat contract made it nearly impossible for the team to bring anyone of note in.

Total bum...

Wild re-sign Mason Shaw Wild sign Mason Shaw for the rest of the season

Guerin made it clear in an Athletic article that he as no issue with letting the Russian players mature in the KHL. Let them come over when they are ready. But I think part of this is that the Wild have zero cap space this year and next year. The Wild have some breathing space this year with Spurgeon on LTIR. But he won't be on LTIR next year (hopefully). So all that relief will go away. And earlier in the season, before Spurgeon went on LTIR, the team could only call up certain players from Iowa or they would exceed the cap. If a player made over $800K in the NHL, the Wild couldn't call them up. They might have a little more wiggle room next season if the cap goes up as predicted, but not much. And there are some players that are going to get raises unless the Wild jettisons them (Dewar, Duhaime, Beckman, Chisholm, etc.) And then the Wild will have to replace them. Let the kids mature in Mother Russia and come over when they are ready.

These fools are going to win the game…

Pat Maroon out 4-6 weeks with a back injury. There goes one of the few trade pieces the Wild had...

Be interesting to see if the Wild put their money where their mouth is. But they can’t do this win one, lose one, win two, lose one, win one, lose two, etc. They’ve put themselves in a position where they need an Edmonton-like run to just get to the wildcard spot. The last Athletic number crunching gave them a 17% chance of making the Playoffs.

I read that and it basically is the same thing they've been saying all year: We've got to play better. Well, duh.

So are the Wild working on their golf swings this All Star break or working on why they can’t get their act together for more than one or two games at a time…

Basically the red wording under your avatar makes a huge difference. Without good moderation, boards can turn into the Wild, Wild West...

The only thing I know is that I don't know anything... -Socrates

So has anyone seen Doug Risebrough and Bill Guerin in the same room together?

Not sure how the Wild expect to build a Cup team when the farm team is terrible. If your draft picks are garbage, then your only route is UFA’s, which are expensive and tend to cause cap problems…

So much for “I only want to play for the Islanders…”. Apparently $98M doesn’t go as far as we thought it did…