IllaZilla

I don't think it's so much a matter of working harder. I think it's the direction they are getting from the higher ups in the scouting department. If the higher ups value safer two-way players, then that is who the scouts are going to focus on. Especially if the Wild are constantly drafting in that 15-25 range. So until that direction changes, that's who scouts are going to look at...

We’re probably not going to see big changes to the scouting staff until next season, unfortunately. I’m sure there are guys Fenton wants to get in here, but they may be under contract to another team. So he may have to be patient and wait for their contracts to expire. Flahr is already out. Hopefully Guy LaPointe will be out soon too. I would expect by next draft Fenton will have his guys in place and maybe the Wild will stop drafting “safe” players.

It is nice to see moderators here actually take an interest in the boards and step in when things get personal or off topic, unlike the Wild boards where Falness pretty much let the boards devolve into the Wild, Wild West...

Be nice to see whose recommendation it was to draft Johansson this past draft. Yes, Fenton called his name, but still, there had to be a lot of convincing voices in the room to pull the trigger in the first round on a general consensus third rounder...

You could. Kind of a “Good, Better, Best” ranking. But again, we would have to designate how many games we consider “Good, Better, and Best”. What I found interesting is Chicago had the highest amount of draft picks from 2000-2018, yet their overall success rate was one of the lower ones (15%). Or Anaheim’s success rate of 27%. First thing Fenton needs to do is hire Anaheim’s scouting staff!

Well, it was a promotion. And if Fenton has any ideas of his own, he just has to wait a year. If the team flames out in the first round again, then he can go to Leipold and say "We tried it your way with just "tweaks". But this team needs more than "tweaks". We need to do A, B and C."

Hey kids! Let's have some fun with numbers! Here's how the various teams stack up with both Alexandron's draft success rate (164 games) and Fargo's draft success rate (100 games). A few things: These numbers come from the 2000-2018 drafts. So the impacts of the last three or four drafts really aren't factored in here, but I didn't want to exclude them in case a team had a player that qualified for our "success" rate (like Auston Matthews). The Atlanta/Winnipeg teams are in here three times, once for the Atlanta franchise, once for the Winnipeg franchise, and a third time combining the two. Including them like this really didn't change anything. League average is at the bottom. This does not take into account if the player drafted remained with the team (ex. Nick Leddy). This does not take into account where the player was drafted (ex. 1st round vs 7th round). I sorted them on the 100+ Success%, and it really didn't make much of a difference. Team Total Picks 164+ 100+ 164+ Success% 100+ Success% ANA 135 32 37 24% 27% PIT 135 26 35 19% 26% OTT 143 31 37 22% 26% CBJ 159 27 41 17% 26% LAK 156 31 37 20% 24% BUF 152 33 36 22% 24% EDM 158 28 37 18% 23% NAS 155 24 36 15% 23% CAR 134 22 28 16% 21% DET 149 23 31 15% 21% MIN 137 23 28 17% 20% MTL 142 25 29 18% 20% NYR 147 24 30 16% 20% DAL 147 24 30 16% 20% WAS 143 27 29 19% 20% CHI 186 28 37 15% 20% TOR 147 22 29 15% 20% SJS 135 21 26 16% 19% FLA 152 27 29 18% 19% STL 152 24 28 16% 18% TBL 160 18 29 11% 18% BOS 133 21 24 16% 18% CAL 141 23 25 16% 18% ATL 96 15 17 16% 18% NYI 149 22 26 15% 17% PHL 147 22 25 15% 17% COL 150 22 25 15% 17% ATL/WPG 154 21 25 14% 16% PHO 149 16 24 11% 16% NJD 146 17 23 12% 16% WPG 58 6 8 10% 14% VAN 129 15 17 12% 13% Average 143 23.1 28.7 16% 20% Like it or not, based on these defined success rates, the Wild do Ok with drafting. Top third of the league.

Did he give too much power to certain players or was he told to listen to certain players? Because there is a big difference. If he let the inmates run the asylum, then that’s on him. But if he was told to let the inmates run the asylum, then no matter what his vision for the team was, it was never going to come to fruition if his managing of the team was always interfered with.

Well, I wasn’t referring to the overall significance of a player. I was referring what we want to define as a significant amount of games to be with the NHL club to be considered a draft success. Is it 82 games? 100 games? 164 games?

I think it was an admirable intention, but he didn't do himself any favors extending a very slow player for seven years and then giving him a NMC to boot. Kind of put a crimp in the ability of the team to acquire those players that could make them faster and more aggressive... As far as Walz dangling Malkin out there, I wonder if that spiel was made to every season ticket holder, or only the ones that threatened to bail. Because I bet it was only made to the ones who threatened to leave. People were giddy over the signing of the pair of "superstars" in Parise and Suter, so let's try it again! Dangle some "superstar" out there to try and get them to sign on the dotted line. That's all that matters...

The day Fletcher was introduced, during his press conference he promised to change the Wild into a fast, aggressive skating team like the Penguins...

Well, the team definitely improved under his leadership, record-wise. They went from middle of the pack under Risebrough to top ten in the league. So he was definitely doing something right there. He was not afraid to make trades to try and improve the team, or sign free agents. Some of his trades worked (Pominville trade), and some didn't (Hanzal trade). Some of the free agents signings worked (Parise) and some didn't (Vanek). I think Fletcher's downfall was the teams inability to perform in the Playoffs. Whether it was injuries or "the hot goaltender", there was always something that seemed to pop up during the Playoffs that derailed the Wild's post-season efforts. Whether these things were entirely his fault or not, hard to say. But he had already fired his hand-picked coach Mike Yeo, so the next person on the hot seat was himself, since he couldn't fire the team. And unfortunately, the team failed to show up once again in the Playoffs and it cost him his job.

Trades are another matter. I wouldn’t include them with this discussion. If I have time this weekend I may try to pull something together looking at the Wild vs rest of the league, just to see if we’re being hypercritical of the team or if they really are poor at drafting and development.

Yeah, they did. But I would have too. Just because he never got to play for the Wild, I still would have included Leddy as one of the Wild’s draft successes. But I would also have included Sheppard. He stuck around the NHL for six seasons and averaged about 50 games per season. Is that great for being a top 10 pick? Probably not. But we’re not looking at the value of the pick, just that a player was drafted by the Wild and played a significant amount of games in the NHL. And we would have to decide what “significant” means.

I think it would be interesting to compare the Wild's drafting and development to the rest of the league, with a similar set of parameters. Wild.com posted an article this summer crowing how they had a 44% success rate with drafting players. But their parameters were that a player was drafted by the Wild and made it to the NHL. That's it. So Kris Foucault is considered a draft success because he was drafted by the Wild in 2009 and played one game in the NHL. Don't set the bar too high. To me a draft success is a player who was drafted by the team and then played a significant amount of games for that team or in the NHL. But what is significant? 41 games (half a season)? 82 games (one season)? 164 games (two seasons)? And then does it depend on where a player was drafted? Should first rounders be held to a higher standard than seventh rounders? Or should that not matter?

I noticed a lot of online rankings had the Wild around #20, and they all mentioned Kaprizov as the main reason the Wild weren't ranked lower...

I’ll believe it when I see it. There are reports already that Jordan Greenway already has a roster spot...

Unless you're a Wild prospect...

It's me, KA. Took the name of my favorite Vandals song "Illa Zilla (Ladykiller)". When I was a kid we played pick up hockey on the East Side of St Paul and there was always that one kid that never came back and helped out. He always hung around the other end of the rink and kept screaming "Pass it to me! I'm open!" Yeah, no **** you're open, come back on defense and help out! I would love to see the Wild leave their rookies in Iowa getting big minutes and proving they can dominate before they hand them a roster spot rather than giving them a roster spot on the bottom six and teaching them how to make popcorn in the press box...

The Wild have enough playmakers for two teams. Hopefully he stays away from the pierogi and keeps scoring goals in bunches...

It would be nice for a change to see a player that wants to shoot the puck rather than treat it like a hot potato and quickly pass it to someone, anyone, else...

Correct on both counts.

I think a lot of these observations we are making here just goes to show that the Wild aren't built for the Playoffs. Every team knows you just have to be a little physical with them and they turtle. Also, is it me, or are the Wild constantly running into the "hot goaltender" more than any other team in the Playoffs? Or is it that their anemic offense makes any goaltender they run into "the hot goaltender"?

Maybe we'll be lucky for a change and the kid will turn into the Wild's version of "Cheeseburger" Phil Kessel...