IllaZilla

25 minutes ago, Tomdog said:

I guess we could start calling BG Fletcher 2.0

I don’t know. But at least be honest with the fans. Does the owner not want a rebuild? Then just say so. Quit trotting out these has-beens and saying the goal is always the Cup. It insults our intelligence. 

Well since the prospective owner of the Coyotes owns a basketball team that makes no sense (Utah Jazz) why not the Utah Vikings?

13 hours ago, CreaseAndAssist said:

 

Is this what you think Wild GM Bill Guerin will say in the post-season autopsy?  

No, Guerin will say that the injuries are not an excuse but that because of the injuries, players were put in situations where they had to play more than they should have. And that the dead money isn’t an excuse, but it limited who the team could bring in. And that the extensions weren’t a bad thing because those players are known quantities and the draft picks we might have gotten for them are unknown quantities and might never play in the NHL. 

10 hours ago, Tomdog said:

The only reason for these nt, nm clauses should be for taking a serious team friendly deal. 
I could see a 1 year clause, like Zucc wanting one this year for the birth of a kid, but other than that no. 

But if you look at CapFriendly.com, the money is comparable to other players with similar stats and age. But those players didn’t get NTC/NMC’s too. 
So none of the Wild players took a team friendly deal PLUS they got the NTC/NMC. 

18 hours ago, Alexandron said:

I think it is a very interesting article just came up 2 hours ago regarding LNTC in our club, which gives us some promise and optimism:

https://hockeywilderness.com/news-rumors/minnesota-wild/minnesotas-future-is-still-intact-r30003/

 

I think a deeper dive is needed on those NTC’s. Yes, they are limited, but they might as well be full NTC’s: Johansson has a 15 team NTC, Bogosian has a 21 team NTC, and Gadreau has a flat out NTC. And Zuccarello has a 10 team NTC but that is coupled with a NMC. So even if Guerin found a trade partner that wasn’t on Zuccarello’s list, Zuccarello can still say “No”.

And a lot of these NTC list contain teams that are likely to go to the Playoffs. Teams that usually look to trade at the deadline. Garbage teams are looking to unload players at the deadline, not add more. 

And I get Guerin can ask these players to be traded, but they’re not going to agree. Why would they upset their family life for two months or more to help out Guerin? That’s why they got the NTC’s in the first place. 

Wait ‘til NEXT Season!

15 hours ago, Puck_Pun said:

Hmm, that's quite the incentive - though from what I gather the arena that's already there is a bit crap anyway

So the way I’m reading this is that if the Coyote’s build an arena, they get to come back as an expansion team?
First off, the Coyotes can barely make enough to get to the NHL salary floor. Where are they going to get money to build an arena?
Secondly, how many frickin teams does Bettman think the NHL needs?

8 minutes ago, CreaseAndAssist said:

 

A Yogi Berra classic...

The man knew what he was talking about…

2 minutes ago, CreaseAndAssist said:

Episode #40: Questions For Our Leader (Bill Guerin)

 

In this @MNSOTA and Kalisha share questions generated from listeners for Wild GM Bill Guerin including what they think will be his likely responses.  They also ask how fans are feeling about this team as the 2023-24 season inches closer to a conclusion.  

 

Again there is a reminder of an NHL Draft Get together on June 28th at Reid's at 5:30PM-to-10PM, we'd love to meet-n-greet!  

 

Lastly, do you have slogan for the Minnesota Wild for the 2024-25 season, if so what is it, it doesn't matter how sarcastic or sincere it may be.  Post it here and we'll include it in next week's show!  

Deja Vu all over again…

Salt Lake Pioneers

Yeah, tell me why any team needs to give out 7 NMC’s. They don’t. The only reason the Wild are giving out that many NMC’s is because the GM has been given an edict from the owner that it is Playoffs or Bust. And to get to the Playoffs they need a proven quantity rather than taking a chance on an unknown. 
 

I sure hope Craig enjoys his empty arena while his former team does some damage in the playoffs. 

19 hours ago, ClusterChuck said:

Classless VGK still trying to score with less than 1 minute left.
Glad Fleury laft the ice as quick as he did.

I’m not unhappy with this. The Wild need to be embarrassed. They didn’t even show up. Don’t give me all this BS about how prideful these guys are. They have no pride. They are all fat and happy with their NMC’s and inflated contracts and are just going through the motions so they can get to their early tee times. 

3 hours ago, Tomdog said:

Unfortunately for us I don’t think the Wild could possibly play bad enough to lose to the Sharks.

Picking out of the top 10 again. 

This. This is the biggest problem with the Wild. They refuse to rebuild so they are always picking in the 15-20 range. They get nice players, but no one you can build a team around. Maybe Kaprizov, but nobody else. Boldy, Ericsson-Ek, Rossi, are all nice players, but none of them are going to take the team on their back and push them over the line. This team is stuck in a cycle of mediocrity and refuses to change because the owner wants that playoff money. Well, maybe missing the playoffs a couple of years in a row will get him to change his tune, but I’m not holding my breath. 

On 4/12/2024 at 2:23 PM, OccamsRazor said:

 

lol, Gary must have just plotzed to have to make that announcement…

Just lose. 

3 hours ago, Alexandron said:

I still think they can find the way to bring players if they really want. Gaudreau and Zuccarello took a personal leave and are not playing tonight against Vegas. We have an opened room.

We know pretty well Swedish opportunity here. Gustavsson who was not able to play same way as he did before signing contract last season.I am even not talkinkg about Johansson opportunity to play here. Where is his almost point per game play which we had seen last year?

Personally for me, we missed an opportunity to make playoffs this season because we didn't used an opportunity to bring Firstov here. For the last 7 crucial games he would add points and phisicality. Huge strategical mistake for not trying him here when he was available. They don't know what means motivation to play in NHL and to shows nice results to most Russian players. It means more than to sign the contact.

Just because Gadreau and Zuccarello aren’t on the roster doesn’t mean their salaries don’t count against the cap. The Wild still only have $40,000 in cap space.

And Firstov couldn’t come here any sooner than he did because he was still under contract to his KHL team.

And the Wild missed the Playoffs not because they didn’t call Firstov up, but because players like Gadreau and Johansson haven’t scored all season, Hartman and Foligno has been inconsistent, Filip Gustavson was a sieve, and 75% of the defense are AHLers. That’s why they didn’t make the Playoffs. 

39 minutes ago, Mad Dog said:

From the outsider's point of view, I think the most glaring need for you guys is to find a star center to play with Kaprizov.  He can't do it all (nobody can); he is not a superhuman. You tried Hartmann and Joel Eriksson so far, and the results were less than impressive.  Both are nice, fine players, but you need Mark Scheifele or Dylan Larkin type player - not necessarily a superstar, but a consistent point-per-game center. I really think that's what should be Guerin's priority this summer.

The 1C position has been a glaring need for the Wild since their inception. They have never had a true 1C. And it's not going to happen for at least another season. The Wild still have one season left of the Parise/Suter $14.7M cap recapture penalties to suffer through before they can even think about looking for a 1C. 

Or a name that makes no sense, like the Utah Jazz. 

When was there any jazz in Utah?

9 minutes ago, Alexandron said:

And Ohgren is here. This is ridiculous after 3 games of playing  in AHL without any points. Firstov is more merit to come first here.  2 goals and assist in 7 games. I told before he is better than Khusnutdinov, and has much more experience than Ohgren as well. 

 

It has nothing to do with merit. Ohgren's contract doesn't count against the cap. Firstov's does. They only have around $40K in cap space. You can fit $0 under $40,000. You can't fit $925,000.

17 hours ago, CreaseAndAssist said:

Ohgren has looked ok down there.  I think the smaller ice and the way the natural way that speeds up the game was still moving a bit fast for him at the AHL level, but they probably just are appealing to the buzz of having another 1st rounder get a look at the big league.  

 

He has a decent shot...he hasn't found the back of the net in Iowa, but it will be interesting to see if he can get a goal in Minnesota.  Khusnutdinov certainly hasn't piled up a bunch of scoring chances since he arrived.  But I think Khusnutdinov is more of a middle to bottom-6 player even if he's small.  

If Ohgren follows Eriksson-Ek's trajectory, he'll be good in about 10 years, and Khusnutdinov has been described as a 3C, so we just replaced Dewar with Khusnutdinov. So I'm not holding my breath on either of these guys...

32 minutes ago, Math said:

To make it work on a so-called non traditional market, you have to be top notch in terms of marketing the game while putting the best possible product. I still think the Phoenix area can be successful: the market is big, there are already a lot of pro-sports team, but terrible management and ownership has been killing this franchise softly and slowly. At a certain point, that level of mediocrity becomes part of the DNA and you can't revert it. Having the League running it with the head deeply dug in the sand didn't help either. Moving outside downtown PHX to freakin' Glendale was the first or numerous epic mistakes that have been made.

 

I've seen a interesting segment on sports marketing and business led by Ray Lalonde who is an expert in that field. He evaluates the chance of having SLC in the League next year at 80%.

Or have the league change the rules to stack the team, like they did with Vegas...

39 minutes ago, Math said:

So basically, it's toast for Phoenix...

Not if Bettman has anything to say about it.  He’d lay in front of the moving vans to keep that franchise in Phoenix. 

JFC, can the league bend over anymore for this one stupid franchise? My god. 
 

Quit trying to shove hockey down the throats of the citizens of Arizona. People don’t want it there. 

24 minutes ago, Tomdog said:

So can they delay extending Rossi, Faber and Marat for 1 year and have a little extra for one year?

IMO I don’t think the cap hit disappearing from Suter Parise is going to go as far as they think. The young guys coming up and Kaprizov will eat into that money considerably. 

Correct. They can negotiate in the final year of the contract to extend the contract. So the final year of those three contracts is 2024-25. The extension will kick in for the 2025-26 season, when the dead cap space is $1.6M.

According to CapFriendly, they will have just over $8.6M in cap space in 2024-25. But that's with only 18 players signed to the roster. Maybe they get Fleury to sign for $1M and they move Gus. That will get them an extra $2M and change.

So now they have about $10M to play with. 

Still not great, but Rossi's, Faber's, and Khusnutdinov's extensions won't kick in until 2025-26 when the dead cap space is down to $1.6M and they'll have $36M is cap space.