Gnarkill

I actually really like Zuccarello as a player but that NMC is gross. I agree with Illa I have the feeling the Wild is going to lose a young player that they really don't want to lose when it comes time for Seattle to take someone from the roster. The last thing I wanted to see was the team box itself into a corner and face the same situation they did when they lost Tuch and Haula to Vegas.. Unless they can work a miracle and get Parise or Suter to waive the no trade AND be selected by Seattle(at which point I doubt they would even be selected) they appear to be screwed.

It's the off season so I thought it would be fun to put ourselves in Fenton's shoes and see what each of us would do even though the game's trades aren't super realistic or anything its just something I did to kill the time. If you want to try your hand at it feel free to post your results here! I did franchise mode with the most current online roster(april or whatever it was) on the hardest setting with "hard" trade settings. For those with xbox one and xbox live gold membership.. I'd like to mention that NHL19 is currently a free "Games with Gold" game for the first half of the month! so get it while you can if you didn't already have it! I also decided to basically go full rebuild so in no way was I trying to build a contender right off the bat! I ended up with: Zucker-Kunin-Tuch Fiala-Donato-Kapanen Greenway-Barbashev-Aaberg Foligno-Ek-Brown Fehr Burns-Dumba Spurg-Brodin Prosser-Seeler Hunt Dubnyk Stalock Draft picks up coming year: 1st, 2- 2nds, 3 3rds Following year: 2- 1sts, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 2- 5ths, 7th all picks beyond that untouched I have Fehr, Dubnyk and Brodin still on the trade block.. hoping to grab a top 6 C, bottom 6 RW, a top 4 D, or a better/younger Goalie. Basically just looking for the best deal possible and then build the rest through the draft/FA. I didn't do anything with Iowa(other than bring Prosser up) or the unsigned guys until I get around to the next draft. The team doesn't look great on paper but I think with a few good drafts and off season moves over the next couple seasons I'm on the right track. It's a wonder what you can do with no NTC/NMCs on a video game.

Via Russo's twitter: "Fenton says he’s trying to fix this on the fly without a rebuild" ... here we f'n go again.

If you had asked me this a few years back I would have said just making the playoffs and having a chance is better.. but after the last few Wild playoff appearances I'm okay with missing them all together this season.. granted the Wild's drafting isn't fantastic and I'm not super optimistic they would pick the right player with the improved pick.. imo it's just time the Wild, CL(and Fenton to a lesser extent since he hasn't been here long) all get a wake up call that this team isn't just a "tweak" away from being a cup contender. What could do that better than missing the playoffs and the revenue of the Wild being in them creates? They've been selling us this "right on the edge, only a tweak away" crap for too long when anyone with a decent hockey IQ can see the team is more than just a couple tweaks away from making any noise in the playoffs as an actual contender.

If I remember right they even had to bring in Bryzgalov because Kuemps just wasn't reliable on a consistent basis with the Wild.. he had games here and there where he would look like a NHL starter and then stretches where he would let in plenty of softies and looked like an AHL backup.

Sadly that I'm not sure of other than the stats in the link I threw on that original post edit! I don't get much of a chance to watch the Iowa Wild too much!

Read was the captain and used in all situations while he was here at BSU he has heart and always worked hard and played a good two-way game. He had a pretty good shot and a nose for the net and a real knack for scoring timely goals I remember him being the best player the Beavs had from the moment he stepped on the ice to the moment he left. Sadly, it his game didn't really translate that well to the NHL and while he's chipped in some goals here and there he's never really been a consistent threat if I am remembering correctly he's only had one 20+ goal 40ish point season when he was with the Flyers either his first or second year there but don't quote me on that. He's was one of my favorite players I've had the pleasure of watching at BSU over the years(along with Hunt) its just a shame his game didn't pan out at the NHL level that we've seen so far. Edit: I take that back he had a couple good years with the flyers [Hidden Content]

Awesome! Tell Aaron, Jive and Kenny whats up from Bemidji next time you talk to them! I haven't been on facebook for a couple years so I kinda lost touch with them! if you want some good stories ask them about the Mad Hatter shows up here!

This is what the start of a fire sale looks like.. and I am fine with it. I would have liked more back for Granny, Coyle Nino but who's to say Fenton could get anything more back? these might have been the best offers. I expect more to be done prior to or during the draft also. The Wild need a culture shift and its not going to happen over night and we probably aren't going to be happy with most of the trades but its how you start a rebuild and thats exactly what this going nowhere past the first round(if they even make the playoffs) team needed. Sadly most of the guys we REALLY want gone have no trades or no movements or whatever Fletch loved to hand out like candy and its going to take them being very unhappy to get them to waive those. Fenton is moving what he can when he can. I think some of us including myself overvalue a lot of the players on this team. Sometimes a GM just has to take whats offered if he really wants to make a trade and change.. especially when other teams know how the Wild are in a bind with other contracts and players. The bad part is we have to watch players that get shipped out succeed more than they did here because other teams will put them in better situations with better players than the Wild ever would/could. I look at it this way.. big picture there is a good amount of cap space being free'd up for the future and if it continues Fenton can make a run at some quality free agents in the next few years as well as keep the cap space for our young players that will eventually earn raises in the case that Parise, Suter and Mikko's bloated contracts are still around for years to come.

Imo, blow it all up.. Keep only Dumba, Kahkonen, Greenway, Kunin and Kaprizov safe. I'd like to keep Ek and Spurgeon too but if the right offer comes along for either of them I would have to consider it. Get what you can in prospects and pics back for anyone else on the roster.. don't bother with mediocre or change of scenery NHL guys on long contracts... just call up AHL guys to fill holes on the main roster or get some guys on 1-2 year deals for now. Hope that you can get out of Mikko's contract asap and that Parise and Suter will be unhappy and waive their no trades. If not let them ride it out on a mediocre team for a couple years and see if that changes anything. Make sure you set yourself up properly for the expansion so that none of your future is sacrificed(like Haula and Tuch were). Hire a scouting and drafting team that aren't as bad as what we've had in years past and hopefully hit on a few picks. I'm okay with watching a bad product for a handful of years.. because in reality that's exactly what we've already been doing. Making the first round of the playoffs and getting bounced only to get a later pick is more frustrating than not making them and possibly having a shot at a player that could change the dynamic of the team for years to come. This team needs a huge culture shift and its time for a fire sale.

yeah the 3 years instead of 2 is early posturing... with 2 years on the deal they wouldn't be able to expose him to Seattle in the expansion.. with 3 on the deal they will be able to.

We may have lost Haula either way but the Wild could have protected Dumba, Suter and Spurgeon while not protecting Brodin.. which is what I would have done. Brodin is solid but he's a bit overpaid and I would have taken that chance at them selecting either Haula or Brodin rather than giving away Tuch just to make sure Haula was taken. I also would have gambled on Burns but I'll admit I'm biased there because he was one of my favorite Wild players at the time and I valued what he brought to the table higher than a lot of the players on the team back then. There's always a way to make cap space and structure contracts. We wouldn't have been able to sign Suter or Parise probably.. or maybe just one of the two if we did but I'd have been okay with that. It's all just more "would have, could have, should have" at this point though lol hindsight is a sob and we're stuck with what we have. I just needed to rant my frustrations haha

The Wild have a pattern of getting the short end of the stick in trades and its across multiple GMs. Nino will do great in Carolina especially if he's put into a situation that caters to his skill set.. like being paired on a line with a guy like Aho and given top minutes. Something the Wild couldn't ever do because they haven't had any players of that caliber since Nino has been here. The part that stings the most about this deal isn't Nino being gone because who knows if he would have got it turned around here.. its that from early indications we basically got nothing worthwhile in return. We got fleeced yet again. It's sickening how the Wild loses out in trades or gives up on players/prospects so often.. or gives away two good young players to protect lesser players in expansion. I'd understand it more if they were drafting well and holding onto our solid prospects and draft picks to actually rebuild at this point but this "put a band aid on it", "hockey trade" or "tweak" stuff is getting old. It's embarrassing seeing guys like Burns, Haula, Tuch and now Nino get shipped out and shine because they were lower on the pecking order than overrated and overpaid players that will never help the Wild win a cup.

for those that haven't seen him play much I dug up a few links so you can get an idea of what kind of shot he has he's also not afraid to let it fly when he has a clear lane: [Hidden Content] [Hidden Content] [Hidden Content] [Hidden Content] let's hope he can bring some of that to the Wild PP.. we could really use it lol

He can play the PP pretty well and has a heck of a shot so I was happy to hear that BB will be giving him a chance at it according to Russo's tweets.