Hockey-78

Every team would welcome Barkov. A legitimate #1 center on a cheap contract. Modified your post, lynx...just a tad. They have a two-time Vezina winner in goal, a three-time SC champion coach behind the bench, very talented players like Huberdeau, Ekblad and Hoffman supporting Barkov. Wild has nothing compared to those. IF Barkov wants to move scenery, I'll be damned if he'd even consider moving to Minnesota. If he wants to go far in the playoffs, not just to collect his pay. Since he has the infamous NMC in his contract... so what the Wild could offer is pretty much a moot point.

Looked a fine list to me other than Hunt needs to go. Why? A cheap poor man's Spurgeon, not doing too many mistakes. Oh and Brodin should be kept too.

4 all we know... *the Carpenters*

I honestly don't see why their roles should be those and couldn't be vice versa, Kahkonen getting 45+ starts. He's old enough to handle the workload both physically and mentally. This is the perfect time for the team to bring in new faces. The current face of the Wild is quite frankly pretty boring, stagnated and old. This coming from a marketing point of view too. Kahkonen might be the next Merzlikins, who knows. Throw him in the deep end - sooner they find out it the better.

One has to admire your creative thinking. It seems to have no boundaries. But rules say goalies can't be captains. And a rookie as a captain, now that's a rare commodity! But otherwise I'm all for breaking super old traditions!

Realistically #5 is possible but so is #3 too IMO, if not even more likely of the two. Well, what exactly is a "shot"? Playing back-to-back games, playing over 30 games during the season? Kahkonen's shot to me seems like a smaller step to take than the issue of captaincy. Foligno would be my #1 choice over the likes of Suter, Staal, Parise but you never know with this organization.

That's right but (in my mind) I excluded his contract from this discussion. Stalock has had his chance to show if he can take the starter's job. He obviously can't so what to do with him next season is to me a very marginal question. At least no need to hurt Kahkonen's development by giving Stalock another chance.

1. The Minnesota Wild desperately need to get younger and faster 2. Kevin Fiala and Kirill Kaprizov need a top line quality center to work with 3. Its time to give Kaapo Kahkonen a shot 4. Make a deal to move Zach Parise 5. The Wild should make either Marcus Foligno, Jared Spurgeon and Matt Dumba captain & / or alternate captains I agree with you on every point. Somehow I think/fear some of these points have been on for years and some will be on for years...

Thanks! So he had. Which only underlines the fact how hard it has been for any Wild player to have a massive impact on the scoreboard immediately. Is Kaprizov as big of a talent as Gaborik? And even if he was...

Well, truth be told, I expected much more of them.

Oh, that would be something Alex. Can you off the top of your head name many Wild players who've scored 60 points in their rookie season? I can only think of Gaborik. There hasn't been many 60 point seasons for the Wild players including veterans in the last decade. Even 50 points would be pretty darn good and I'm thinking that will be tough, too. Unless they pair him up with Fiala, they find chemistry fast, he passes some veterans in the pecking order for quality PP time etc...

So they left Kahkonen out of the series which, seeing the outcome, might be good. There's a clean table for him come the next season. You can stick a fork in Dubnyk and Stalock, they are done as starters. Neither one has "it" anymore. Can't imagine a team, who definitely has to go at least on a partial rebuild mode with this roster, wanting to give either one of them a one more chance as the starter. Kahkonen is trending upwards, D & S down for a while. Next season? This quite frankly is a gimme.

I don't think giving Koivu's line the first shift was a "mistake". More like a strategic decision. Not that unusual either to let the checking line waste the first 30 secs. after the opening faceoff. Really weird to see not one but two Wild players failing to get the puck thrown by Dumba. It wasn't that difficult. I guess their minds were still on intermission reset mode... Stalock wasn't up to par in this game and quite frankly they should've let Kahkonen get a shot in the series. But like already pointed out, IMO too poor defensive coverage was the ultimate reason for this loss. People keep bringing up Lafreniere's name but I don't think this team is one or two players short of going far in the playoffs. They need to get rid of of few aging passengers who in all honesty don't bring anything to the table anymore. Plus give new guns like Kaprizov and Kahkonen big minutes. Seeing Koivu play his last minutes in the Wild is the first step in the (hopefully) new Wild era.

Lol, yes and that's good. I think this version of the Wild won't get anywhere. A very frustrating team/organization to follow, that's why I stopped doing it on a regular basis. And now in early August the league expects people to watch this charade... blah. But I did watch this game and there are some positives for the Wild fans to feel good about after so many years of b1tching in here and in the dead and buried Wild boards: - Koivu's minutes and role has been reduced significantly and most importantly, he's off the PP! Gimme five! - that sieve Dubnyk isn't getting the starts he doesn't deserve although replacing him with a 33 year old career backup goalie isn't a solution focused move really. He hasn't been bad, quite the opposite really but in the long run he's no #1 goalie for any team. But kudos to Evason. If he'd had balls, he'd try and copy Berube's move and throw in Binning....Kahkonen in the net. - this group of 6 D-men is probably the best D the Wild has had in years if ever. I will never like Dumba, he's a disaster on blades waiting to pull of another disaster with the puck but if he's your #6 D-man then you have a solid D, enough said. - offense is effing atrocious. Trading Granny for Fiala looks a pretty darn good move at this point but in essence nothing has changed. When Granny was here, he looked like the only scoring threat in the midst of slow, lethargic group of veterans. Now Fiala's that guy. Hopefully their tear the offense corps apart asap.

I'd rather think this is a perfect chance to take it to the chin, miss the playoffs for an eye-opener to the owner.