Hockey-78

On 7/24/2020 at 6:27 PM, Keep Your Stick on the Ice said:

Indeed.

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

On 7/31/2020 at 11:40 PM, Alexandron said:

I am predicting at least 60 points for Kaprizov during the 1st season. He was the best player in KHL the last 2 seasons and he needs to show how good he is in NHL now. As well as he is a pretty young player too and has enough energy to show his skills. He also needs some good support(physical and mental) from his teammates too during the games and outside the games. Without that is hard to show anything good for the team. I liked that Spurgeon is talking and supporting him by mail for a month already, and Kaprizov had  nice communications with Foligno and Guerin too. Good men and I impressed and admired about them. That way the team is building.

Interesting if Kaprizov arrived to Canada or still has difficulties to get a visa? Any info? According to Russo - he supposed to have a quarantine for a week and to have 4 negative Covid tests in 4 days, and then he is clear to practice with the team.

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. 

13 hours ago, Alexandron said:

Yes, just 11seconds were enough in OT to finish his career for the team. And, by the mistake of coach Koivu was involved in those 11 seconds. Why the coach put our 4th slowest line against the fastest opposite line which took 11 seconds to finish his career? Shame on coach and shame on Koivu. And a 2nd coach mistake for this game was missing opportunity on Kahkonen involvement. 3 goals out of 5 were on Stalock. Offense provided our team with 4 goals tonight, but he was not able to hold the score. Not acceptable for a starter goalie as well as to lose 12 goals in the last 3 games. And 7 goals (2+2+3) out of 12 he should be able to take. IMO, he is a solid backup goalie.

I am still not sure regarding Lafreniere. Hope, we will get him. 

Sadly to say, the season 2019-2020 is over for our team. It seems next season is going to start in December and for AHL too. (Site shows December 4th for AHL).

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.

6 hours ago, CreaseAndAssist said:

 

Folks...the dumpster fire is only warming up.  

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.

1 hour ago, lynxrattle said:

This game is going to tell a lot about the Wild. Is post-BB Evason-led Wild just another post-Yeo Torchetti-led Wild, that initially plays well, only to fail miserably in the end? It's hard to imagine any playoffs success, if they lose to another non-playoffs team like this in a row. Let them show that recent successes have been for real  

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.

Well, there goes Iowa's season then.

4 hours ago, hobie said:

I think Rux was trolling us, don't you.

 

Ya think that might be because the Flyers are rapidly approaching rebuild, they're having what might be their last kick at the can, this year.

 

Couturier-27

Vorachek-30

JVR-30

Giroux-32

Hayes-27

Niskanen-33

 

That is the ages of the Flyers top 6 of 7 in scoring, JVR and Hayes have 3 and 6 years left on their $7 mil. per contracts. 

 

If Rux doesn't think TO is young, what must he think of Philly's age?

 

 

Thinking requires information. Per CapFriendly:

PHI forwards 27.6, TO 25.5

PHI D-men 26.6, TO 25.4

Maple Leafs clearly have a much younger roster.

Kahkonen named AHL goalie of the month in February.

Kahkonen's month started with five consecutive victories, pushing his franchise-long win streak to seven games.

Set the Wild's franchise record for single-season wins by a netminder with his 24th victory of the year.

Kahkonen becomes the first repeat monthly award winner in team history.

https://www.iowawild.com/news/detail/goaltender-kaapo-kahkonen-named-ccmahl-goaltender-of-the-month

Sounds like a pretty decent 4th(!) round pick to me... the Wild management can only screw this up by hanging on to Dubnyk.

15 minutes ago, CreaseAndAssist said:

I thought Mikko Koivu looked and played better than Staal who to me is looking really fatigued or slow by some nagging injury.  

I heard that there were headlines in some Finnish media that he had a one-night stand with a porn star and according to his wife adultery was the ultimate reason for their divorce. Unsurprisingly, being the consummate team player he is he had a prenuptial agreement and Mrs. gets nothing.

So I guess he's in a hurry to create some favorable on ice headlines...

13 hours ago, lynxrattle said:

Here's a link to a Guerin interview:

https://thehockeynews.com/news/article/rebuild-or-reload-for-wild-gm-bill-guerin-the-answer-isnt-black-or-white

According to this no rebuild but a retooling and developing the development of prospects.

Politician.

Interesting to see how he "developes the development" of Kahkonen. He's seriously tearing it up in Iowa. His numbers for the past 6 weeks are breathtaking, another SO last night.

2 hours ago, Alexandron said:

Agree. Hope , some day he will be our first goalie for the Wild team. As more games he will get a chance to play in NHL as more professional goalie he will be in a future. Definitely, he has lots of talent. Sadly, he played not too many games(only 5) for the big club this season. In his 5 played games he had 3 wins ; 1 loss in regulation and 1 loss in OT. In my opinion, if he played more, then we would be in a better standing position too. 

Stalock and Dubnyk are providing very average/below average goaltending. Kahkonen is undoubtedly the hottest goalie in the AHL. Now they've even stopped giving starts to Robson.

I'd be very surprised to find out that the Wild management are content to carry on with this Duo of Averages and let Kahkonen continue to hone his skills in the minors. That's just clueless.

2 minutes ago, IllaZilla said:

Holy buckets, TSN reporting Islanders trying to land PARISE...

 

12:31 - Isles working on Parise

Wait, what?

Frank Seravalli

 

✔@frank_seravalli

 

 

Hearing #isles are working on a deal that would reunite Zach Parise and GM Lou Lamoriello. Not done yet.

 

1,628

11:28 AM - Feb 24, 2020

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1,020 people are talking about this

 

 

 

Frank Seravalli reporting that the Islanders are working on a deal to land Zach Parise from the Minnesota Wild.

Andrew Ladd would be part of the return going to Minneapolis.

Parise has five years remaining on his current deal at $7.5M, while Ladd has three years at $5.5M.

Too good for the Wild.

BG has to promise Lamoriello a night with Bill's wife or anything else to get it done. This deal would be a big part of a genuine and successful rebuild.

12 minutes ago, IllaZilla said:

So...if they lose this game do we see a fire sale on Monday?

Hopefully this is Dubnyk's last start in the Wild jersey. Is there a playoff team in need for an experienced back-up goalie? The Canes maybe?

3 minutes ago, IllaZilla said:

To me the Zucker trade was more to make room for Kaprizov next season than getting younger and faster. He needs a top six wing spot, and at that point in time the top six wings were Parise (NMC), Zuccarello (NMC), Fiala (actually producing!) and Zucker (MNTC). 

Guerin can’t move two of them, and Fiala is younger and starting to put points up. That left Zucker as odd man out. 

Yes but if Zucker would've been say the best goal scorer then I don't know if BG would've pulled the trigger. Zucker doing nothing just made the move as a very sensible thing to do, forced to make room for Kaprizov or not.

9 minutes ago, CreaseAndAssist said:

 

We don't know that...this organization has massively overpaid this guy on MULTIPLE contracts involving multiple GM's.  There is still time for this team to double-down and make another incredible mistake.  No real surprise the fragile ego of the captain comes into play that he doesn't waive his NMC to actually pursue a Stanley Cup.  That isn't honor or a want to stay with his team.  Its his selfish wish to be with just one team (I am sure his older brother Saku would've preferred that but didn't get it) so now he's going to get just that.  He knows his 'Angry Mikko' act won't play too well anywhere else but here.  

Maybe I could have worded it less straight forwardly... well, I definitely think he won't play for any other team since he didn't want to get traded to a playoff team.

He has three kids and is in the middle of a divorce process. Sounds to me that played a major factor in not wanting to be moved to anywhere else.

Obviously I'm not close to Guerin so I don't know what the heck he's thinking but since he asked Koivu to waive his clause I naturally thought he was unhappy with his on-ice performances. But...could he had in mind to trade Koivu and then sign another contract with him as a UFA? That would have been clever.

But since we all know Koivu isn't a team player he declined. So if BG is indeed happy with Koivu's level of play he now begs him to stay for another year...? A distinct, but A possibility I guess.

26 minutes ago, IllaZilla said:

I’m not disagreeing with you. I think it is time for the Wild to move on from Koivu. For whatever reason (age, personal issues, combination, etc.) his game has fallen off precipitously.

I’m just saying don’t be surprised if Guerin gives him a one year extension. 

I know you weren't. I just wanted to lay it out how I see it. Outside of this board I've been told to be very capable of analytical thinking...

Since Guerin would go on and trade Zucker tells me he too thinks it's time for bigger changes, and it was a good trade.

Although when an average Wild looks back and sees what players have been moved within a year (Zucker, Granlund, Coyle and Niederreiter, the four most promising forward prospects) you'd think the front office has zero clue what changes SHOULD take place. Well, 3 of those were on Fenton so Guerin has a pretty good record so far.

But yeah, I would be surprised to see Koivu getting an extension especially for a sizable amount of money.

26 minutes ago, IllaZilla said:

I wouldn’t go that far.

 

I think it’s going to depend on the number of centers available in free agency. If there are decent centers available, then maybe Guerin let’s Koivu walk. But if there aren’t, I can see Guerin giving him a one year extension. If there are decent centers available in free agency, Guerin is going to have to overpay to get one here. Most likely with a NTC or NMC.

The Wild really have no centers in the pipeline ready to go next season, other than maybe Sturm. And he’s supposed to top out at a 3C. Khovanov can make all the noise he wants about playing in the NHL or going to the KHL, but it’s extremely difficult to go from juniors to the NHL. Look at how poorly Dumba played his first season jumping from the WHL to the NHL. He was terrible and the Wild sent him back to Portland. 
 

I would prefer to see the Wild move on from Koivu, but it won’t surprise me in the least if they extend him. 

There's not much Koivu can offer atm. And he most likely won't develop anything new during the summer. Basically he's just a warm body filler from now on.

So I'm thinking by taking someone say 10 years younger Guerin takes a calculated but minimal risk. In Koivu the Wild loses some FO prowess, decent positioning and defensive play... not much, his legs have gone.

I don't know how many OK 4th line centers there are available but IMO it's better to pay around $1 mil. to anyone not named Koivu than say $2-3 mil. to Koivu. Even in the worst case you get better wheels and effort.

And now that even his marriage is on the rocks, he might have trouble focusing on hockey. Might be heading back to Finland.

11 hours ago, Gnarkill said:

According to Russo:

 

 

 

It doesn't surprise me... guy has been selfish his whole career here.. why should he want to help the team get something back that would help instead of him just clogging a roster spot for the rest of the season and being useless? Nice job Craptain Koivu.

 

 

 

This also means Koivu won't be offered an extension for next season.

And since he's reluctant to play anywhere else and there's probably close to zero demand for his services... in essence this means Koivu's NHL career is over.

18 minutes ago, IllaZilla said:

 

There are rare occasions where offer sheets are submitted. Look at Sebastian Aho last season. The Habs made an offer sheet of $42.7M/5 years. Here's what the draft pic compensation would have been:

 

$1,395,053 or below: None

$1,395,054-$2,113,716:  3rd

$2,113,717-$4,227,437: 2nd

$4,227,438-$6,341,152: 1st, 3rd

$6,341,153-$8,454,871: 1st, 2nd, 3rd

$8,454,872-$10,568,589: 2-1sts, 2nd, 3rd

Over $10,568,590+: 4 1sts

 

And these picks have to be the offering teams picks in that season, with the exception of the multiple firsts. 

 

I guess it depends on how confident these teams are that Kahkonen is a stud NHL goaltender and not just a great AHL goaltender...

Unfortunately the Wild wouldn't get as many picks...

Maybe. Or maybe some teams believe they will get as good goaltending from Kahkonen as their getting now... with a loss less money. The Devils won't want to pay Schneider $6 mil. a year for the next two seasons, nor the Wings re-signing Howard, the Kings want to carry on with Quick for three more seasons, $5.8 each? No. Martin Jones has underperformed for two seasons now with a heavy salary, the Flyers don't have a #2 goalie...

And if his current level of play just continues, I don't see how he could settle for a third season in the minors when he's already had a couple of games with the big boys. Not if he's ambitious and not a sheep.

1 hour ago, ClusterChuck said:

Isn't what Illa said (That you put in bold) all the Wild need to do to...And keep him from doing so?

I don't think it goes like that... though I'm not sure since I now found this:

At any point during the negotiation process, if the player has been in the NHL for longer than 4 years (less if the player signed his first contract after the age of 20), either the player or his current team may file for salary arbitration as a means of settling a contract dispute. At this point the player may no longer sign an offer sheet.

8 minutes ago, IllaZilla said:

 

He is a restricted free agent with arbitration rights. Kahkonen can't just reject the Wild's offer and suddenly become a UFA.

 

If he doesn't like the Wild's offer, he can request arbitration. A hearing will be scheduled. And the Wild and Kahkonen can negotiate right up to the hearing. The arbitrator decides between either the Wild's offer or what Kahkonen wants. Then he will award either a one or two year contract (not sure what the mechanism is for that). Usually it's a one year deal.

 

Then the Wild have, I think, 10 days to accept or walk away from the arbitrators award. If they accept it, then they pay Kahkonen what ever the arbitrator ruled. If they walk away from the award, Kahkonen becomes a UFA, free to negotiate with any of the other 30 teams.

 

Usually teams and players don't like to go through arbitration, because it can get really nasty and personal.

Actually I didn't have arbitration in mind. I thought they created more leverage for the RFA players, not to get low-balled by the teams in these situations. Found this from nhl.com:

The deadline for teams to send their RFAs qualifying offers is the day following the NHL draft (June 29). On that same date, RFAs can begin contract talks with rival teams. A qualifying offer is needed to retain negotiating rights to that player if they are given an offer sheet from a rival club.

• Player does not have to take amount offered in a qualifying offer. After the offer is made they can reject it and remain an RFA, while negotiating for another amount
• If an offer sheet from a rival club is signed by an RFA, the team that owns their rights has seven days to match the offer
• If a RFA is signed away via offer sheet from a rival club, the team that player was signed away from receives draft picks in compensation

So Kahkonen declines Guerin's offer, negotiates with other teams, signs with them and the Wild get compensatory picks? Rare occurrence yes, but the way he's been playing as of late he and his agent must feel pretty confident teams might offer him something. I listed a few teams who are desperate to find a quality netminder for next season.

3 minutes ago, IllaZilla said:

 

Kahkonen is also a restricted free agent who is arbitration eligible. All the Wild have to do is extend him an offer sheet with the minimum salary and he can't negotiate with anyone but the Wild. He'll get a raise, but it won't be unreasonable, provided Stalock or Dubnyk don't do something stupid like breaking a foot kicking a wall or something...

Um, Kahkonen simply rejects the offer?

17 hours ago, Tomdog said:

If dubnyk has a nmc they will have to protect him in the expansion draft. They can only protect 1 goalie. My guess is they are trying to hide him. 

Lots of trades going on. Guerin still has three days to trade him. What's the point to keep Dubnyk and not be able to offer a fair deal to Kahkonen? Teams like the Devils, Sens, Wings, Leafs etc. would be happy to add Kahkonen to their roster.

6 hours ago, TonyOday said:

If we can get Galchenyuk for cheap why the hell wouldn't we try it? I would love the see Dumba, Brodin and Dooby gone at the deadline, for some nice prospects. Koivu and Staal gone for pics. This team could do well next year with a real #1 goalie, no idea where to find one of those even though we used to have them in the pipeline at all times!

Have you been following Iowa recently? Kahkonen has been outstanding in his last 10 starts.

In that period 3 SOs, a stupendous 1.28 GAA and 0,961 SV% and currently leading the league in wins.

I don't see how any competent GM would want to hide him in the minor league anymore and keep riding with that sieve Dubnyk. But a RFA... Guerin needs to hurry up with the extension talks otherwise Kahkonen will be another lost top prospect.