lynxrattle

Brodin saves

Nice kill

A very good start to the game. The second period is the difficult one, with the long way to the bench when switching lines.

Apples and oranges, but still very good

5 - 2 Wild win.

Not quite as much Ovie, Crosby and Malkin, but very close.

It's a good mix. Nice chemistry.

Hertl has been scoring. They need to be ready to compete.

I had forgotten Zucc is already 34. He does not show the mileage yet, IMO. He can keep up with Kap using his hockey sense.

No complaints whatsoever. Even PP scored.

If I remember correctly that guy also had a letter Z in his name. Zegtzky or Grezgras or something like that. Zegras could become quite a handful.

Perfect.

Dumba reminds me of this Finnish d-man from the 80's. They called him Blackout-Ruotanen, because every game he had one total blackout, like clockwork. Apart from that one humongous blunder, he played well enough to keep his place in his team.

It's going to be fun to see if our d can cope with the incredible talent McDavid has been showing. I think Koskinen is not for real. He has been so lousy previous seasons. Just keep on working him. Shoot and make him move laterally to tire him. He has not been catching shots with his glove. Shoot shoot shoot. We can score with them - if the game is not decided in PP and PK. 5 - 4 Wild win.

Maurice needs to go and the old guard needs to change. Trade Wheeler and Scheifele, if they can - but where to find a 1C...

That could be, but Hartman seems to be at least third line material. BB seemed happy giving a lot of TOI to the 1st and 2nd line guys. That works sometimes, and other times, other teams, rolling four lines would work better. Boudreau is a likable guy, though. I hope him all the best.

With the Wild it was puck possession, and defense first. The players will hate the short least in a jiffy. If they buy in, they could play very soundly at times. If Yeo hasn't learned to cope with player resistance / Fletcher is not ready to be ruthless against any selfish players, it's inmates running the asylum -time pretty soon. But like Yeo said in the presser he has had years to think about what went wrong with the Wild. Maybe he has learned something from that very painful experience.

There could a country club in VAN too...

Oh no. I can already see Yeo trying to break up the Philly country club with a tirade like this: Fletcher really needs to find out who the room rottening apples are, and get rid of them, before a coaching change will help you.

The Wild's logo has some kind of a wild animal depicted in the wilderness. The first period I felt the Wild actually played like the logo. Words like "fierce", "ferocious", "vicious" came to my mind. They would just hound the puck and not give up on it. I'm amazed TOR came back to the game after the first period. That was a very good game against a very good team. The Wild is now a big, fast and mean team. I've always felt the Wild's logo and name is devoid of meaning - I even once made a GIF logo where I made the W turn upside down to a letter M, to make it Minnesota Mild. There's none of that anymore. The logo is now actually starting to be an exact mirror image of them. A logo that can worn with pride and swagger. Hats off to them! If they keep on developing the play they played in the first period, they'll go far

My brains tell me that the Wild is not yet able to deal with TOR. The heart says we can win anyone on a good day. I think I'll still say it's a TOR win. 3 - 2 OT, Shootout winner Nylander.

I also think that Fiala might have to be traded. I think Kaprizov is such a key to the Wild, that other key players will have to fit him, and Fiala has not so far shown to have much of chemistry with him.

Right now we have only Fiala who's not delivering the way he could, and the eye test says even he is playing well. It's just the odd shooting percentage. It's bound to change. I think Hartman might well end up with 30 goals.

Very good game again. I didn't like the goals against, though. They did look softish to me. I think I should go 5 - 2 win for Wild until the end of the regular season.

Yup. We should do better than previously. We'll see how it goes.