lynxrattle

The guys really brought their A game for this one. Fiala, Gaudreau, Dumba, Brodin especially, but one could make a season highlights clip on many of the plays by the team. Very well played. Fenton called Fiala a game breaker and in this one I swear I thought he was better than McDavid. A huge game for him. Fenton also brought in Zuccarello who has been magnificent after Kaprizov came. Zucc only needed someone to get to the open areas. Fenton may have been awful in many areas, but he certainly was good in evaluating talent. But the refs were not particularly sharp in this one. Lots of bad calls, just clear mistakes, not seeing what really happened.

Yes indeed! Now all we need is the Wild actually pulling that surprise victory off

Our prospects are probably watching the Wild to a degree. They are probably cognizant of how the Wild is playing nowadays and what it takes to get into, and stay in Minnesota Wild. The success is going is going to have an effect there too.

I don't like the pause in the schedule, but otherwise I think we might be able to win them. Fight for the possession in the boards and behind the goal line. If they can get the puck there, we could take their offense away. 4 - 3 OT win for the Wild.

Guerin likes to add players with sandpaper. We'll probably need players like that.

McAvoy. I wonder if the open ice hits cause injuries, or why is it that one can't make an open ice hit anymore without having to have fight after it? The players really do seem to hate those hits.

One would imagine a guy like Dave Manson would not tolerate playing without paying the physical price. We'll see if it gets better, now.

The refs have their game management strategies (https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/players-coaches-say-referees-game-management-make-calls/), and the Wild should have strategies on how to bend the refs' game management into a Wild friendly direction (that is neutral refereeing allowing a fast and hard, but clean game). In the game against the Jets, the Jets won that competition 12 - 0, turning the game into a mud wrestling extravaganza, favouring the slower and less skillful Jets. I'm not saying the loss was all about the game management favouring the Jets' game style, though. I bet half of our team was still suffering from a break in the schedule hangover. I'm sure we'll play better against CAR. Nowadays CAR is a scary team, though. It'll be very interesting to see how we manage to contain their speed and skill. Maybe we would need to rough them up a bit. Just like the Jets played against us

To me the message was clear. The refs allowed the Jets to change the rules of the game by allowing interference by a late hit. Foligno's knee was a question: "is it OK, if we change the rule on kneeing someone's face as well?" I do hope the NHL took notice, and the next time the Jets try to follow their own rule book, the refs cut it down immediately.

Bad news guys. When the game is played with playoffs rules, our top lines stop scoring just like they did last season. The refs allowed late hits, but they were consistent and the rules were the same for both sides. (The first penalty was an odd one, though). We need more sandpaper or experience of big boy hockey in the top lines to make a run. A JT Miller would help, but personally I would just go with this line-up and see what it can do. Maybe it's not our time yet. We'll see as the games get tougher and tougher towards the end of the regular season. I do hope that coaches/Wild organisation do their best to stop the late hitting allowed in this game. If we play 40 games every other night with this much late hitting allowed, we will have a lot of injured players along the way.

A regular season game against the Jets AHL team strengthened with a couple of NHL players... Should be an easy game. Add misery to Manitoba. 6 - 1 Wild win.

You're right, that definitely makes no sense.

I wish they would vote Brodin into the All-Stars game and arrange that backwards skating speed competition Russo and LaPanta (IIRC) spoke about.

Unfortunately we Europeans can't offer any competition yet. Women's hockey is getting a lot of media attention recently, though. Maybe the girls here will find the sport eventually.

I bet that kid adores Ayres the Zamboni driver

0,4 - 0,5 points per game at best. That's not bad if the money and role is appropriate. (At the minimum a lot better money/points ratio than what Parise managed to achieve in his last season with the Wild )

For once the Wild's representative actually is an all-star

Boldy adds so much versatility to the team. We now have two scoring lines that are very difficult to contain. If Boldy is what we've seen for ten games, it should be possible to use him in many line combinations.

We've proven we can score with the best of them. I would like the team to start finetuning the defense now. It's way too sloppy. Grade A chances given here and there every game. We need to have a good defense to succeed and to gain information where Talbot and Kahkonen are at, at their game.

Yes it has! I doubted if we have a player who has chemistry with Fiala and it turns out Fiala has a Kap - Zuccy level instant chemistry with Boldy. Boldy plays so well that it seems to compensate or even negate Fiala's defensive gaffes. Now I would expect Fiala, his agent or the both of them to be smart enough to realise that it is in their best interest to keep Fiala in a team with Boldy. Fiala has had trouble finding the right place and right line mates for him. He would take quite a risk going to another team. If he's ready to suffer with the Wild through the cap hell years coming, he'll have a great chance to keep playing some awesome hockey through his prime playing career years, and will get paid handsomely eventually.

I just loved the sour face Kane showed after the game

I'm so curious to see what kind of chemistry Boldy would have with other players, and if he could play centre. Despite all my curiosity I would hate to see Boldy not playing with Fiala. As Wild fans we are all in hockey heaven. What we see from the team is pure bliss. Let's enjoy it while it lasts

I thought this clip was funny, but an appropriate one:

Definitely. He's totally clueless.

No, I missed that one. Maybe somebody puts that in Twitter or somewhere. It would be nice to see it.