lynxrattle

I don't know about that call. Greenway not doing much there.

Hooking. But for who? Not a good time for a penalty. Not a good thing to draw an offensive zone penalty, either.

37 shots. That's much better. At least they're shooting. Now just make that second effort to get to the blue paint and the goals would start coming too.

No lucky bounces

Score now and win the game

A really well player delayed penalty. Nice shot

Stolarz playing well

IIRC, yes he did.

I kind of like our new team in a way that the new guys seem to play quite a solid game. But where do we get the scoring? There seems to be no goal scorers and no one going to the front of the goal for second efforts and screens. (Well, Fiala did, and that's how we got the goal.)

Excellent! You're double trouble. Congrats!

Sorry to hear there'll be no post-gamers, and happy to hear you'll still write previews. A Wild game is not the same without them. The Wild has changed so much now, that I really have no clue what to expect. We'll be a lot wiser in 10 games. The one thing I do know is that I'm really happy that the hockey season finally started. Let's have a good, fun season, lots of wow-me moments and positive surprises

I'm torn with the salary cap situation. I don't mind not seeing Rossi and Boldy right now, because they didn't do that much pre-season. But Beckman, good Lord, what do you have to do pre-season to get that spot... I'm pretty sure Beckman will get his chance the minute someone gets injured or plays badly, though. But what to do with the cap issue I'm sure a team will get wrecked the minute everyone is not held accountable. And then how can we pay and keep our prospects when there's no room in the cap. Will the prospects just get sick and tired about the organisation if held down for too long, or will they understand the tight space the Wild is operating in. The only good thing about this is that next time we play the Stars and Isles, I'll have a humongous amount of pure evil HATRED against Suter and Parise. I really hope we win the bastards.

I've always been on the let them grow in the minor leagues side of things, but lately I've been thinking that maybe that is too old school nowadays. There are examples of prospects just stepping in with minimal experience. Even Guerin himself stated that those days of offensive players needing to climb to the first lines through the fourth line minutes are over: if you're expected to be an offensive player you should show what you can do getting 1st or 2nd line play with PP time. They should just go with 4 lines, more or less equal minutes. If we're only one goal down at the end, then maybe let Kap and Fiala play for the final give minutes.

Points worth thinking about on both sides, I think. To add to the dilemma, the Wild's schedule is awfully easy for the first seven games. Now that they let those players play who showed nothing, those players get a chance to look better than what they were pre-season. And Beckman doesn't get a chance to show what he can achieve against bad NHL teams. If they had given him a chance, and he would have been playing like he did pre-season, it would have been really difficult to throw him back to Iowa. The second one deviates from accountability, one starts to get these unwanted problems and cynical-sounding consequences.

The fun factor of individual skills don't carry too far. McDavid doesn't look like a happy camper. We would need the team to be competitive. I'm kind of pessimistic both about the team and Kap. The team doesn't look like a winning team and with the surprise factor gone and the games meaningless if the team doesn't win, I'm expecting a sophomore slump of sorts for Kap. I hope they prove me wrong, of course.

If it goes like that, it is cynical. Kind of like tanking, but half-heartedly.

Nicely put (if one compares that to how things are going between Eichel and the Sabres. It's his health, so the ultimate responsibility should be his not the team's). Maybe the ankle also explains why Boldy didn't have much of a pre-season.

They say they want to let the prospects play more in Iowa. Why not roll four lines in the NHL? We're not going anywhere this season anyways. At least Beckman earned a spot right away, IMO.

I just watched the goals against. Ugly. The whole team, Kahkonen as well, just watching the Hawks pass the puck all around the rink, quite out of it. We got rid of The Pylon and now the whole team looked like a bunch of pylons. It needs to get a lot better and fast.

Rask and Bjugstad, why o why...

Russo seems to think that some of our youngsters might not get more than 9 games in the NHL, in order to help the Wild deal with the Parise/Suter money disaster we'll be in next season and the season after that. If that is the case, it's a shame. It would be a win-win situation for everybody from the prospects to the vets to agree to lower pay for the next few years, and for the Wild to promise to pay a little extra after the Parise/Suter penalty is over. But that would require people to trust each other, so what are the chances of that ever happening... we might end up in a situation where a Beckman or Boldy might play marvelously in Iowa and still not get a chance to consolidate a place in the NHL.

They would need to add a new rule to the book: the penalty for hitting another player's head from behind. They could call it a Wilson.

Ok. Beckman starts in the big team. What else could one do to earn it. Just don't fight again, please.

A most important game. Excel here and they will most likely get a chance in the big league.

That's a gorgeous picture! Talk about net front presence! There's a simple solution to the Sturm playing fourth line problem. Let them play more, if they score.