lynxrattle

It would feel easier for Guerin just to play along and pretend everything in the locker room is perfect. As C&A said, Guerin will reveal his true cards by his actions. I suspect he's already bought the Country Club membership card, but of course hope for him to just be silent in order to ease any potential trades.

The nasty problem with organisational culture is that it tends to keep the same even if people change. 11, 9, 20 might leave only for us to see them replaced by players who inherit their places in the Country Club.

Agree on the faceoffs thing. He really needs to improve there. Against the Kings their winning goal was a direct consequence of him losing the draw and then losing position on Carter.

I think Dumba has great potential in the right environment. TBL, Toronto, teams like that. I think Guerin should be able to pull off a good trade. Dumba was noticed last season and the GM's probably think he suffers at least to a degree from the Wild's ineptitude. But I do of course agree on keeping Dumba if there is not a really good deal to be done. A high 1st round pick plus something major to sweeten the deal for the Wild. It would be very sour to be looking at Dumba scoring for another team, so definitely no Fenton type of trades.

It's like C&A and Chorske said. The 10 % of more effort was lacking and we lost a basically winnable game.

KHL and and the European leagues had a small break. Even with that relatively weak opposition Pulju was not able to really light the lamp. And yes he should have stayed back for a year or two. Igor Larionov was following the games, interviewed by the Finnish media and he stated that too. It is really an exception a European player is able to switch to the NHL right away after the draft.

The inconsistent goalie. He might get a bit more consistent, if he was used more consistently. But I'm afraid the Country Club privileges will prevent that experiment.

Dumba is a wrong sort of player for a team in our situation. He's a luxury for those teams that can afford a defensive mistake here and there. The Wild needs d-men that play a near flawless defensive game, and Dumba needs a team that lives by its offensive prowess. A trade could be win-win-win. Win for the Wild, Win for the other team and win for Dumba. I wouldn't trade for a 1C already playing, though. We won't be needing a 1c in the near future. We need picks instead and we should acquire the future 1C with a high pick, with the idea of being competitive 5 - 6 years from now.

Guerin's comments are very worrying. CreaseAndAssist might well be right in stating that it won't matter who the GM is, as long as the old guard is there defending their privileges.

I was shocked to read the start of Sarah McLellan's article on the Star Tribune ([Hidden Content]): "When Wild players empty into the lobby of a hotel, sometimes in the wee hours of the morning after arriving from the previous stop on a road trip, the group starts to separate itself by the elevators. Veterans get on first while the younger players wait." No wonder there's locker room problems that Russo, Souhan and Guerin have talked about! Here's what Rommel wrote about the effects of hierarchy of the Italian army of the fascist times (The Rommel Papers, page 262): "Particularly harmful was the all-pervading differentiation between officer and man. While the men had to make shift without field-kitchens, the officers, or many of them, refused adamantly to forgo their several course meals. Many officers, again, set the men an example. All in all, therefore, it was small wonder that the Italian soldier, who incidentally was extraordinarily modest in his needs, developed a feeling of inferiority which accounted for his occasional failure in moments of crisis." That elevator Country Club hierarchy makes it seem like the team has a culture similar to Mussolini's army, and a culture inferior to Wehrmacht, a Wehrmacht of 70 years ago that is, and from the nazi era! If they want to make a ritual out of that waiting for the elevator thing, they should let the ones who played well in the last game go first.

Update on Pulju. He just played three games with the Finnish National Team, in the first line with lots of TOI and PP time. One assist. After the games he stated that he'd spend this season in Finland. He still needs a lot of development to make it in the NHL. We'll see how it goes for him, come spring and the IIHF championships. Right now it might be difficult to trade him.

I think I'm going to have a peek at Granny suffering over in Nashville...

It's simple for me. We win, me happy. We lose, me sad, comforted by the thought of high pick. Happily I'm not the GM or the owner of the team!

Nice comeback win

Where the f was that puck..

I think Fiala might turn into a good player, if developed properly.

Only 4 minutes to go. Looking good.

Zucker trying to fool Kuemper. I like the head gaming going on there.

Soucy with another bad play

Stop taking those badly timed penalties Hartman. This is the third in a row, I think.

Bad time for a PK

It would great to visit Minnesota and see a Wild game as well.

I'll keep that in mind. Might be visiting there some time.

I think the Wild have already send a message to the Coyotes that if they ever manage to get into playoffs, they can't be sure how well Kuemper is going to stand pressure.

Take Kuemper off, we need Lafreniere.