CreaseAndAssist Posted July 4, 2018 Share Posted July 4, 2018 Just now, bbgarnett said: @CreaseAndAssist yeah, it'd be fun to go the scrimmage(s) at least for me to see Cates and Menell who are from my neck of the woods. Cates had a pretty good season in Waterloo. It will be interesting to see if he is noticeable at camp. This isn't exactly a star studded group. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IllaZilla Posted July 4, 2018 Share Posted July 4, 2018 16 minutes ago, CreaseAndAssist said: Cates had a pretty good season in Waterloo. It will be interesting to see if he is noticeable at camp. This isn't exactly a star studded group. Hmmm...just like the parent club... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IllaZilla Posted July 4, 2018 Share Posted July 4, 2018 33 minutes ago, CreaseAndAssist said: I am with Illa Zilla. The depth signings are what they are. IMO, the kids should prove themselves in Iowa. That in itself would be a major shift in philosophy; which we have talked about exhaustively here already. I think Greenway will be given a free pass, but Kunin will again start the year in Iowa (as he should). Greenway should not be given a pass. Sorry, just because you are one of the few prospects over 6'0" and 200 lbs you should not be given a pass. He probably will be up sometime because it is a given Parise will break something and be out for half the season. But he should start in Iowa like every other prospect...sometimes I wish Houston was still the Wild's farm club. I think moving it to Iowa made it far to easy to just call prospects up on a whim... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CreaseAndAssist Posted July 4, 2018 Share Posted July 4, 2018 57 minutes ago, IllaZilla said: Greenway should not be given a pass. Sorry, just because you are one of the few prospects over 6'0" and 200 lbs you should not be given a pass. He probably will be up sometime because it is a given Parise will break something and be out for half the season. But he should start in Iowa like every other prospect...sometimes I wish Houston was still the Wild's farm club. I think moving it to Iowa made it far to easy to just call prospects up on a whim... I am not saying he should be given a pass. But reading what I have from Fenton, it sounds like the organization is going to give him a free pass. I agree, having the farm so close makes it kind of easy to have that as their way out. Although I think our organization keeps closer tabs on what is going on there more than it did during the Aeros' days because of its relative proximity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IllaZilla Posted July 4, 2018 Share Posted July 4, 2018 1 hour ago, CreaseAndAssist said: I am not saying he should be given a pass. But reading what I have from Fenton, it sounds like the organization is going to give him a free pass. I agree, having the farm so close makes it kind of easy to have that as their way out. Although I think our organization keeps closer tabs on what is going on there more than it did during the Aeros' days because of its relative proximity. No, I'm pretty sure you and I are on the same page with the prospects: earn your stripes. It's just too bad that the organization picks and chooses who is worthy of a roster spot and who isn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rottenrefs Posted July 4, 2018 Share Posted July 4, 2018 2 hours ago, IllaZilla said: No, I'm pretty sure you and I are on the same page with the prospects: earn your stripes. It's just too bad that the organization picks and chooses who is worthy of a roster spot and who isn't. ^ That wouldn't be bad if they had a clue what they're doing. I can't tell if players being evaluated by management are good actors or if management is just that gullible and stupid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starofthenorth Posted July 4, 2018 Share Posted July 4, 2018 Judging by the heights and weights of the wild invitees you'd think this would be a group of high school freshman or sophomores just hitting puberty. The goalie Kaapo Kahkonen is the largest combined player between height and weight at 6'2" 222 lbs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CreaseAndAssist Posted July 5, 2018 Share Posted July 5, 2018 13 hours ago, Starofthenorth said: Judging by the heights and weights of the wild invitees you'd think this would be a group of high school freshman or sophomores just hitting puberty. The goalie Kaapo Kahkonen is the largest combined player between height and weight at 6'2" 222 lbs. Its a younger group of kids than in years past. Still a fair amount of invitees given their prospect pool situation. Not a lot of size in this group as a whole, especially on the blueline where its very clear they care far more about your mobility, puck moving ability than the size to deny the middle of the ice. Lots of smaller, apparently more skilled guys. Boudrias is a fairly big kid...and should look like a man among boys out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexandron Posted July 5, 2018 Share Posted July 5, 2018 I also would like to add for that current topic - Iowa Wild and other Wild prospects discussion. Tell you a truth, I am getting more and more frustrated /disappointed about our team in Iowa. Especially, after the last year team’s play there – finishing the year without a character, but having a nice chance to reach in Iowa for the first time just a playoffs. I am patiently waiting for years and years without a success. But we practically do not show any results since we moved the team to Iowa from Huston . 5 years already passed. It does not sounds right. What is that means? Probably, we do not have a superb prospects with a tough character for the NHL in Iowa Wild team. If I remember , we were able to reach playoff finals in Huston and many prospects from Aeros team are still successfully playing or for our team (Granlund, Zucker, Spurgeon and etc.) or for other teams (Scandella, Khudobin, Kuemper and etc.) in NHL. As less results we are having in Iowa as less promising prospects we are going to get to the parent Wild club for years. In my opinion, for a better AHL results as well as a better evaluation/selection our new prospects for the NHL future we should see in Iowa Wild more younger youngsters like Ek, Greenway, Kunin, Mason Shaw, Lodnia, Sokolov, Khovanov, Kahkonen, McBain and etc.. Let’s insert them fast into the Iowa Wild to evaluate them quicker and to build some better chemistry among them. Or may be to look for a better coaching staff there? In conclusion, personally for me, " home grown" fruits most of the time having a better taste than traded one from other sources. . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CreaseAndAssist Posted July 12, 2018 Share Posted July 12, 2018 https://www.nhl.com/lightning/news/tampa-bay-lightning-name-derek-lalonde-as-assistant-coach/c-299471564 Iowa's bench boss Derek Lalonde jumped ship to go to Tampa Bay... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexandron Posted July 12, 2018 Share Posted July 12, 2018 42 minutes ago, CreaseAndAssist said: https://www.nhl.com/lightning/news/tampa-bay-lightning-name-derek-lalonde-as-assistant-coach/c-299471564 Iowa's bench boss Derek Lalonde jumped ship to go to Tampa Bay... Then hope, the new Iowa Wild coach will be able to bring the team there at least to the playoffs appearance in a coming 2018-2019 season. I am getting exhausted to see any positive results there for the last 5 years. Hope again , this season will be full of positive excitements getting out of the Wild team in Iowa. Otherwise, we will see a stagnation again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hf101 Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 In an attempt to keep this topic about the Wild's Prospects and Iowa Wild I moved some posts to a new topic. and an existing topic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IllaZilla Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 23 hours ago, Alexandron said: Then hope, the new Iowa Wild coach will be able to bring the team there at least to the playoffs appearance in a coming 2018-2019 season. I am getting exhausted to see any positive results there for the last 5 years. Hope again , this season will be full of positive excitements getting out of the Wild team in Iowa. Otherwise, we will see a stagnation again. I think it is going to depend a lot on if the parent club leaves the farm club alone. The parent club seems to like to yo-yo prospect up and down from Iowa. They need to start leaving these guys in Iowa until they show they can dominate. It could also be the fact that the talent the parent club is stocking the farm club with aren't all that and a bag of chips like the parent club thinks they are... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rottenrefs Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 Mostly I've felt the parent club yo-yo's the players to use cheaper players in order to gain nickles and dimes for cap space. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CreaseAndAssist Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 3 hours ago, IllaZilla said: I think it is going to depend a lot on if the parent club leaves the farm club alone. The parent club seems to like to yo-yo prospect up and down from Iowa. They need to start leaving these guys in Iowa until they show they can dominate. It could also be the fact that the talent the parent club is stocking the farm club with aren't all that and a bag of chips like the parent club thinks they are... Rotten makes a good point about the main reason they have a the Des Moines shuttle; its literally about saving small $$ in cap space. However, I do agree with Illa Zilla 100% with the idea we don't kind of require the prospects to just dominate in Iowa to get the call up. Iowa wasn't horrific last year, but Kunin certainly wasn't worthy of a call up yet he still got the call while other guys who were dominating down there never did. IMO, that's sends a really bad message to those players putting in the yeoman effort every night and carrying the team in Iowa. Nashville forced a player to be dominant, not just for a week or two but even months before they got promoted. Austin Watson honed his game at least 2 seasons in Milwaukee before he became a full-time player for the Predators. Same was true of a lot of their guys; like Viktor Arvidsson, Pekka Rinne, even Filip Forsberg had to spend significant time in Milwaukee. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hf101 Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 43 minutes ago, CreaseAndAssist said: Nashville forced a player to be dominant, not just for a week or two but even months before they got promoted. Austin Watson honed his game at least 2 seasons in Milwaukee before he became a full-time player for the Predators. Same was true of a lot of their guys; like Viktor Arvidsson, Pekka Rinne, even Filip Forsberg had to spend significant time in Milwaukee. True, but a call-up from the AHL can also be dependent on who can be called up and be sent back down. Not all AHL players have a 2-way contract and not all players are waivers exempt. GMs also try to have a solid AHL team core so talented prospects can quickly learn and progress to the NHL. Maybe that isn't completely fair, but those core players know that is their role. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexandron Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 (edited) In my opinion, a ping-pong practice for our prospects between a farm club and a parent club is a normal routine practice. Huston Aeros team was affiliated with Minnesota Wild team from 2001-2013. But we had a chance to reach twice a playoffs finals(won once a Calder Cup in 2003) when we were playing in Huston as well as multiple times had playoffs appearance during those years then despite our players were flying back and forth. In 13 years in Huston, we missed playoffs there only 2 times(2007 and 2010). But that nice history never happened yet with the Iowa Wild team in 5 years of existence. It seems really something wrong in the water between 2 clubs. Here is a link to Wikipedia about Huston Aeros club history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Aeros_(1994–2013) I also found an interesting link at eliteprospects.com( I do not know if that is a final current Iowa Wild roster for 2018-2019 season). According to it, Sokolov is going to play in that team too as well as new goaltenders, which is already intriguing for the making a first playoffs appearance in Iowa Wild history. https://www.eliteprospects.com/team/14907/iowa-wild#players Edited July 13, 2018 by Alexandron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hf101 Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 9 minutes ago, Alexandron said: Sokolov is going to play in that team too Yes. there is more on him here Quote “(Sokolov)’s got an incredible ability to score goals,” Bombardir said Wednesday. “It’s uncanny.” It’s why the Wild remain interested in Sokolov and helping him develop despite defensive issues and fitness deficiencies. Both aspects of Sokolov, Bombardir and Lalonde said this week at development camp, will need to improve as Sokolov plays in the AHL this season. Sokolov, from Omsk, Russia, has scored 128 goals and has 220 points over the past three seasons in the OHL. As impressive as his goal numbers are, his plus-minus numbers are equally as bad. He finished with a minus-40 in 2015-16, a minus-32 the next year, and he improved that number to plus-3 this past season in which he split time with the Sudbury Wolves and Barrie Colts. “In the past two years, I have been trying to work very hard,” Sokolov told The Athletic. “It’s not good enough right now, I know. But I am trying to do better.” Bombardir said he has already seen improvement since he first started watching Sokolov, Minnesota’s seventh-round pick in 2016. He has seen Sokolov improve at retreating back to the defensive zone hard and then defending, something Sokolov’s Sudbury coach instilled in him. Bombardir added that Sokolov needs more work on nuances such as finding spots in the defensive zone. Sokolov agreed. He said that sometimes he needs to stop on the ice instead of circling. The problems, he said, remain in his head. “With some more structure at the pro level, hopefully he picks up on it,” Bombardir said. “He’s willing to do it. He really is. You just have to keep him on it because that’s how coaches trust their players — you have to be able to defend someway somehow. I know it’s a cliche, but it’s hard for a coach to put a player out there who can’t defend.” It’s also hard for coaches to put players on the ice who aren’t in shape. He’s listed at 6-foot-1, 210 pounds on the Wild development camp roster. But that’s one of the lower numbers at which Sokolov has been listed. The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler wrote this past October that Sokolov’s weight has been listed at 230 pounds before. One development camp, Sokolov did not skate. The Wild had him working on strength training and conditioning instead. He’s listening and trying to follow through on all of the eating, drinking and exercise advice he has received this week, he said. Bombardir said Sokolov still needs to get in better shape, lose “a little bit” of weight and get stronger. Without those elements, the transition to the AHL this next season could prove difficult. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetshot Posted July 14, 2018 Share Posted July 14, 2018 1 hour ago, Alexandron said: In my opinion, a ping-pong practice for our prospects between a farm club and a parent club is a normal routine practice. Huston Aeros team was affiliated with Minnesota Wild team from 2001-2013. But we had a chance to reach twice a playoffs finals(won once a Calder Cup in 2003) when we were playing in Huston as well as multiple times had playoffs appearance during those years then despite our players were flying back and forth. In 13 years in Huston, we missed playoffs there only 2 times(2007 and 2010). But that nice history never happened yet with the Iowa Wild team in 5 years of existence. It seems really something wrong in the water between 2 clubs. Here is a link to Wikipedia about Huston Aeros club history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Aeros_(1994–2013) I also found an interesting link at eliteprospects.com( I do not know if that is a final current Iowa Wild roster for 2018-2019 season). According to it, Sokolov is going to play in that team too as well as new goaltenders, which is already intriguing for the making a first playoffs appearance in Iowa Wild history. https://www.eliteprospects.com/team/14907/iowa-wild#players The success in Houston compared to the mediocrity of Iowa could be an indication of overall poor drafting by GMCF combined with the fact that he made so many deals where he traded away draft picks that the Wild simply had less drafted players coming in to feed the system. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rottenrefs Posted July 14, 2018 Share Posted July 14, 2018 What also baffles me is most the coaches or staff would state they want the younger prospects being called up to play the way they did in Iowa. They do for a game or so then get criticized for what they knew they were deficient at and from that point forward focus only on that and shelf the talents or skills that got them up here. Then they send them back down to hone those skills and when they come back up they're often more watered down than they were before they sent them down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IllaZilla Posted July 14, 2018 Share Posted July 14, 2018 6 hours ago, rottenrefs said: What also baffles me is most the coaches or staff would state they want the younger prospects being called up to play the way they did in Iowa. They do for a game or so then get criticized for what they knew they were deficient at and from that point forward focus only on that and shelf the talents or skills that got them up here. Then they send them back down to hone those skills and when they come back up they're often more watered down than they were before they sent them down. I've often felt that the Wild don't trust the Iowa coaching staff to develop players, or to develop them the way the prent club feels they should develop, i.e. Mikko Koivu clones. I think the parent club places too much emphasis on two way play. That's why I'm not holding my breath for that Russian kid, Sokolov or whatever his name is. Unless he's able to score at an ungodly rate, I don't see him making the big club because he isn't also a lock-down forward... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hf101 Posted July 14, 2018 Share Posted July 14, 2018 15 minutes ago, IllaZilla said: I've often felt that the Wild don't trust the Iowa coaching staff to develop players, or to develop them the way the prent club feels they should develop, i.e. Mikko Koivu clones. I think the parent club places too much emphasis on two way play. That's why I'm not holding my breath for that Russian kid, Sokolov or whatever his name is. Unless he's able to score at an ungodly rate, I don't see him making the big club because he isn't also a lock-down forward... That then is something Fenton needs to FIX ASAP. The Iowa Wild need to be an extension of the Wild's coaching staff. Players within the AHL need to be trained so that a call-up to their NHL team is a seamless transition. And I don't think there can ever be too much emphasis on two-way play. Turnovers are game killers. Look what happened with Yakapov since his #1 pick in the 2012 NHL draft. He never got it w/r to the defensive side to his game and NO NHL GM wants him. Sokolov has shown improvement in his Defensive game in the last 3 years in the OHL. Starting the year in the AHL is the perfect place for him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CreaseAndAssist Posted July 14, 2018 Share Posted July 14, 2018 13 hours ago, sweetshot said: The success in Houston compared to the mediocrity of Iowa could be an indication of overall poor drafting by GMCF combined with the fact that he made so many deals where he traded away draft picks that the Wild simply had less drafted players coming in to feed the system. I think part of that is how they transitioned to drafting college players; which don't arrive to the pro's (AHL or otherwise) 3-4 years after you draft them. We also dealt a lot of picks away as you stated. Also, some of the veteran ringers they brought in over the years...didn't deliver. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CreaseAndAssist Posted July 14, 2018 Share Posted July 14, 2018 Its good to see Sokolov do well because he's a skilled player we kind of lucked into when we managed to get him as a 7th round pick. But the hands, scoring ability are the things you can't teach. I'm still not quite sold on his wheels though and while conditioning is a battle...IMO, I'd feel more confident about him if I saw a bit more explosiveness in his first few strides. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rottenrefs Posted July 14, 2018 Share Posted July 14, 2018 50 minutes ago, IllaZilla said: I've often felt that the Wild don't trust the Iowa coaching staff to develop players, or to develop them the way the prent club feels they should develop, i.e. Mikko Koivu clones. I think the parent club places too much emphasis on two way play. That's why I'm not holding my breath for that Russian kid, Sokolov or whatever his name is. Unless he's able to score at an ungodly rate, I don't see him making the big club because he isn't also a lock-down forward... 21 minutes ago, hf101 said: That then is something Fenton needs to FIX ASAP. The Iowa Wild need to be an extension of the Wild's coaching staff. Players within the AHL need to be trained so that a call-up to their NHL team is a seamless transition. And I don't think there can ever be too much emphasis on two-way play. Turnovers are game killers. Look what happened with Yakapov since his #1 pick in the 2012 NHL draft. He never got it w/r to the defensive side to his game and NO NHL GM wants him. Sokolov has shown improvement in his Defensive game in the last 3 years in the OHL. Starting the year in the AHL is the perfect place for him. Yeah, I've lost count of the head coaches CF hired to work in Iowa and how he supposedly chose them to groom players for the parent club. Somehow there's been some major disconnections there. About the only similarity I've noticed are the players in Iowa have some kind of friendly association to the Wild's brain-trust and buddy system. While I am being sarcastic to dry about it... The truth of the matter is after the Wild acquire players to appease Koivu & Company and they don't work out on the NHL roster they just dump them there and watch them slowly disappear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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