Minnesota Wild vs Detroit Red Wings Saturday 1-12-19, 7:00pm, Xcel Energy Center

[IllaZilla]

4 hours ago, CreaseAndAssist said:

 

I am not ripping Dubnyk, not at all.  He had zero support.  The team wasn't moving its feet or finishing its checks, or doing what it could to provide offensive pressure the other way.  19 shots in their last 4 periods of hockey.  The old vets are really showing their age other than Parise.  

 

I'm not insinuation that you did. It just seems that Dubnyk has turned into this boards favorite whipping boy for every loss because he didn't shutout the other team...

[IllaZilla]

5 minutes ago, Tomdog said:

As it was the vets who stunk up the place last night, other than Zac, the only trade to save them would be one of the vets leaving

 

Which won't happen because all of them have some form of NTC/NMC...and if a GM knows that they are a preferred destination of the player, they will offer far less that if there was more competition for the players services...

[rottenrefs]

47 minutes ago, IllaZilla said:

 

Nice!

 

I always liked watching the Flying Door Stops! I used to work with a guy who was a mechanic on Saturday for his buddy who used to race Modifieds on the local tracks. He used to tell me how they'd drill out bolt heads and such to make the vehicle as light as they could and then when the race was over they'd immediately drive on the infield to get that mud all over the car to make it weigh more...

They can get creative! Now days while there's a few who push the rules, but with all the eyes on the cars going through the tech shed and such not much is missed or tolerated. They can get pretty hefty fines, lose points and in some cases get banned from racing.

[Math]

I thought the Arizona disaster couldn't be worse, big mistake: They actually managed to dig deeper than that. BB said this was the most hideous game of the Wild since he has coached this team.

 

Winning in Toronto, then losing at home against the Wings... Perplexity is exactly the feeling I have with the 2018-2019 Wild team.

[Alexandron]

I was impressed yesterday, how loyal/truehearted fans attended for the Detroit team game despite all the difficulties they are passing with their team at the current time. Interesting, if they carried the same octopus from Winnipeg to St.Paul to use it for Bertuzzi his 1st hat trick, who was playing also in his 100 career game last night. Definitely, he(will remember forever this game) and Vanek(our previous lazy boy) were the most motivated players to win that game. Maybe we should find a frozen small animal( like for example,  baby bear, or panda, or raccoon, or squirrel) or even maybe a soft bear toy that our fans will be able to carry and throw at least on our home ice to raise up the mentality of many players to produce better for every hat trick ? What else can attract less offensive players brains besides simple cheap hats for making hat tricks? Definitely, frozen water from our lakes used on home ice arena is not enough for that motivation. It should be something in the air, in their brains and eyes.  I do not remember such a significant booo that our team received yesterday on their home ice from our fans. I think it was really an embarrassing mode to watch our team's play. Coach also was extremely unhappy about our play telling that he has seen that for the first time as a Wild coach - no effort, no compete.
   

   Anyway, 5 losing goals even for a good but not a great goalie per game still is too much. And for this season is happened not once, and not twice. He should step up, be consistent, be sharped and focused every game, especially, when the team is completely losing their mind during the game, and especially when the goalie is losing a goal at 7 sec.(few games ago) or 24 sec.of the game on the first shot like yesterday. Of course, a shutout is not a concern, but just an indicator for a less producing team, how important the goalie is in a hard time of the gameplay.  Definitely, he is not a whipping boy, because he is just one of us - sometimes bad and sometimes good, sometimes mean and sometimes pleasant. He is just a human like from that song -

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3wKzyIN1yk

 

 

 

[IllaZilla]

2 hours ago, rottenrefs said:

They can get creative! Now days while there's a few who push the rules, but with all the eyes on the cars going through the tech shed and such not much is missed or tolerated. They can get pretty hefty fines, lose points and in some cases get banned from racing.

 

Yeah, this was early 90's. He had all sorts of stories about guys doing this and that to the engines to get that extra half a horse out of it. Said one guy even tried the Darrell Waltrip Special: loading the frame up with lead buckshot to make weight and then pulling a lanyard that would dump the buckshot onto the track. Unfortunately for him, the lanyard broke when he pulled it, so he never dumped the buckshot and it weighed him down all race. Said the guy pretty much finished in last place...

[Antti_Laxative]

21 hours ago, Jimtown guy said:

One of the worse efforts I’ve seen in quite awhile. Fans who attended deserves their money back and then some 

I'm just glad they were paying top dollar without much haggling before the tilt. Had they known what was gonna happen, it would have been slim pickings in Rice Park.

[Math]

3 hours ago, Alexandron said:

I was impressed yesterday, how loyal/truehearted fans attended for the Detroit team game despite all the difficulties they are passing with their team at the current time.

 

And given the fact that the Wings being in the bottom of the standings for consecutive seasons is a new reality for them, after making the postseason like 23 or 24 times in a row. It brings a new perspective.

 

For that reason, I have a huge respect for Leafs fans. They have been sucking for years (and I'm not saying for decades) but they all remained loyal no matter what, and always, years after years. The same stands for Flames and Oilers fans. In the opposite, look at the customers in Montréal that pretend themselves of being the best fans in the world. Some difficulties, no playoffs for the last 2 years, they are still in the hunt for a playoff spot despite an average-to-mediocre team this season, but you can see now a lot of empty seats there with an average atmosphere, which no one thought that possible 3 years ago.

[EJ0226]

The broken record of "it's just one game" and "we need to play harder" is not even annoying to hear anymore. It's just stupid and insulting. It's just not one game, it's a good 25-33% of your games. Teams have bad games. Even the best. The Wild literally have very bad 1/3 of the season with all their bad "it's just one game" games. What's worst is it looks like the whole team decided to just say **** it from the drop of the puck and do whatever it takes to conserve energy and stand around. You just never see a whole team just give up all together.

Dubnyk deserves his fair share of blame but this game he, in my eyes, was the least of the problems. Suter is literally a pylon. His injury last year might have ended anything he had left in his career but he is useless. For a team who once was consider one of the best defensive minded teams they look like they are running guys from some beer league out there. It looks like other teams are doing shooting practice  around some cones. The worst offense teams look like the 83-84 Oilers against our defense well the worst defense teams make our offense look like the 53-54 Blackhawks. In case you don't want to look it up the Oilers scored a NHL record 446 goals that season well the Blackhawks scored a NHL record low of 133 goals that season.

From a non fan of Parise, what a waste of a great season of Parise too. This season looks to be probably his fourth best ever for him and nobody can help him. Sadly Staal has come back down to reality. I like Staal, bought a sweater of his, but he should have been traded last season. He won't net much at this point. Nino might give you a bag of pucks. Coyle is helping is trade value a little if they are interested. Does Zucker still play for the Wild? Wait, I heard his wife on Kfan the other day so he must. The one other scorer we had, Dumba, is basically done for the season. I feel for Parise as he has nobody out there. But that is the M.O. of the Wild, find somebody hot or that is good, rely on them to handle it all and don't do anything to help give them support. We have seen it with Dubnyk when he's hot, with Staal the last two season, with Parise now, etc. What's worse is nobody on the team feels like they should step up either.

I could understand the team looking the way they do if they a young talent or this is the first season of the players playing together. But it isn't. Any fan should have red flags flying up everywhere. The core players have been playing together for quite some time. There really hasn't been any changes. There is zero reason to be playing like this if we have such supposedly good players unless the truth is we really don't have that many good players and most of our 1st, 2nd and 3rd liners really are barely 4th liner guys.

I apologize to anybody in the past if I called you stupid for liking a player. At one point it really did feel like we had a chance to do a deep run and it was frustrating seeing a player play poorly or contract that would have been better spent elsewhere. It's now easy to see that the Wild are a team that hovers between a good team, but not great and slightly below average team. If we really look back the Wild really are not a playoff contender team the more I think about it. Think about how many times they literally backed into the playoffs and/or needed teams to lose, lose and lose to make a spot. The Wild a lot of time leave destiny out of their own hands. Good to great teams do not do that.

Now, honestly, I wish more people would see this and stop spending money on the Wild to force a change. I have accepted, seasons ago, this team is not good enough to make a serious run. Dubnyk hasn't shown he can turn it up another gear in the playoffs.  Parise would be a fantastic complementary player like Toews to Kane, Malkin to Crosby, Backstrom to Ovechkin except Parise doesn't have a Kane, Crosby or Ovechkin. Koivu has always been overrated and got more then he would have with any other team. Suter was a very good shutdown defenseman but now is regressing so fast he will be lucky to even make the third pairing in a year or two. The franchise needs a reboot. Realistically we are going to have to accept some bad seasons to get better. I am hoping to get it started now so when the older vets retire soon we won't have to wait another few years on top of the years not doing anything well these guys contracts are still around. We are not a tweak away unless a tweak is somehow acquiring a proven goalie in the playoffs, goal scorers like Kane, Malkin, Matthews, etc and big sturdy defensemen that can clear a net and fight back.

[IllaZilla]

If I was Boudreau I would have run out on the ice, grabbed that octopus, and forced every player except for Stalock to take a bite...

[Icechipper]

If you're looking for encouragement, know that the Red Wings printed media was hailing this defeat of Minnesota by Detroit as "a signature victory." See, that's something: "the Red Wings think we're a pretty big deal!" 

[yave1964]

Wings fan, I come in peace, just a few thoughts about your Wild.

 

  That cannot be a typical Wild game, I dont remember seeing a softer team in years, the Wings regularly get outshot by double digits almost every game, Niederreiter scored a minute into the second and then the Wild had no shots for like eleven minutes. Absolutely no push.

 

  Bertuzzi's goal where he came from behind the net in the third, literally four Wild stood there motionless and watched him do so without confronting him. Unbelievable.

 

  I am a huge Wings fan going back to the Marcel Dionne and Danny Grant days of the seventies but I have no illusions, I dont wear rose colored glasses, I am critical of my team for lack of skill players and their need for changes, I am not gloating, I feel this game was more the lack of intensity by the Wild than anything else. It was almost as if they looked past the Wings and thought, we are at home, they have lost nine of their past ten, easy two points here and the Wild simply forgot to show up. I have only watched a couple of Wild games all year and parts of a few others but I dont recall this lack of intensity.

[EJ0226]

15 hours ago, yave1964 said:

Wings fan, I come in peace, just a few thoughts about your Wild.

 

  That cannot be a typical Wild game, I dont remember seeing a softer team in years, the Wings regularly get outshot by double digits almost every game, Niederreiter scored a minute into the second and then the Wild had no shots for like eleven minutes. Absolutely no push.

 

  Bertuzzi's goal where he came from behind the net in the third, literally four Wild stood there motionless and watched him do so without confronting him. Unbelievable.

 

  I am a huge Wings fan going back to the Marcel Dionne and Danny Grant days of the seventies but I have no illusions, I dont wear rose colored glasses, I am critical of my team for lack of skill players and their need for changes, I am not gloating, I feel this game was more the lack of intensity by the Wild than anything else. It was almost as if they looked past the Wings and thought, we are at home, they have lost nine of their past ten, easy two points here and the Wild simply forgot to show up. I have only watched a couple of Wild games all year and parts of a few others but I dont recall this lack of intensity.

No, this is becoming more and more of a typical Wild game sadly. We lack skill players too and are in need of big change. Our last GM, Chuck Fletcher, really set this team backwards. Horrible draft picks, trading draft picks for rentals that completely disappear out of the NHL after being with us, some of the most stupid contracts in history (Vanek, Heatley, Koivu, and people hate hearing it but Suter and Parise), etc. The money and years for Parise and Suters contracts would have been better spent elsewhere. People argue that they made the Wild relevant, which they helped, but those two are not game changers and the Wild have been stuck as first round punching bags for whatever team they play and draft 17th if not later so get no real impact players. They have been signing Suter and Parises friends who are shells of their formerselves.

I don't envy Fenton at all. I wonder if he will make it to the point he can change the franchise to under his idea. Parise and Suter still have 6 more years to go and we can not move them at all. The team really needs to go into rebuild as most of the core is getting into their twilight of their careers. But our owner came out, when looking for a new GM, and said he would not hire any GM that said there needs to be major change. The only acceptable answer is a minor tweak. No joke, this is quoted in the newspapers. It goes to show how delusional our owner is. Also you should know that Craig Leipold wanted a NBA team. That is his sport. He found out he could never own a NBA team with is money. Well let's be honest, his wife's money. So he found out he could own a hockey team with that money and got Nashville. Nashville under his ownership are exactly what the Wild are. A fringe team that, if they do make the playoffs, are a WC punching bag. CL just needs to shut up, sign the check and allow the real hockey people to make the decisions. If it means getting rid of a favorite player of his then to bad for CL. I hate how there is no expectation for a player to do anything after they sign a contract with us. Nino signed a new one in 2017. A orange cone might be as effective as him. Zucker signed a new one last year. I forget that he even dresses and is on the ice. Lots of other guys too. It's amazing how many guys sign a nice new contract and maybe become half as effective as they were before they signed it.

[IllaZilla]

So how soon until the infamous "Players Only" meeting? 

[EJ0226]

4 minutes ago, IllaZilla said:

So how soon until the infamous "Players Only" meeting? 

As soon as the core players here their merchandise with their names on it are losing sales. Got to keep pumping that merchandise out!