Wild vs. Blues 10/30/19 @ 7:00PM CST at Scottrade Center

[ClusterChuck]

On 10/31/2019 at 11:28 AM, IllaZilla said:

 

I don't know. It would give the Wild some cap relief next season when Toffoli becomes a free agent, but to what end? Sign another 30-something UFA to a mega-contract and a NTC? One plus with Rask is he could be left unprotected for the Seattle draft, and they might take him just to get to the salary floor.

 

I get the feeling that Guerin and the Wild will just ride this out for the season because of the draft.

This time protect the future and not lose guys like Tuch and even Haula.

 

Leave Matt Burns-Dumba unprotected. He's reverted to his old play and last year seems to be just a freak showing. On pace for a 1/3 of last years total goals.

Zucker, (Unless a fair trade comes up) Same.

2 seasons now of 'Not much' but they got their payday so...

I think Carly is the puppet master here, Goating him to make bonehead plays and probably told him to call out the coach and team just to pi$$ off the org. She probably wants to get to a bigger market for her own purposes. I wonder if she was just a normal looking Hockey wife (If there is such a thing) would she have 1/2 the followers.  

Since it's known we signed Stalock just to protect Kakonen, What if we also leave Dubnyk unprotected (if possible) and see what happens.

Given some of the contracts, Seattle might not bite on many but might as well put out as many of the last few years disaster signings and go from there.

 

[IllaZilla]

4 hours ago, ClusterChuck said:

 

Leave Matt Burns-Dumba unprotected. He's reverted to his old play and last year seems to be just a freak showing. On pace for a 1/3 of last years total goals.

Zucker, (Unless a fair trade comes up) Same.

2 seasons now of 'Not much' but they got their payday so...

I think Carly is the puppet master here, Goating him to make bonehead plays and probably told him to call out the coach and team just to pi$$ off the org. She probably wants to get to a bigger market for her own purposes. I wonder if she was just a normal looking Hockey wife (If there is such a thing) would she have 1/2 the followers.  

Since it's known we signed Stalock just to protect Kakonen, What if we also leave Dubnyk unprotected (if possible) and see what happens.

Given some of the contracts, Seattle might not bite on many but might as well put out as many of the last few years disaster signings and go from there.

 

The Seattle draft is going to have the same rules (so far) as the Vegas draft. That means any player with a NTC/NMC has to be protected unless they waive their NTC/NMC. So that means Parise, Suter, Spurgeon, Zuccarello, Zucker, and Dubnyk all have to be protected. Looks like Staal doesn’t have a NTC/NMC. So he could be left unprotected.
I really don’t think the Wild are going to lose a Haula or a Tuch this time around. Donato, Fiala,     and Kunin haven’t shown anything yet. If the Wild lose one of them I don’t think it will set the team back like losing Haula and Tuch did.
But even after that draft, the Wild will still be stuck with Parise, Suter, Zuccarello, Spurgeon, Zucker and Dubnyk. 

[CreaseAndAssist]

On 10/30/2019 at 8:24 PM, IllaZilla said:

Well it just took Zuccarello 10 games to score a goal. At this pace he’ll net 8 goals this year...

 

But give him a NMC...we'd REALLY hate to lose him.  (sigh)

[CreaseAndAssist]

23 hours ago, IllaZilla said:

 

I think that is what is going to have to happen. Problem is that none of the prospects are showing anything. They can't skate, they can't score, they don't do much of anything. So you're not going to get first or second round picks for them. Unless Fenton suddenly becomes a GM somewhere again...

 

Not sure I'd say that.  But skating issues are a common theme...which to me is a major flaw in your evaluation if so many of the players they select have skating issues.  I realize there are skating coaches, etc but if it was simply just a matter of technique in this day and age of personal trainers, etc wouldn't they have that fixed by now?  So how much can they really improve?  I agree with @IllaZilla, its a waste of time to make a bunch of trades.  I don't think we'll get much for any of them with their lack of production to this point.  Our best move is to simply be bad, draft a true #1 center (and there are some good ones available) and leave it at that.  And if some team wants to be stupid at the deadline and offer us a bunch of picks for a depth guy; then you probably take the deal.  But now?  Nope...just stay calm, let it be bad and due as much due diligence as necessary to make these picks count.  

[Hockey-78]

On 11/1/2019 at 8:46 PM, ClusterChuck said:

Since it's known we signed Stalock just to protect Kakonen, What if we also leave Dubnyk unprotected (if possible) and see what happens.

Given some of the contracts, Seattle might not bite on many but might as well put out as many of the last few years disaster signings and go from there.

 

That's a fine idea - who wants that sieve... He definitely is one of the players who needs to be shipped. This team needs 0 players who dictate their own minutes.

[CreaseAndAssist]

6 hours ago, Hockey-78 said:

That's a fine idea - who wants that sieve... He definitely is one of the players who needs to be shipped. This team needs 0 players who dictate their own minutes.

 

Then we should really be trying to off-load about 4 different players.  I was just reading up on the Anaheim Ducks and thinking how similar and how different they are than the Wild.  

 

Last summer...instead of doubling down by adding yet another old player; they instead bought out an old player and embraced being cheaper, younger and faster.  They drafted a center with their top pick, not another forward with skating issues like we did.  So my guess is the Ducks understood its problem that it was too old and too slow and took steps to address it.  The Wild instead, compounded their problem and had another draft where just about every player we selected had skating issues.  Its obvious which organization understands what is important to be able to compete in today's NHL' and which one is living in the past.  

[Hockey-78]

1 hour ago, CreaseAndAssist said:

 

 Its obvious which organization understands what is important to be able to compete in today's NHL' and which one is living in the past.  

Since you know the organization inside out: what's the average age of the Wild's scouting staff? Closer to 50?

[CreaseAndAssist]

35 minutes ago, Hockey-78 said:

Since you know the organization inside out: what's the average age of the Wild's scouting staff? Closer to 50?

 

There has been a pretty massive overhaul of the Wild scouting department by what I see in the media guide.  A few holdovers...

 

Old Guard (all of these guys been with the team for at least 5 or more seasons)

Ernie Vargas

Brian Hunter

Chris Hamel

Guy Lapointe (who now is just an amateur scout, instead of being the director of scouting)

Ricard Persson

Brad Bombadir (Director of Player Development)

 

New Faces (all of these players have been with the organization less than 5 years)

*Patrick Baum

*Joe Cucci

*David Chiarelli

*TJ Jindra

*Dan Lablanc

P.J. Fenton (still the director of amateur scouting even after his dad got the axe)

Darren Yopyk

*Ladislav Benysek

*Ivan Nepriaev

*Max Kolu

*Matt Hendricks (Assistant Player Development person)

 

Professional Scouts 

Richard Park

*Mark Mowers

Chris Kelleher

 

* - Brand New

 

A lot of the scouting staff is younger now.  Especially the new faces.  Now will we see a difference at the draft this summer?  Its hard to say.  I know Russo pointed out after last year, Paul Fenton made lots of changes in the scouting staff.  Along with that I heard he didn't show much respect for most of the incumbent management / player development positions and exiled people and seemed to revel in being an asshole to them.  I have also learned it was this poor treatment of people which was the main reason the Wild decided to let him go...and it wasn't as much about his disastrous moves.  He got canned for being a jackass more or less.  

 

 

Edited November 3, 2019 by CreaseAndAssist

[IllaZilla]

1 hour ago, CreaseAndAssist said:

 

Then we should really be trying to off-load about 4 different players.  I was just reading up on the Anaheim Ducks and thinking how similar and how different they are than the Wild.  

 

Last summer...instead of doubling down by adding yet another old player; they instead bought out an old player and embraced being cheaper, younger and faster.  They drafted a center with their top pick, not another forward with skating issues like we did.  So my guess is the Ducks understood its problem that it was too old and too slow and took steps to address it.  The Wild instead, compounded their problem and had another draft where just about every player we selected had skating issues.  Its obvious which organization understands what is important to be able to compete in today's NHL' and which one is living in the past.  

But do the Ducks have an owner who’s a fanboy or an owner who realizes that his job is to write checks and the GMs job is to craft a team?
The biggest problem with the Wild isn’t Parise, Suter, Dubnyk, etc. It’s Leipold. He still thinks this is a Cup caliber team. And until he realizes he just has a collection of names and not hockey players, the team is just going to stumble along as they are currently doing. 
If we want to see any productive changes with this team, I think Guerin needs to let the team bottom out on its own. Let Boudreau keep giving Parise and Koivu and Staal top line minutes. There’s no real injuries this season, so they can’t blame their poor play on injuries. The real reason is there is no talent on this team. It’s a collection of older mediocre players who are living on past glories and young players who didn’t have much talent to begin with. That’s not a recipe for a Cup team. It’s a recipe for a punching bag. 

[CreaseAndAssist]

20 minutes ago, IllaZilla said:

But do the Ducks have an owner who’s a fanboy or an owner who realizes that his job is to write checks and the GMs job is to craft a team?
The biggest problem with the Wild isn’t Parise, Suter, Dubnyk, etc. It’s Leipold. He still thinks this is a Cup caliber team. And until he realizes he just has a collection of names and not hockey players, the team is just going to stumble along as they are currently doing. 
If we want to see any productive changes with this team, I think Guerin needs to let the team bottom out on its own. Let Boudreau keep giving Parise and Koivu and Staal top line minutes. There’s no real injuries this season, so they can’t blame their poor play on injuries. The real reason is there is no talent on this team. It’s a collection of older mediocre players who are living on past glories and young players who didn’t have much talent to begin with. That’s not a recipe for a Cup team. It’s a recipe for a punching bag. 

 

The Samueli's seemed to have stayed out of the way of hockey decisions and let Murray make the choices for the organization.  I would agree that Leipold is still living in 2009 or the veteran group has him still thinking its 2009 when they were still star-calibre talent.  

 

I agree with all of this @IllaZilla