2021 MN Wild/NHL Thread

Per Russo’s add on to yesterday’s podcast that came out tonight, the phone call with Suter didn’t go too well. Basically said Suter hung up on BG and was pretty pissed.

Boudreau on NHL. Network tonight basically said Suter was a locker room issue.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Boudreau on NHL. Network tonight basically said Suter was a locker room issue.

I’m not sure I like anyone better than Bruce. His interviews are so good. He’d be fun to throw a few back with. I think a lot of us figured Suter was a locker room problem. More so a couple years ago but Russo tonight, also said Suter basically lost his rule of the locker room when BG came to town.

I’m excited! We have a GM who can read the room and has the balls to make a big move if it’s warranted.

You know Parise and Suter will do everything they can to prove everybody wrong and I fully expect them to have great starts to next season wherever they land, but then father time will catch upto them and we’ll be thankful we’re free and clear of the recapture penalties.

The bandaid has been ripped off quickly, its time to move forward with the new core.

Where do they end up? My gut guesses are Parise to long Island for 2x$1.5m and Suter to Chicago 1x$4m

Ha the bandaid has definitely been ripped off. I just hope it’s not like the time I took my own stitches out a week early… That one opened back up and the scar is nasty!

tswoboda wrote:

Where do they end up? My gut guesses are Parise to long Island for 2x$1.5m and Suter to Chicago 1x$4m

I’d say Parise to Vegas (2 x $2) Suter to Toronto (2 x $4)

I’m thinking Parise to Vegas due to the DeBoer connection (from NJ days) and Suter to Blackhawks. He has a farm in Madison and the Hawks will look to shore up their D with a vet after trading Keith.

I think Suter sold his farm in Madison. Also was Russo talking about Suter on his podcast? The cheap seats or something is it called?

KP wrote:

I think Suter sold his farm in Madison. Also was Russo talking about Suter on his podcast? The cheap seats or something is it called?

I just looked and apparently Suter listed his his farm in 2018, but I dont know if it has actually sold. Was still for sale in 2019. I know Zach recently sold his house in the cities which led to lots of speculation at that time.
I dont recall Russo talking about Suter on the straight from the Source podcast via the Athletic, but he may have done so on the one he does with LaPanta or Souhan. I havent checked all those out recently.
I did listen to the most recent straight from the source with Judd Bracket which was an excellent listen.

KP wrote:

I think Suter sold his farm in Madison. Also was Russo talking about Suter on his podcast? The cheap seats or something is it called?

His primary home is on Lake Mendota in Madison, literally right next door to the Governor’s mansion.

These guys move all the time, real-estate can be a great investment for pro athletes because they have their own internal network and typically rent/sell their homes to new guys drafted/traded to their city/team, etc… I would put zero stock into their home sales…

It’s rumored Montreal will leave Joel Edmondson unprotected for the xpac draft, it would be AWESOME if GMBG was able to trade for him, he would add the size and nastiness we need on defense and he’s on a great contract $3.5×3. I’m sure Montreal love to get something for him vs nothing if picked by Seattle…

mahtofire14 wrote:

Per Russo’s add on to yesterday’s podcast that came out tonight, the phone call with Suter didn’t go too well. Basically said Suter hung up on BG and was pretty pissed.

I’m sure Suter didn’t think he would get bought out too. Wouldn’t you be pissed if your life changed like that? Sure he’s getting the money but now he and his agent need to find another team and gas station/convenience store gig.
Which Wild player gets the Kwik Trip commercials now?

Of course he’s pissed. Never said he shouldn’t be. Russo talked about it in his Worst Seat In the House podcast with Lapanta.

He won’t have a hard time finding a new job. They will be lining up for him. I bet he goes to Chicago or Colorado.

Netguy wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>mahtofire14 wrote:</div>
Per Russo’s add on to yesterday’s podcast that came out tonight, the phone call with Suter didn’t go too well. Basically said Suter hung up on BG and was pretty pissed.

I’m sure Suter didn’t think he would get bought out too. Wouldn’t you be pissed if your life changed like that? Sure he’s getting the money but now he and his agent need to find another team and gas station/convenience store gig.
Which Wild player gets the Kwik Trip commercials now?

Hartman seems like the type of guy who would routinely buy his dinner from a Kwik Trip…

mahtofire14. Wasn’t pointing a finger at you. Just responding in general and grabbed your entry.

I’d like to see Stone Hands get the Kwik Trip job!!

The tape doesn’t lie on Parise, he turns 37 in 2 weeks and I’ve never heard of guys getting quicker/faster as they get older. For those who keep talking about his 3 game playoff output, He won’t get the 2 weeks of rest in-between games he got in the playoffs when he was basically playing for his future NHL life trying to disprove to the other teams that he wasn’t washed up…

Suter was still steady last year, but you could see a drop in his defensive game (how many times did he get blown buy on the outside last season?) and he’s a year older on a rebuilt ankle…he looked awfully tired and disinterested in the playoffs when he should have been peaking…

GMBG is playing the short game with the buyouts, yes there will be painful times in years 2-4, but there was going to be anyways, at least now he has the added capspace to add a few pieces and you’re not stunting the growth of the many young prospects who’s roster spots they would have been holding up…

Netguy wrote:

mahtofire14. Wasn’t pointing a finger at you. Just responding in general and grabbed your entry.

I’d like to see Stone Hands get the Kwik Trip job!!

He’d never be caught eating gas station food…dude is a health nut with like 1% bodyfat…If they were able to focus on his infamous “unknown agitator” personality traits, now that could make some funny tv!

Like the Kwik Trip checkout girl gives him a dirty/snarly look after he pays and throws his Spicy Chicken Penne back in his face as he just backs away from the counter with the dumb look on his face, now that would be TV gold…

I feel like Wild fans are all going full Minnesota on this and pulling the MN positivity cliche of “this is bad, but look how much worse it could be”. Well guess what, this could have also ended a hell of a lot better than it just did.

Use the Blackhawks as example – during their dynasty years they signed 5 huge contracts that could end in disaster similar to Parise/Suter contracts. So far they squirmed out of 3 of the 5 and the other 2 are still productive players that come off the books in 2 years. So yeah contracts like these can be moved eventually, but it takes some freaking patience that Billy G obviously didn’t have.

Until we hear about the locker room or behind the scenes issues these two were causing, it feels like Billy G pulled the cord early – at least on Suter for sure. These contracts just ended in disaster – and fans are all in denial just repeating the MN catch phrase “IT COULD BE WORSE”.

Boudreau on KFAN next. Could get juicy.

GMBG was on earlier and really fired back at PA. PA asked him about Suter hanging up on him and I love how he came back at PA and said he would not talk about it. After he did that you could tell PA was kinda scared on what to ask next.

tswoboda wrote:

I feel like Wild fans are all going full Minnesota on this and pulling the MN positivity cliche of “this is bad, but look how much worse it could be”. Well guess what, this could have also ended a hell of a lot better than it just did.

Use the Blackhawks as example – during their dynasty years they signed 5 huge contracts that could end in disaster similar to Parise/Suter contracts. So far they squirmed out of 3 of the 5 and the other 2 are still productive players that come off the books in 2 years. So yeah contracts like these can be moved eventually, but it takes some freaking patience that Billy G obviously didn’t have.

Until we hear about the locker room or behind the scenes issues these two were causing, it feels like Billy G pulled the cord early – at least on Suter for sure. These contracts just ended in disaster – and fans are all in denial just repeating the MN catch phrase “IT COULD BE WORSE”.

I look at it this way, when these 13 year deals were signed there was ZERO expectation that either players was going to play for the final 3 seasons, they would have retired or been bought out and the final 3 year hit was basically nothing. Then the NHL changed the rules the following season and the end of these contracts turned into a timebomb. Fletcher started making “win now” decisions knowing the timebomb was getting closer and closer, he gets fired and GMBG assumes the mess. From all indications, Parise and Suter seemed to influence alot of what happened on the team as they basically had untouchable contracts, this then bled into other veterans that were on the team and you had bad mojo everywhere…Is it possible that GMBG could have traded either player like Chicago just did with Keith, possibly, BUT Chicago didn’t have the recapture penalties x2 hanging over their heads after the trade and with the likely bad blood between Parise and Suter now, them retiring early just to spite the Wild is a real possibility.

So GMBG pulled the bandaid off quickly and eliminated the worst case scenario of recapture penalties while gaining $10 in cap space this year and $2 next year vs keeping these guys in diminished roles and taking roster spots of prospects. Oh and we can protect 2 other young assets now from the xpac draft…

it’s done with, lets move on and get better as a young team on the rise… and to look long term in today’s sports franchises is pretty worthless as things can change so fast year to year (I admit I’m guilty of this)…a week ago we were worried about how to sign our players with only $16 million in capspace, 7 days later we’re now sitting with $26 million in capspace…

tswoboda wrote:

I feel like Wild fans are all going full Minnesota on this and pulling the MN positivity cliche of “this is bad, but look how much worse it could be”. Well guess what, this could have also ended a hell of a lot better than it just did.

I’m not sure I see how this could have ended better. The only ways I see would be either both of them play out their contracts here and are considerable contributors. Suter could have done this, but no way Parise would be as we have seen over the course of last year.
If they traded either of them, like has been said, Parise was likely not playing out the rest of the contract so that exposes the Wild to Recapture penalties.
I think the ONLY way it would have been a good ending is if one or both of them retired due to injury and the Wild could have gotten the LTIR relief.

I would like to see a confirmed “cap recapture” penalty breakdown to see what the “worst case scenario” would have looked like for them, haven’t seen that yet…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

I would like to see a confirmed “cap recapture” penalty breakdown to see what the “worst case scenario” would have looked like for them, haven’t seen that yet…

Worst case for recapture was a summer 2024 retirement. Wild would have essentially had the full cap hit for 3 more seasons. So instead of 13 years x $7.5m it would have ended up 15 years x $7.5m. And that would be x2 if they both retired summer 2024. Crippling for sure.

So yes it absolutely could have been worse. But it could have been better too. Just look at the Blackhawks. Wild are the first team to make a preemptive move to avoid cap recapture. The next one to watch is Shea Weber.

Parise buyout is a “meh”, I didn’t see it happening over the trade/retaining salary route, but it was certainly out there. Suter buyout is a shocker.

tswoboda wrote:

This is not a good day for the Wild. They’re taking a huge loss to their cap in years 2,3,4 that makes is impossible to compete during the Kirill and Fiala primes. Clearly this was a last ditch effort after realizing there was no other way out of the contracts. Billy G effectively hit the eject button.

Totally agree, this is a pick your poison move for the Wild. Poison now in the form of buyout penalty or poison later in terms of diminished performance and possible cap recapture. The Parise/Suter haters will love the move now and then continue to hate the players for the multi year buyout hit that will hobble the Wild going forward. Never made any sense to me to hate the players, guess who negotiated and signed on the deal from the Wild? The Chucker.

There was never going to be a happy ending for the Wild. This is what bad GMs do to hockey teams by making bad deals.

As others have mentioned, this practically guarantees that some of our most anticipated young talent won’t be staying long in MN. Rossi, Boldy, Kaprisov, somebody’s going to have to go when the ELC deals expire.

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As others have mentioned, this practically guarantees that some of our most anticipated young talent won’t be staying long in MN. Rossi, Boldy, Kaprisov, somebody’s going to have to go when the ELC deals expire.
[/quote]

I disagree with this, Rossi is signed for 3 years, Boldy for 2, their 2nd contracts are likely 2-3 year bridge deals and aren’t going to be for big money UNLESS they turn into 1st year superstars, and if that’s the case god bless us and if we can’t sign them, we trade them for a ton of assets. Rask’s $4 million comes off next year, Dumba, Soucy & Talbot’s $12.6 million is off the books in 2 years (if not traded sooner) Zuccarello, Foligno and Hartman’s combined $11 million is off in 3 years, there’s 3 big chunks of capspace that can be used in years 1-3… Year 4 is too unknown as we don’t have any contracts expiring then right now…

Greenway and Kaapo are the only RFA’s due next year and they likely will get small pay raises on bridge deals. Sturm is a UFA next year, so that could be interesting but he won’t be expensive…

They then have the following highly regarded prospects all on 2-3 year rookie contracts likely to get a NHL shot in next 1-3 years:
Forwards:
Rossi
Boldy
Khusnidhinov
Beckman
Khovanov
Defense:
Addison
O’Rourke
Hunt
Johansson (He played better this year, but who knows, I believe if we don’t sign him to his ELC this year, we get a 2nd round compensation pick next year in a loaded draft?)

5 picks in the first 98 of this draft that some could be ready in 2-4 years…

So you see, there are players in the pipeline that “could” fill roster spots on cheap rookie deals over the next 1-3 years (FA’s are no different in terms of being a wild card as you could get a Louie Erikkson) of course not all will pan out, but the list above is pretty damn good…

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

There was never going to be a happy ending for the Wild. This is what bad GMs do to hockey teams by making bad deals.

We can rip Chuck for a lot of decisions he made, but to me its really unfair to overly criticize him for ZP and RS. 29 other GMs would have done what it takes to get them and in fact the players turned down more money elsewhere to come here.
The league basically kicked the Wild straight in the nards by inventing the Cap Recapture AFTER the deals were done. I mean, how fair is that?

CaptainMusky wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>TheFamousGrouse wrote:</div>
There was never going to be a happy ending for the Wild. This is what bad GMs do to hockey teams by making bad deals.

We can rip Chuck for a lot of decisions he made, but to me its really unfair to overly criticize him for ZP and RS. 29 other GMs would have done what it takes to get them and in fact the players turned down more money elsewhere to come here.
The league basically kicked the Wild straight in the nards by inventing the Cap Recapture AFTER the deals were done. I mean, how fair is that?

I have no ill will towards him on these deals, it’s the ones afterwards we can question, at least he made an effort to push his chips in, that’s pretty rare in MN outside of the Vikes…