2021 MN Wild/NHL Thread

CaptainMusky wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>tswoboda wrote:</div>
And let’s be honest, we all want them to take the legit #1 center Victor Rask.

Care to guess who was on Carolina’s protected list for the Vegas expansion? LOL

Ha you made me look up who Carolina lost in the Vegas draft. Some no namer with like 50 NHL games and now retired… kitchen was pretty bare in Carolina 4 years ago. Now this year they are going to lose either Nino Niedereitter or a good young defenseman.

I skimmed through all the protected lists and it’s crazy how many guys are protected that I’ve never heard of before. Fringe NHLers getting protected over guys like Johansen. Realized that Seattle could almost completely rebuild the 2017 MN wild “core”. Nino, Zucker, Granlund, Haula all available. Only one protected is Coyle and I guarantee that’s only because he has a NMC.

tswoboda wrote:

Ha you made me look up who Carolina lost in the Vegas draft. Some no namer with like 50 NHL games and now retired… kitchen was pretty bare in Carolina 4 years ago.

In full disclosure I had no idea who they protected either, but Sara Civian who is their writer for the Athletic posted it earlier this morning and I just about fell out of my chair.
There is a lot of people posting up their predictions and most of them are saying SEA takes Kahkonnen. I dont want that to happen, but replacing another defenseman may not be too desirable either.

Fringe follower who gets a lot of info from this (these) threads…great work!

Question for you guys who are more in-tune with our situation, but does it really make sense to have exposed Kaapo vs. Talbot given Talbot’s age? I have a nervous twitch when I start to think about Talbot having a similar downward slide as Dubnik knowing we may lose the goalie of the future.

Selfishly I think/hope they take Kappo, he’s under team control longer and will be cheaper over the next 3-5 years, I think this then works out best for the Wild as Soucy is the only size on the backend that they have and has shown glimpses of having some offensive talent…

waldo9190 wrote:

Fringe follower who gets a lot of info from this (these) threads…great work!

Question for you guys who are more in-tune with our situation, but does it really make sense to have exposed Kaapo vs. Talbot given Talbot’s age? I have a nervous twitch when I start to think about Talbot having a similar downward slide as Dubnik knowing we may lose the goalie of the future.

It’s a total toss up, easily could have went either way…
Upside is Talbot is the better goalie right now and that’s who they went with. Kappo could keep progressing and eventually be a cheap #1 for the Wild when their cap is in most trouble.
The down side is Talbot is 34 and could regress after a good season and playoffs. Also has 2 years left and likely gone after that anyway. Kappo is young and unproven, he might not even be a dependable NHL goalie – or at best an average backup.

I agree I think at the moment I’d rather have Soucy than Kappo. But it could prove costly in a year or two especially if Talbot’s 2021 was a flash in the pan. Going to hurt either way. Personally I wish we’d have left Greenway off the list. Good chance they’d take him leaving us with BOTH Soucy and Kappo.

Let’s not forget Kappo was lights out until the game the coach hung him out their to die when he let in 6 or 8 goals.
Good goalies are hard to come by. 4-6 d men are much easier to replace.
So Rask it is.

I think Kaapo will be a solid goalie, but the sample size is still pretty small to know if he will be a true #1. He looked like he could when he went 9-0, but then faltered after that but that could have largely been due to getting hung out like Rip suggested.
Goalies are tough to find, if they do take him there are going to be a few available, but I think there are far more D available that could be had as well. Really hard to say. We lost Lindberg who didnt want to sign with the Wild, so that leaves what Hunter Jones?

There are always some teams who guessed right and have 2-3 top goalie prospects in their system and because the starter typically sticks around for a long time, the good prospects can be traded for vs let rot as a backup or in the minors.

Florida is one of those teams right now with Brobrovsky, Knight and Levi.

CBJ was another but one of them died a hero on the 4th. What a tragic story that was.

Sounds like Seattle signing Driedger is basically a done deal, so less chance that they take Kahkonen since those 2 are somewhat redundant. Drieder is 2 years older, but also looked a lot better than Kahkonen as an NHL backup.

Vanacek in Washington is another unprotected young goalie who is similar Kahkonnen, but the Capitals have 4 good middle pairing D that Seattle could take.

Reports that the Eichel sweepstakes are down to NYR and Wild. Man, I hope its not the Wild. The list of players given up is disheartening. Rossi, Boldy, Dumba and Kahkonen. If Kahkonen is truly one of them, then a side deal with SEA would have to be in place OR if SEA picks him some other player/prospect to BUF.
I just don’t see BG throwing a grenade through our prospect pool for the likes of Eichel. Yeah, he is a phenomenal talent, but there are tons of questions.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Reports that the Eichel sweepstakes are down to NYR and Wild. Man, I hope its not the Wild. The list of players given up is disheartening. Rossi, Boldy, Dumba and Kahkonen. If Kahkonen is truly one of them, then a side deal with SEA would have to be in place OR if SEA picks him some other player/prospect to BUF.
I just don’t see BG throwing a grenade through our prospect pool for the likes of Eichel. Yeah, he is a phenomenal talent, but there are tons of questions.

I think it’s more of only 2 teams have submitted ACTUAL offers for Eichel, I THINK GMBG probably submitted a low offer that likely included Fiala, Dumba and a 1st, but no Boldy/Rossi…My guess is the idea of putting another American superstar in New York is too much for them to pass on and the Rangers end up giving up a package of team controlled players (that’s important) like Lafreniere, Kravtzov, Miller or Kakko and a bunch of high level 1-3 round picks and get him…it makes zero sense to include UFA’s like Zibanejad or Strome as they can simply sign elsewhere after the season is over (consequently those 2 players salaries basically add upto Eichel’s)

I know there’s alot of pressure to put a winning team on the ice in Seattle after all the success the Golden Knights have had, but it makes ZERO sense to do so, especially with the generational talent at the top of the next 2 drafts (after this one) Vegas being the town of nice new shiny things HAD to make huge FA/Trade splashes right away and get everyone’s attention and immediately build a fanbase, I think Seattle should take the opposite approach and build through the draft. Look at Vegas’s cap situation, it’s an absolute mess and they have ZERO legit NHL prospects in their pool, last week’s trade of Cody Glass represented getting rid of their last of three 1st round picks they had from their inaugural year (They also gave up studs Nick Suzuki and Erik Branstromm)

Seattle’s biggest weapon the next 1-3 years will be their CAPSPACE. I think you’ll see Seattle take a few big names off the unprotected list with the sole purpose of trading them afterwards while eating a good chunk of their salary cap hit. They will also accumulate draft picks being a 3rd wheel in trade deadline deals to allow those teams to take on the acquired player’s caphit. There are some risks to doing that, especially if some of the stars they select choose to NOT lift their NTC again, but do you really think a star is going to want to play for xpac Seattle?

So I don’t expect very many deals involving player protection, I do think you’ll see alot more deals by Seattle where they end up trading some of the big names they do select…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

So I don’t expect very many deals involving player protection, I do think you’ll see alot more deals by Seattle where they end up trading some of the big names they do select…

All of what you said makes a ton of sense. There was some talk that they could select guys like Tarasenko and Landesgoon and flip them. This would make a ton of sense. Flip Landesgoon to STL would make sense for all involved.

Vegas has a SC finals and 2 conference finals appearances in 4 years. More playoff series wins than the wild after their 3rd season in the league. If Seattle thinks they can do that, why wouldn’t they? How can you possibly turn that down. Besides, Vegas didn’t even try to be good their first year but then they had 15 guys have a career season and made a cinderella run. They left a lot of talent on the table and took a bunch of futures in their draft. Every expert and fan predicted them finishing near the bottom of the league that first year.

Vegas’s cap issues have nothing to do with the expansion draft, they’ve gone after every big money UFA and trade available since they existed.

Just browsed the 2017 expansion unprotected players and there’s way more big name talent available for this draft than for the Vegas draft. GMRF could put a really good team together, at least on paper.

tswoboda wrote:

Vegas has a SC finals and 2 conference finals appearances in 4 years. More playoff series wins than the wild after their 3rd season in the league. If Seattle thinks they can do that, why wouldn’t they? How can you possibly turn that down. Besides, Vegas didn’t even try to be good their first year but then they had 15 guys have a career season and made a cinderella run. They left a lot of talent on the table and took a bunch of futures in their draft. Every expert and fan predicted them finishing near the bottom of the league that first year.

Vegas’s cap issues have nothing to do with the expansion draft, they’ve gone after every big money UFA and trade available since they existed.

Just browsed the 2017 expansion unprotected players and there’s way more big name talent available for this draft than for the Vegas draft. GMRF could put a really good team together, at least on paper.

My point is they chose to go the FA/Trade prospects route and deplete their prospect pool, I don’t think lightning will strike twice for Seattle and with the franchise players coming up the next 2 drafts they could build for the long haul…Vegas has a very short window (Fleury has to come back to earth soon, he turns 37 in November – him being reborn with the 2 best seasons of his career in Vegas is the main reason for their success)…then the cap will start to kill them and they have zero entry level prospects (besides Krebs) to fill the voids…
I think the Stone & Pietrangelo contracts will be anchors for them on the back half, but I will give them credit for signing Karlsson/Tuch/Theodore long term on great contracts though…

I shoot archery with a guy who is a Caps fan. He’s always wearing his number eight sweater and he probably has Ovechkin underwear on too.

Had some fun with him saying what do you think of the Caps not protecting Ovechkin? You going to be a Butt Kracken fan now?

You should have seen him run for his phone. And the look on his face when Ovechkin wasn’t on the Caps protected list. It took him a few minutes to figure out why.

All signs pointing to Kappo getting selected tonight…long term it sucks to lose a goalie prospect you’ve been developing for 4 years and just starting to see the fruits of that labor, but in the short term losing a 6’5″ defenseman when we have no other size and need to still sign 2-3 more defenseman would hurt more…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

All signs pointing to Kappo getting selected tonight…long term it sucks to lose a goalie prospect you’ve been developing for 4 years and just starting to see the fruits of that labor, but in the short term losing a 6’5″ defenseman when we have no other size and need to still sign 2-3 more defenseman would hurt more…

Russo just tweeted:

“As of this very moment, I’m getting the impression that the Kraken did NOT take #mnwild goalie Kaapo Kahkonen……

Guess it’s going to be Soucy…

I saw that too from Russo. To be honest, it surprises me a bit, but if they do sign Drieger from FLA, he is a very similar prospect IMO so it may make sense not to go with Kaapo.

Right now it looks like they are taking the 2 goalies I mentioned about 10 posts up… Driedger and Vanacek. Kaapo is on a 1 way next year so they would have to trade him, waive him, or carry 3 goalies if he is selected.

tswoboda wrote:

Right now it looks like they are taking the 2 goalies I mentioned about 10 posts up… Driedger and Vanacek. Kaapo is on a 1 way next year so they would have to trade him, waive him, or carry 3 goalies if he is selected.

That makes sense, forgot about the contract scenario for him. So Rask to SEA confirmed!

As expected, Dr. Souce it is.

lol, I’m away from my phone/computer for a few hours of work meetings and all of the twitter guys are announcing who each teams pick will be….the NHL must love that…

So Soucy it is, at least we get almost $3 million in cap space back…just lost our only size though… I think tomorrow will be crazy after the 1pm trade freeze is lifted…

Yeah, I think Soucy is easier to replace than Kaapo. Funny you mention the “leaks” Joe, I was thinking the same thing. I will still watch the draft tonight regardless, but SEA has made some interesting selections. A few of the guys I had never even heard of so I am thinking there may have been some side deals which we will hear about later I am sure.
Russo doesn’t believe the Wild did a side deal which is great.
#INBGWETRUST

I’m guessing that saved money from Soucy goes to signing Cole.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

lol, I’m away from my phone/computer for a few hours of work meetings and all of the twitter guys are announcing who each teams pick will be….the NHL must love that…

So Soucy it is, at least we get almost $3 million in cap space back…just lost our only size though… I think tomorrow will be crazy after the 1pm trade freeze is lifted…

Over 20 of the 30 total picks of the have already been reported. Looks like they are stocking up a really solid blue line, the exact opposite of what Vegas did. Some big boys too in Oleksiak, Soucy, and Larsson.

What’s the opposite of an analytics darling? Carson Soucy.

mahtofire14 wrote:

I’m guessing that saved money from Soucy goes to signing Cole.

possibly or it will now allow them to “upgrade” from a Cole to a better defenseman… who knows…
Hopefully this solidifies our goalie position for the next 5-7 years with Talbot coming off the books in 2 years and Kappo ready to replace him as the full time starter then afterwards.

tswoboda wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>JoeMX1825 wrote:</div>
lol, I’m away from my phone/computer for a few hours of work meetings and all of the twitter guys are announcing who each teams pick will be….the NHL must love that…

So Soucy it is, at least we get almost $3 million in cap space back…just lost our only size though… I think tomorrow will be crazy after the 1pm trade freeze is lifted…

Over 20 of the 30 total picks of the have already been reported. Looks like they are stocking up a really solid blue line, the exact opposite of what Vegas did. Some big boys too in Oleksiak, Soucy, and Larsson.

What’s the opposite of an analytics darling? Carson Soucy.

Not taking Jake Bean from Carolina is interesting…perhaps the result of a side deal…