2021 MN Wild/NHL Thread

Funny thing, sounds like Holland was eyeing that goalie and BG traded up with Edmonton for the pick lol

I said a month ago I thought they’d take a goalie if one of them fell. Edmonton was the team I thought would take the 2nd goalie so great trade if they really wanted him.

They tried to trade up for Askarov last year so you knew they wanted a goalie. That will be a huge position to fill by ELC in years 3/4/5 of the buyouts.

Freaking awesome and also heartbreaking how they have the Kurvers kids announcing picks. Classy move.

Not sure about the Lambos pick but both 1st rounders definitely fill a position of need.

Relieved they didn’t take Raty at 26… If Jarmo Kekelainenen didn’t want him at 25, then he’s definitely not worth taking in the 1st round. Jarmo is on the beat of finish prospects AND he overvalues centers.

Needed to restock the defense cupboard, would have liked to see Stankhoven with the pick, but Lambos impressed everyone last year but then got hurt, he was expected to go earlier so there’s that…

Yeah scary to hear about his injury or health issues. Hope he’s fine now. Seems the skill is certainly there which is great. Can never have enough depth.

mahtofire14 wrote:

Well that’s not what I expected. Sounds like he’s a possible stud goalie though. Gotta think the center is coming with the next pick.

Well he was the unanimous best goalie in the draft until Cossa tore up the WHL in this shortened season. He played well on the Sweden world junior team as an underager last year. And he was a league average goalie in the SHL last year as an 18 year old playing against men. SHL is probably the 4th best pro league in the world.

All signs point to him being a solid NHL starter very soon.

Also: his name literally starts with WALL

CaptainMusky wrote:

Yeah scary to hear about his injury or health issues. Hope he’s fine now. Seems the skill is certainly there which is great. Can never have enough depth.

I could never find info on what exactly the injury was? Only that it was a “medical procedure” on his leg but was expected to make a full recovery

JoeMX1825 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>CaptainMusky wrote:</div>
Yeah scary to hear about his injury or health issues. Hope he’s fine now. Seems the skill is certainly there which is great. Can never have enough depth.

I could never find info on what exactly the injury was? Only that it was a “medical procedure” on his leg but was expected to make a full recovery

That’s all I ever heard as well.

Marc Bergevin is a crazy man and I’m here for it. I was waiting for some team to take that kid in the 7th round and the Canucks pop in and grab him in the 1st lol the ESPN analysts were not impressed.

Lotta concensus first rounders still on the board for tomorrow. Would love to see a Stankoven or Pastujov fall to the Wild.

This is where I love Bracket’s aggressiveness in the past, you have 5-7 good prospects left that should all go early in the 2nd round, you’ll need to move up to get one, getrdone Judd!

Well, Scott Wheeler (NHL version of Mel Kiper) had the Wild as one of the big winners of the 1st round last night! He said the Wild got 2 of the top 15 players in the draft (in his opinion)

I really hope they move up into the top 5 of the second round today and get one of the top guys remaining, quality over quantity!

Reinhardt traded to Florida, no word yet on the price but if Anton Lundell isn’t a part of it Florida did well…

Seems like the general consensus is the Wild got two players that were ranked higher than they were drafted. Sounds like the Dman they took has good size, is physical, can put up points and can skate. That sounds like a win to me if he keeps it up.

Peart drafted by wild. Like that pick piling up D men which along with goalie was a need. Reinhart dreams dashed no steam on Eichel maybe buffalo doesn’t move him at all.
The 3 players the wild drafted were in Judd’s top 20. So they are getting guys they really valued at some lower picks.

Well, we sure have our defensive prospect depth rebuilt…

Maybe that was the plan all along with limited access to scouting and not as many elite offensive players to pick from. First 3 picks are elite talents…

So which Mr. Hockey defenseman does Peart end up the most like… Leddy? McDonagh? Ness? Lee? And please God, not David Fischer…

So with Kaprizov and Fiala not yet signed does this mess up the works with any trades Guerin may want to do? I may be in the minority here but Kaprizov (or his agent) have said he considers himself in the mega star category amongst NHL players. After 55 games and against only 7 other NHL teams? So 27 goals and 18 of them against the 4 teams that did not make the playoffs and 6 more were against Vegas. Then once the play ratcheted up another notch in the playoffs Vegas was able to shut him down. I just think he’s trying to make up all the money he left on the table by not coming here 3 or 4 years ago and I get the impression he just does not want to be on this team. I think he still has some things left to prove. I wonder if Guerin has the balls to walk away.

I think BG definitely has the balls to walk away which is exactly why I think when the Wild stop making KK bigger offers he starts feeling the heat of having to go back to the KHL, KK will say screw off to his agent and take a deal to stay in the NHL.

mahtofire14 wrote:

I think BG definitely has the balls to walk away which is exactly why I think when the Wild stop making KK bigger offers he starts feeling the heat of having to go back to the KHL, KK will say screw off to his agent and take a deal to stay in the NHL.

I think he signs a 4 maybe 5 year deal at 7 mill or so. I also think BG would walk if KK just digs in and wants to just be walked to free agency. I don’t think money is the issue as much as it just seems as if he thinks the Wild just don’t have the talent to win a Cup in the near future and he does not want to waste his best years being a super star on a mediocre team. That being said how much of a super star he is remains to be seen and the same with just how mediocre the Wild are or are not going to be. It was mentioned KK wants to play with Panarin. Seems to me those are things agents don’t just make up that comes from the player himself. To me that says he’d sooner be elsewhere.

Just not a good idea to force a player long term for big money into a situation he does not want to be in. We could be doing another big buyout in a few years. I really need to see what KK can do in a full regular season against all the teams in a regular season schedule. And perhaps more importantly can he show up in the playoffs? He didn’t this year.

It’s all his agent, Kirill really doesn’t care about the money, I say that because he gave the first few years of his KHL salary to his parents and he has lived very modestly, the kid just wants to play hockey and the agent is getting greedy because he see’s paydays for himself…I’m sure his agent presented his “Panarin Plan” to him when he was signed, it will be upto Kirill if he sticks to it.

GMBG has experienced contract negotiations from both ends, he knows the games that agents play, my guess is that they settle on a 4-5 year deal (this lowers his caphit these next few years when our cap is a mess) which then allows Kirill to sign his final long term max deal at age 29 , whether that’s with the Wild or not is upto Kirill and the Wild and how the team pans out these next 4-5 years. Only the Wild will have the option to re-sign him the max 8 years, if he doesn’t want to sign long term, we trade him that year and get assets for him…

GMBG knows that Kirill doesn’t want to play in the KHL for 3 more years, there’s too much injury risk involved in doing so, that’s why i’m a little puzzled as to why he’s not thinking hard about the 8 year offer the Wild made, that’s 8 years of guaranteed money in a world that was has been in a pandemic lockdown the past 16 months… I think GMBG will end up flying to Russia to talk to Kirill face to face and give the kid some perspective (He’ll probably schedule a visit with Marat as well) then it will be up to Kirill to decide what he wants to do.

cool little behind the scenes video of the Wild’s Draft War Room:

JoeMX1825 wrote:

This is where I love Bracket’s aggressiveness in the past, you have 5-7 good prospects left that should all go early in the 2nd round, you’ll need to move up to get one, getrdone Judd!

They must have really liked Peart (not sure I believe him, but Judd said he was in their top 20!?!) because they had several chances to move up just a couple of picks and get Stankhoven or Raty, hopefully not doing those moves doesn’t come back to bite us in the a$$…

Russo tweeted the Wild are doing their due diligence looking into Eichels neck issues on their own. Don’t know exactly what that means but they are apparently serious about getting him signed. I think that would be a disaster.

Not a bug fan of the trading for Eichel. Especially with the term and assets that it will probably take. Just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

My thinking of a possible Eichel trade is basically down to three ideas:

1) The whole idea of what Buffalo is asking for Eichel has been completely overblown by the media and GMBG knows he can be acquired without giving up the farm + They’ve been given assurances his health will be fine (No Rossi or Boldy included in the trade)
2) GMBG has been TOLD by the owner to do everything he can to acquire a true #1 center this offseason, no matter the cost…(include Rossi/Boldy if needed)
3) 2021-2022 season is a push all the chips in the middle type of play to win the cup knowing the next 3 years afterwards will be really tough going with the $15 million in dead cap…GMBG has been told his job could be on the line, so he goes all in…

outside of those 3 scenarios, I agree the risk/reward is tipping too much on the risk side to make the trade…

My wife had almost the same exact herniated disc Eichel has about 10 years ago. They replaced it with a cadaver disc in her neck. Took her about two months to fully recover and she is not employed as a center in the NHL. I think it will be a long recovery and he may never be the same. Huge risk going after Eichel given what the asking price is. On the other hand if you are employed as a center in the NHL I think surgery is your only option.

I wonder if this isn’t about satisfying Kaprizov. BG is at the precipice of turning this franchise around or ruining it for another ten years. I wish the man luck.

Ice Cap wrote:

My wife had almost the same exact herniated disc Eichel has about 10 years ago. They replaced it with a cadaver disc in her neck. Took her about two months to fully recover and she is not employed as a center in the NHL. I think it will be a long recovery and he may never be the same. Huge risk going after Eichel given what the asking price is. On the other hand if you are employed as a center in the NHL I think surgery is your only option.

I wonder if this isn’t about satisfying Kaprizov. BG is at the precipice of turning this franchise around or ruining it for another ten years. I wish the man luck.

I too question how Kaprizov is/isn’t influencing any of this… part of me can absolutely see his disgust with the thought of having Victor Rask as his center again (especially after his group text chat was revealed regarding practicing with the taxi squad his first day in camp last year) but the other side can see GMBG saying “Who the F does Kaprizov think he is” to make any demands when he has only 50+ NHL games under his belt and half of them were against 2-3 of the worst teams in the league…

The obvious answer to these questions is that it’s all speculation, we have no idea what’s actually happening behind the scenes, maybe there’s ZERO interest in Eichel, but the writers and twitter personalities keep the story going because it gets clicks and because the Wild seem like one of the only teams that could actually afford him. Maybe Kirill is about to fire his agent and take the 8 year deal? Only the folks involved know, we’ll see how everything plays out over the next few weeks/months until training camp…

Russo been saying for weeks that even if Eichel is signed by someone, he hasn’t had the needed surgery on his neck yet, and will likely miss the first month or two of the season. Seems like there is so much risk in getting him, I just don’t like it at all. AND there’s just no way they can afford him a few years down there road without getting rid of like 5 players on the NHL roster.

Cool behind the scenes by Scott Burnside who was inside the Wild Draft Room for several days over Expansion and Draft. Seems they were feverishly trying to trade up at one point with a Western Conference Team, but it didnt come together. He doesnt say who they wanted to trade with OR who they were trying to get, but its sort of interesting.
He actually talks about the Eichel talk too and how BG had all the braintrust together and they were debating it.
Pius Suter wasnt offered by the Hawks. I wouldnt mind BG taking a swing at him. He would surely be an upgrade over Rask between KK97 and Zucc.

I know I thought GMBG was going to be aggressive on the trade front and that hans’t happened, but I don’t see how he doesn’t come out blazing at the tick of 11:00am tomorrow and sign 2-3 players asap, he can’t afford not too…I know he wants to be patient, but the ideal players for us have been signing elsewhere and time is running out… It would suck to be sitting with so much cap room AFTER the FA rush is over and you’re picking from table scraps… I realize not knowing how much of the capspace Kaprizov and Fiala makes FA decisions tougher, but at some point you need to start making some decisions…

Vegas is in dire need of cutting capspace after they re-signed Martinez, maybe we could catch them being desperate and grab one of their young hulking D for a draft pick…

Sounds like we can expect both Nick Foligno and Alex Goligoski to sign at least one year deals tomorrow or very soon. As well as Rau signing a two way one year deal. Until the other shoe drops with Fiala and Kaprizov it will be these sideways baby step moves.

One of the talking heads on NHL Sirius radio made the comment that Kaprizov in particular is like ransom ware to the Wild. The Wild have to sign him to whatever his terms are. Long or short term and big $$ either way. I liken it to when the Twins were negotiating with Mauer. Get him signed or face the wrath of a very pissed off fan base. I hope BG can successfully guide this team through this. I don’t want to go through another ten years of one and done.

Its hard to believe with how good this team has been that they haven’t gotten past the second round since 2003. There were some very good teams there. This roster has been overhauled and continues to be overhauled. Tomorrow is going to be a wild day around the league and I would imagine that BG is very aggressive. Sounds like Cole is going to test the market, which makes sense, but both sides would still like to come together, but he has to test what is out there.

BG should take a swing at Pius Suter. That can happen today since he wasnt tendered a qualifying offer. He would be an upgrade.
I would believe that BG will be in Moscow meeting with KK97 and his agent before too long if things dont come together. I dont think it needs to come to that, but its definitely a possibility.