2021 MN Wild/NHL Thread

I still cannot believe that we have someone as skilled as Kaprizov. Punch me not pinch me because a pinch isn’t enough. My Lord!

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Good lord Rask…

Another 2 point night for Rask as well… Two bad one of them was for the wrong team. Could almost call that the Victor Rask hat trick.

Eriksson Ek was the only guy who looked good tonight for the wild. I’m guessing Joe’s post was referring to his post shot and the end of the 2nd… That was pretty brutal, and will give Joe a reason to keep calling him Stonehands for another 12 months.

Have I mentioned Anaheim is terrible? Wow that’s a bad NHL team.

Anyone notice if evason was strangling Fiala on the bench? He definitely wanted to.

Not much talk about the Parise scratch. Evason alluded after the game this could be the lineup going into playoffs.

tswoboda wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>JoeMX1825 wrote:</div>
Good lord Rask…

I’m guessing Joe’s post was referring to his post shot and the end of the 2nd… That was pretty brutal, and will give Joe a reason to keep calling him Stonehands for another 12 months.

exactly, that’s the Ek we’ve seen the first few seasons…

BUT

The Ek from this season showed up for the rest of the game. The assist was pretty easy when you just drop a pass in your zone and watch a superstar take it and score.

Rask is brutal again, he barely scored on a flub shot after a masterful 1 timer pass from Kap, his “assist” on the Duck goal is vintage Rask….glad this is the last few months we get to see him in a Wild jersey…

Do you think they are resting Parise for the playoffs? Current 4th line is playing really well together right now…

$7.5 million sitting in the press box…ouch!

Lol, after almost blowing the game by missing an empty net, Rask wins it in OT…queue The Twilight Zone music…
Every now & again you can see plays from him that initially warranted his $4 per season contract, just nowhere near enough…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Do you think they are resting Parise for the playoffs? Current 4th line is playing really well together right now…

$7.5 million sitting in the press box…ouch!

Definitely not resting a 4th line player.

Has there ever been a higher salary healthy scratched consecutive games in NHL history? I’m being totally serious…typically its done for a single game to motivate a player…

Pretty unreal!

Sure wish we’d stop giving up empty net goals at the end of regulation as exciting as the OT wins are. Does anyone go from looking completely helpless to a skilled play in a matter of seconds more than Victor Rask? I thought I was going to see calls for his head after he could get to that puck for an empty netter to seal the win and the Ducks tie it right after.

He’s just painful to watch…..

mahtofire14 wrote:

He’s just painful to watch…..

I get a kick out of following this thread.
I’m really glad none of the negative Rask posters are the real GM.
Rask has 10 goals and 13 assists.
The Wild wouldn’t be in the position they are without his contributions.

saugeye-steve wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>mahtofire14 wrote:</div>
He’s just painful to watch…..

I get a kick out of following this thread.
I’m really glad none of the negative Rask posters are the real GM.
Rask has 10 goals and 13 assists.
The Wild wouldn’t be in the position they are without his contributions.

lol! that’s crazy! Rask has been the beneficiary of playing with Kaprizov & Zuc for most of the season, he’s still on the team only because his salary is impossible to trade and we only have 1 legitimate center. ZERO chance he’s on the team next year…

Every team has a Rask or two. The thing you have to hope for with a player like this is that he gets hot at just the right time. It’s one thing to have a player who has a 10-12 goal season but if 2 or 3 of those goals come at key times it makes all the difference.

I would really like to see the wild work on this problem of giving up goals in the last minute of a game. Maybe it’s just me but it seems to have happened more this season than in any other season I can remember.

Granted now we have the firepower to come out with the win anyway. But I would still rather not be in that place to begin with.

I still have PTSD when it comes to the Wild in three on three overtime. I just have to go to a dark room and wait until it’s all over.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

Every team has a Rask or two

very true, but they are not centering the 1st or 2nd line on those teams…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>TheFamousGrouse wrote:</div>
Every team has a Rask or two

very true, but they are not centering the 1st or 2nd line on those teams…

Well they are really, but what is different bout the Wild/Rask situation is that Rask is centering the first or second line on a playoff bound team that has set franchise records. The rest of the teams in this situation will be watching the playoffs from the golf course bar.

In my opinion the wild have one of the most favorable playoff situations they’ve ever had. It’s never going to be easy in the playoffs but in my view both Colorado and Vegas are beatable by this wild team. They’re going to have to come out firing on a heck of a lot more cylinders than they were firing on against the ducks. But still the path forward in R1 and 2 has never featured teams that I honestly thought the wild had a legitimate chance of beating.

Head scratcher quote from Evason on Rask in today’s star trib article

“He’s such an intelligent player. He’s one of those guys that is one step ahead. He’s always thinking one step ahead.”

So when he drifted off into the neutral zone and his man was wide open in OT vs the Golden Knights he was actually thinking 1 step ahead? Or when fell by himself crashing into our net and leads to a goal he was actually thinking 1 step ahead, or when he missed the empty net from 2’ away and the game gets tied 20 seconds later he was thinking 1 step ahead…

I understand a coach protecting his players, but MY LORD are you serious Deano????!!!!

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Head scratcher quote from Evason on Rask in today’s star trib article
“He’s such an intelligent player. He’s one of those guys that is one step ahead. He’s always thinking one step ahead.”

So when he drifted off into the neutral zone and his man was wide open in OT vs the Golden Knights he was actually thinking 1 step ahead? Or when fell by himself crashing into our net and leads to a goal he was actually thinking 1 step ahead, or when he missed the empty net from 2’ away and the game gets tied 20 seconds later he was thinking 1 step ahead…

I understand a coach protecting his players, but MY LORD are you serious Deano????!!!!

We get it-you have a problem with Rask.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

Every team has a Rask or two. The thing you have to hope for with a player like this is that he gets hot at just the right time. It’s one thing to have a player who has a 10-12 goal season but if 2 or 3 of those goals come at key times it makes all the difference.

I would really like to see the wild work on this problem of giving up goals in the last minute of a game. Maybe it’s just me but it seems to have happened more this season than in any other season I can remember.

Granted now we have the firepower to come out with the win anyway. But I would still rather not be in that place to begin with.

I still have PTSD when it comes to the Wild in three on three overtime. I just have to go to a dark room and wait until it’s all over.

Or wait til the playoffs….

Considering they have only given up a two goal lead in the third and lost once this whole season. I think are doing just fine. They have had there fair share of late game tying goals as well.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Head scratcher quote from Evason on Rask in today’s star trib article

“He’s such an intelligent player. He’s one of those guys that is one step ahead. He’s always thinking one step ahead.”

I thought the rest of that quote was interesting: “We made a commitment as an organization in the summer when we sat down as a management team. We had to give a guy like him a shot. We talked about it. He needs to get an opportunity to play. He was given the opportunity.”

Read between the lines and Rask playing significant minutes is a decision coming straight from the top. Billy had a quote last fall basically saying Rask is a good player who was treated unfairly by Boudreau. Not sure if he truly believes that or is just going all in at making Rask tradeable this summer.

Final line of the quote: “He’s been a highlight for everybody.” Yes, absolutely! He’ll be on 2021 highlight reels for all 8 teams in the West division.

He’s also been useful for reporters looking to stir the pot this year… Fans can’t stop talking about Victor Rask. Realistically I’m shocked (disappointed??) this thread had made it 70+ pages without a single Victor Rask meme or gif.

Who had Rask and Hartman as #1C/#2C in the preseason pool?

Who had Rask and Hartman as #1C/#2C in the preseason pool?

Well what did you expect when the best center on the team is “stone hands” and an aging Bonino.

Don’t get me wrong. EEK is a really good 3rd line center and Bonino is the kind of player that every Stanley Cup contending team need, but we have no one else at center.

I think some of that decision of Rask playing more also came from the owner who probably didn’t like seeing a guy he’s paying $4 million sitting in the press box night after night (I would imagine the Parise scratches urine him off a bit more now)

After this season it’s over, if they can’t trade him (maybe Seattle would want him to fill a center slot for their 1st season, the GM has ties to him) I believe his buyout caphit is something like $1.3 the next 2 years… they’ll gladly pay that to cut loose from him, put the $2.6 in cap savings towards somebody better suited to play with Kaprizov…

Buyout Rask and Parise and the Cap savings next year is around $7M.
Parise will not be on this team next year. He will either get traded (unlikely) or get bought out.

Tom schmitt wrote:

Who had Rask and Hartman as #1C/#2C in the preseason pool?

Well what did you expect when the best center on the team is “stone hands” and an aging Bonino.

Oh yeah, DUH! We all should have listened to you last fall when you kept telling us it would be Rask and Hartman.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Buyout Rask and Parise and the Cap savings next year is around $7M.
Parise will not be on this team next year. He will either get traded (unlikely) or get bought out.

I think it will play out this way, GMBG makes a last ditch effort after the playoffs to find a trade for Parise with 50% salary retained and maybe a prospect offered. If he doesn’t like the team willing, Parise won’t lift his NTC forcing the Wild’s hand to buying him out make him a UFA, he then signs a 1-2 year vets minimum deal with Lou Lamorello and the Islanders to finish out his career…

There is a high likelihood that type of scenario plays out. At least if he does get bought out that protects the Wild from any Cap Recapture penalties if he were to be traded and retire early.

CaptainMusky wrote:

There is a high likelihood that type of scenario plays out. At least if he does get bought out that protects the Wild from any Cap Recapture penalties if he were to be traded and retire early.

So if he retires after this season or next season, the recapture cap hit is actually better than a buyout. But the last 2 seasons is where retirement would really hurt the cap.

Any trade involving Parise is just such a gamble… it leaves a 4 year window where if he decides to retire the Wild get smacked with a $20m cap hit… not sure how retained salary affects that.

Start the watch for a company car heading up from Iowa today or tomorrow, I suspect we’ll see a Boldy callup anytime now to give him a few games against the Blues to get his bearings before the playoffs start. The idea of putting him on the line with Fiala is very intriguing and gives the Avs another player to focus on besides just shadowing Fiala…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Start the watch for a company car heading up from Iowa today or tomorrow, I suspect we’ll see a Boldy callup anytime now to give him a few games against the Blues to get his bearings before the playoffs start. The idea of putting him on the line with Fiala is very intriguing and gives the Avs another player to focus on besides just shadowing Fiala…

The guy has been a beast on the PP down there. Will be fun to see what he can do. I don’t recall the roster expansion numbers for playoffs, but know they will have a bigger roster, not sure if that is changed because of the Taxi Squad or not and too lazy to look it up LOL.

CaptainMusky wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>JoeMX1825 wrote:</div>
Start the watch for a company car heading up from Iowa today or tomorrow, I suspect we’ll see a Boldy callup anytime now to give him a few games against the Blues to get his bearings before the playoffs start. The idea of putting him on the line with Fiala is very intriguing and gives the Avs another player to focus on besides just shadowing Fiala…

The guy has been a beast on the PP down there. Will be fun to see what he can do. I don’t recall the roster expansion numbers for playoffs, but know they will have a bigger roster, not sure if that is changed because of the Taxi Squad or not and too lazy to look it up LOL.

Would love to see Boldy with the big club these last 2 games. He’s certainly earned the chance and would be worth while to give him a look prior to playoffs. Seeding is basically clinched, so only negative would be that it possibly “disrupts” the locker room. If the Wild go deep in the playoffs there’s a good chance they would need him.

Does this feel like the best regular season in franchise history? Definitely wasn’t expecting that coming into the season.

tswoboda wrote:

Does this feel like the best regular season in franchise history? Definitely wasn’t expecting that coming into the season.

It’s a strange season, as we talked about earlier, we really don’t know how good anybody is this year because they’ve only played the same 7 teams and if your division has several bad teams in it (like ours) that throws it off even more….

I guess we’ll all find out soon, I do know the Wild has never been more dangerous to score goals and our goalies seem to be on par or better than the best we’ve ever had, so those are two huge positives this year…

tswoboda wrote:

Does this feel like the best regular season in franchise history? Definitely wasn’t expecting that coming into the season.

It’s definitely been exciting watching Kaprizov and Fiala, among others who upped their game this year. Up and down the lineup each guy is having a better year for the most part. Parise hasn’t done anything, but you almost everyone else better. I didnt expect much out of Johansson and he was injured for a big part of the season. Zucc came in and has been playing real well with Kaprizov.
Playoffs will be fun regardless of who they play. Likely to be the Avs, but it would be nice to get home ice.