2022/2023 NHL/Wild Offseason-Season-Postseason Thread

I’m a big fan of Faber, would have preferred a right-shot winger though…

I think it’s safe to say they probably don’t need to take a D in the first round this year or next. Cupboard is pretty full there.

Pretty underwhelming return as predicted

Billy G wants to dominate the prospect pool rankings this fall

tswoboda wrote:

Pretty underwhelming return as predicted

By some

Curious to hear if Fiala’s camp basically said King’s or bust… i’d guess that’s the case based on how quickly this happened….

In Judd we trust😳

Ripjiggen wrote:

I think it’s safe to say they probably don’t need to take a D in the first round this year or next. Cupboard is pretty full there.

They are likely going to need to trade 1-2 of them…

Agree most likely for a Fiala type in a couple years to try and convince KK to sign again.

For a kid who got hot for just a couple months you can’t expect to get much and we didn’t.

Ice Cap wrote:

For a kid who got hot for just a couple months you can’t expect to get much and we didn’t.

Faber is the real deal guys! If you can find the NCAA games from the Gophers last year watch them, Faber completely dominates whenever he was on the ice. He’ll most likely play this season with the Gophers then sign with the Wild and be a playoff black ace.

Listening to GMBG just now on kfan there’s no doubt in my mind that the Kings deal was the only one the Fiala camp would accept and therefore completely handcuffed BillyG…

We’ll see what Judd can do with the 19th pick, there’s a couple of really good Russian forwards (Yurov & Miroshinshneko) expected to fall in that range completely due to the “Russian Factor”, from a talent standpoint they are top 10 prospects…

Marco Kasper and Brad Lambert are 2 other names to watch for if they drop a few spots or maybe the Wild trades up a few spots.

But in a week draft as you have pointed out. So does that make them top 20 prospects?

Ripjiggen wrote:

But in a week draft as you have pointed out. So does that make them top 20 prospects?

what a “week” response;)

Top10 in terms of this draft class…

Had the same thoughts on Yurov and Mirochnichenko. The pool has plenty of depth and with 4 early picks they can gamble on high risk high reward players.

Mirochnichenko was considered top 5 by some before the Hodgkins Lymphoma diagnosis this winter and he claims to be 100% recovered. He could fall anywhere in the first 2 rounds.

I know how you view a lot of prospects as dead ringer NHL top players Joe but I’m always leery about prospects a lot can happen such as serious injury before they even give you a single minute of ice time or they just can’t make the leap. Happens all the time. I’m more of a wait and see on prospects.

This Fiala trade has the potential to be a lot like the Brent Burns trade in terms of how the player turned out. Sounds like LA was the first team to contact Guerin and he took what they offered. Says he didn’t want to wait and leverage teams against each other. Or start a bidding war I guess? Okay then..,

When KK’s contract is up the Wild better have more to show him than a deep prospect pool.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Ripjiggen wrote:</div>
But in a week draft as you have pointed out. So does that make them top 20 prospects?

what a “week” response;)

Top10 in terms of this draft class…

Was just getting you going Mel that’s what Todd does.

Ice Cap wrote:

I know how you view a lot of prospects as dead ringer NHL top players Joe but I’m always leery about prospects a lot can happen such as serious injury before they even give you a single minute of ice time or they just can’t make the leap. Happens all the time. I’m more of a wait and see on prospects.

I don’t…prospects are prospects, most non 1st rounders don’t make it.. but when you’re in the situation the Wild is in (no cap space for 3 years) draft picks are all you can improve with…

You hope your picks at least improve and develope the first 1-2 years after drafting them so if they don’t project in a spot on your future roster, you can use them as trade chips…

reading other Wild boards, twitter feeds, etc talking about how the Wild somehow got hosed in this deal..I admit myself getting caught up in thinking what the best fits could be and what teams made the most sense and who they could offer up…

BUT

ultimately the decision on how this trade was going to go was completely in Fiala’s camp. They held all of the cards in terms of informing whatever team(s) GMBG might have come up with a trade agreement with, Yes, Kevin will sign a contract extension with you or NO, Kevin will not resign with you, so you only get him for 1 season…

NO team was going to give GMBG anything of good value back for a 1 year rental…

The Kings likely presented GMBG with multiple options of prospects not named Byfeld, Turcotte and Clarke, my guess is they didn’t want to give up Faber as he’s likely their best Defenseman prospect with Brandt Clarke and definately farther alone in his development, but they had to give in a little bit in order to not give up more assets… (example I could see where the Wild would also ask for a prospect like Francesco Pinelli get thrown into the deal) and the Kings then likely shot back with a final Faber and the 19th pick offer, take it or leave it… there’s plenty of other UFA/RFA options they could look at as Fiala isn’t the only option for them…GMBG knew his options were very limited with only 8 days until the draft, so he took the deal…

and so we move on….

They got what I thought they could get a mid late round first and a B level prospect. About what you would expect from a RFA that wasn’t going to sign here. People that think they got hosed think the trade was going to be some even swap of future talent. Sorry but In this case it was not what value Fiala had it was the contract situation. It was about what Florida gave up in the Reinhart deal. To me that was a similar situation. Unfortunately we were Buffalo in this case.

It was always going to be the Reinhart deal and it’s actually a [slightly] better return. Way better than the Buchnevich deal which was also a similar situation.

Ripjiggen wrote:

They got what I thought they could get a mid late round first and a B level prospect. About what you would expect from a RFA that wasn’t going to sign here. People that think they got hosed think the trade was going to be some even swap of future talent. Sorry but In this case it was not what value Fiala had it was the contract situation. It was about what Florida gave up in the Reinhart deal. To me that was a similar situation. Unfortunately we were Buffalo in this case.

I agree, but Faber is better than a B level prospect imo…He’s easily a top 4 NCAA defenseman and college hockey is absolutely loaded with Defensive talent…most scouts project him as a top 4 defenseman who’s expected to have a very long NHL career…obviously we’ll wait and see…

I am very high on Faber being a Gopher fan. He sure seems like a Dumba replacement. It kind of clouds the future for Addison possibly, but there will likely be other moving pieces in the D Corps in the next year and change. BG has some capital to potentially use at the draft to move up if a guy they covet is there. I wouldnt be surprised to see one of the firsts and a second bundled together to move up. At 19 they should be able to get a decent forward, but there are no surefire top 4’s in that range unless you go after one of the Russians who have an inherent risk there.

I see at least 1 of our D prospects traded at the draft (I think Addison will be that guy) to move up and grab a Bracket value pick trade if a player slides within the Wild’s range in a move that ultimately makes our future D corps bigger and keeps a D spot open for Faber when he ultimately signs with the Wild at the end of the NCAA season…

Depending on how the season goes the Wild could keep Dumba and Talbot and unload them at the trade deadline…It absolutely makes sense that Faber is intended to replace Dumba now, if not, where would he play with Goligoski & Merril signed for 2+ years?

The WJC Tourney 2.0 in August will basically be a Wild Defense Showcase with 5 of our prospects filling the 12 Defenseman spots between Team Canada and USA…

baring no more trades (Kulikov? Addison?) here’s what the opening night line combinations would probaby look like:

Kaprizov – Hartman – Zuccy
Boldy – Rossi – Jost
Foligno – Ek – Greenway
Dewer – Gaudreau – Duhaime

Spurgeon – Middleton
Brodin – Dumba
Goligoski/Merril/Kulikov?/Addison?

Talbot/Flower?

Iowa Wild potential injury callup depth:

Forwards – Beckman, Chaffee, Firstov
Defenseman – Hunt, O’Rourke, Addison?

lastly if you look at the Wild’s Capfreindly salary projections and IF their prospects pan out, outside of Brodin and Spurgeon, in 2-3 years the Wild could have 4 defenseman (Faber/Lambos/Hunt/O’Rourke) on ELC’s (with Goligoski and Merril contracts ending) and your starting goalie (Wallstedt) finishing his ELC up and moving towards a cheaper bridge deal. That allows an absolute HUGE cap allocation towards the forward group in Kaprizov’s last year…they could then afford to pay top UFA’s to slot into key spots (1C as an example)

We really need to show Kaprizov something before his last year of his contract or he walks. After this year no Wild fan wants that to happen, but he isnt about himself, he is about team and would want to be on a contending team for sure. He has won it all at every level he has played. He certainly wants to win a Cup which is the toughest trophy in all of sports to win.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Ripjiggen wrote:</div>
They got what I thought they could get a mid late round first and a B level prospect. About what you would expect from a RFA that wasn’t going to sign here. People that think they got hosed think the trade was going to be some even swap of future talent. Sorry but In this case it was not what value Fiala had it was the contract situation. It was about what Florida gave up in the Reinhart deal. To me that was a similar situation. Unfortunately we were Buffalo in this case.

I agree, but Faber is better than a B level prospect imo…He’s easily a top 4 NCAA defenseman and college hockey is absolutely loaded with Defensive talent…most scouts project him as a top 4 defenseman who’s expected to have a very long NHL career…obviously we’ll wait and see…

I guess we rate prospects differently.
A level would be first round pick, 1 and done if they went to college. 2 years max. Like a Powers. It wasn’t a dig on the guy, but a guy with 3 college goals in 2 season isn’t the next Cale Makar.
Don’t see him any higher or lower than Lambos or O’Rourke. Good prospects, not elite, and probably not the next Bobby Orr’s.

I consider an A prospect as somebody who projects as a top 6 forward or top 4 defenseman. Faber is more of a defensive defenseman right now, but most scouts agree he has more offense to his game that will eventually come out…the kid is silky smooth with his skating and decision making, that will equate to more offense as he builds confidence. He averaged almost 25 minutes of icetime a game in the Olympics as a young 19 year old…

Makar’s name shouldn’t even be brought up anymore for comparisons sake, I doubt we’ll see another Makar for another 10-20 years, he’s a once every couple generations type of player, in a level of the once unthinkable Bobby Orr…

That’s like every player taken in the first 2 rounds. You don’t draft a guy in the first two rounds projecting him as a bottom 2 D or bottom 6 forward and saying sweet glad we drafted that guy to be our future 6th D-man.
Like I said not a dig on the guy. I think he could be a fine NHL D-man, but definitely not a 2 pick overall or Holtz type of player that some wild fans thought they would get.

Ripjiggen wrote:

That’s like every player taken in the first 2 rounds. You don’t draft a guy in the first two rounds projecting him as a bottom 2 D or bottom 6 forward and saying sweet glad we drafted that guy to be our future 6th D-man.

1st rounders for sure, 2nd rounders its a crapshoot…There are numberous 10 year studies of draft picks and NHL playing time, the average of percentages I’ve seen reported (newer generations % are a little higher, maybe due to a higher skill level of younger players now?) are about 70% of 1st rounders end up playing significant NHL games (not just a few games here or there) that number drops to about 30% for 2nd rounders and about 10% for 3rd rounders and lower and lower for additional rounds (funny that it appears the 5th round is an oddball higher %)…of course there are always some players that destroy those percentages (Spurgeon, Zetterberg, etc) but the numbers are the numbers…