2022 MN WILD/NHL THREAD

Holy $hit Fiala!!!!

You guys are getting to negative.

F’ing Ducks caving in the 2nd…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

F’ing Ducks caving in the 2nd…

we win and it won’t matter

That second period felt like an entire game, longest period ever.

Fiala loves scoring in Nashville, loves it. Danced Duchene Granlund and his buddy Josi on that wicked backhander. Was chirping the Nashville bench after the fly by

That was a terrible penalty on deslauries.

How serious did spurgeon injury look. Man this regular season can’t get over fast enough.

Ripjiggen wrote:

How serious did spurgeon injury look. Man this regular season can’t get over fast enough.

The hit didn’t look bad at all. He just looked to be in some discomfort when he got up.

Yikes our D choices in OT are tough

Gutty. Playing with 5D for almost whole game. Down 2 of top 4 d man. Top line wing and 2 of your shut down wings.

Huge win with a depleted lineup, refs had a huge impact on the game…

Nashville.
Nashville.
You suck.
You suck.
You suck.

Way to cram that one up their @sses, Wild. Multiple homer lame ass penalties and Wild stll win.

Gritty game by the Wild, now we need to get healthy.

Curious if the NHL playoffs has ever had 2 hotter teams play each other in the first round? Has there been any team with a better record than the Wild or Blues in the last 20 or so games?

Crossing my fingers for Spurg.

Hopefully it was just a popped shoulder…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Yikes our D choices in OT are tough

Great quote…

With Spurgeon hurt, we obviously saw one byproduct was Kulikov playing in OT. Evason said Bob Woods called Jake Middleton up at one point and Middleton turned around and said, “What? I’ve never played it.” Made for some comic relief in the presser. Middleton was a stud tonight

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Hopefully it was just a popped shoulder…

Yeah have confidence we will get our forwards back for playoffs. D has me more nervous.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Curious if the NHL playoffs has ever had 2 hotter teams play each other in the first round? Has there been any team with a better record than the Wild or Blues in the last 20 or so games?

Going to be one hell of a series. Can’t wait. One team is going to lose more in a series than they have for over a month.

Huge lost point for Vegas with an OT loss to the Sharks, gave up the tying goal with less than a second left, couldnt score in OT on a powerplay and then couldnt score in the shootout…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Huge lost point for Vegas with an OT loss to the Sharks, gave up the tying goal with less than a second left, couldnt score in OT on a powerplay and then couldnt score in the shootout…

Aww. You mean Team in a Box isn’t guaranteed a playoff spot every year? That’s too bad.

tswoboda wrote:

Fiala loves scoring in Nashville, loves it. Danced Duchene Granlund and his buddy Josi on that wicked backhander. Was chirping the Nashville bench after the fly by

He will be doing it to us soon enough. There will be no love lost between Fiala and BG or Evason when he leaves I’m sure of that. BG missed his chance on Fiala. Not only missed it but pretty much just brushed him off. I think Evason had as much or more to do with it than BG. Even now Evason has a hard time to give Fiala any high praise. There is no way to win a Fiala trade. Draft picks and prospects don’t replace the production Fiala provides. This is a major misstep by Wild management. I think BG let himself be influenced by Evason on this one a bit too much.

Unsung hero of the game was once again Brodin. The man stopped a few crucial rushes by himself. We take for granted that he’s one of the very best defensive defensemen in the league.

This is a major misstep by Wild management. I think BG let himself be influenced by Evason on this one a bit too much.
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I wouldn’t put too much “they made a huge mistake” blame on Management, they apparently offered him a decent offer based on his comps a year ago and he declined it. There’s no doubt they knew the Parise & Suter buyouts were going to happen in the future when they were negotiating with Fiala, so the caphit crunch was always in the backs of their mind and limited how much they could offer him. It didn’t help that 2 shortended covid seasons didn’t give a proper look at his development & potential (He always had huge good & bad swings since he got here, was never consistant)

How would we be feeling if we offered him the $7-8 million over X years he was looking for a year ago and he remained all season in the terrible scoring rut he started the first 25 games in?

Losing Fiala and replacing him with prospects and picks obviously won’t immediately replace his production, but it will allow the Wild to extend Boldy without offersheet worries next year, resign Middleton long term and perhaps Fleury and others…

Ice Cap wrote:

He will be doing it to us soon enough. There will be no love lost between Fiala and BG or Evason when he leaves I’m sure of that.

Way to ruin the vibe… Too soon! Ha I’m sure he’ll have extra jump whenever he comes back to the X but I doubt it’ll be the same as how he looks against the Preds now. I think it’s more about his former teammates and how they treated him in Nashville than management or that he was traded. You see guys like Johansen, Forsberg, and Josi going out of their way to poke Fiala in scrums. I remember his first game back in Nashville he scored 2 goals, almost had about 5 more, and looked like a completely different player than the turnover machine he was up to that point. Then after the game Johansen had some really weird quotes basically saying they treated Fiala like he was their annoying little brother in Nashville.

That team is just gross, it seems like they have this weird arrogance even though they’re not very good. My Preds hate probably stems from Johansen – I remember when the Wild were in on him… dodged a bullet there.

tswoboda wrote:

That team is just gross, it seems like they have this weird arrogance even though they’re not very good. My Preds hate probably stems from Johansen – I remember when the Wild were in on him… dodged a bullet there.

This 100%… I really wanted D-Lo to shut Johansen up…he was way too cocky out there taking liberties with Ek and Fiala…him not getting any penalty in that scrum when Camorossa did drove me up the wall, he was spearing & punching players directly in front of the Refs and got nothing….

I’d be curious to see how Fiala’s production (AFTER Boldy was called up) compares with Kirill’s during the same timeframe… Fiala has a HUGE argument that his production the last 2 years has been hampered by the lack of skill he played with…I really can’t argue with him either….

JoeMX1825 wrote:

This is a major misstep by Wild management. I think BG let himself be influenced by Evason on this one a bit too much.

I wouldn’t put too much blame on Management, they apparently offered him a decent offer based on his comps a year ago and he declined it. It didn’t help that 2 shortended covid seasons didn’t give a proper look at his development & potential (He always had huge good & bad swings since he got here, was never consistant)

How would we be feeling if we offered him the $7-8 million over X years he was looking for a year ago and he remained all season in the terrible scoring rut he started the first 25 games in?

Losing Fiala and replacing him with prospects and picks obviously won’t immediately replace his production, but it will allow the Wild to extend Boldy without offersheet worries, resign Middleton long term and perhaps Fleury and others…
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If you credit management for getting KK here you have to lay the Fiala fiasco at their feet as well. It cuts both ways. Fact is Fiala did not remain in a scoring slump and he most likely is going to be a 100 point player soon. He drives as much offense as KK does who also had a slow start. Is there any way BG or Evason could have foreseen Fiala blowing it up like this? Maybe not but they didn’t look for it either. Fiala has been the red haired step child for about three years now. He stood by and watched big contracts handed out to Ek and Spurgeon while he had been their leading scorer for two years. And then getting to play with basically third liners most of the season and he still somehow produces. It should have not shocked anyone that when Boldy showed up and was paired with Fiala it took off. Put a player like Fiala with other talented players and boom.

Then Greenway, Merrill and Goligoski all get extensions during the season. All those extensions could have waited and they could have reevaluated priorities at the end of the season. BG has effectively made it impossible to resign Fiala now because his mind was made up long ago. Management mishandled this one and there is no way to win this now. The team will regress with Fiala’s absence.

I think the shine is off Fluery. He has looked down right bad at times. I get it we need a goal tender until Wallstedt gets here and like Rossi there are no guarantees he thrives at the NHL level. I now think Talbot is going to make or break it for the Wild in the playoffs. The Wild can’t take their foot of the gas now. Injuries or not they need to put the best people they have out there. Home ice is almost a must to take on the Blues.

Ice Cap wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>tswoboda wrote:</div>
Fiala loves scoring in Nashville, loves it. Danced Duchene Granlund and his buddy Josi on that wicked backhander. Was chirping the Nashville bench after the fly by

He will be doing it to us soon enough. There will be no love lost between Fiala and BG or Evason when he leaves I’m sure of that. BG missed his chance on Fiala. Not only missed it but pretty much just brushed him off. I think Evason had as much or more to do with it than BG. Even now Evason has a hard time to give Fiala any high praise. There is no way to win a Fiala trade. Draft picks and prospects don’t replace the production Fiala provides. This is a major misstep by Wild management. I think BG let himself be influenced by Evason on this one a bit too much.

Don’t worry it won’t be but a game a year when BG ships him to Ottawa.

Home ice is only worth 1 game.

You are right didn’t need to extend those guys but they also have to have 20 guys on the roster.

Ice Cap wrote:

If you credit management for getting KK here you have to lay the Fiala fiasco at their feet as well.

I don’t give much credit the GMBG group for getting Kaprizov to initially sign, it was going to happen 2 years ago no matter who the GM was… without knowing all the details (what $ was Kaprizov camp asking for? vs the $9aav GMBG finally settled on?) we can’t really say who won the negotiation? What we do know is that we have a legit top 5 scorer in the league signed up for 4 more years at a value $9aav contract…