2022 MN WILD/NHL THREAD

JoeMX1825 wrote:

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…

All Situations:
32 G – 32 A – 64 P in 47 games (888:31 TOI)
26 G – 37 A – 63 P in 48 games (847:34 TOI)

5v5:
14 G – 17 A – 31 P in 47 games (677:03 TOI)
20 G – 22 A – 42 P in 48 games (622:40 TOI)

People forget Fiala shot 3% and led the league in posts and crossbars until Christmas. His season actually turned around before Boldy was called up, 3G & 2A in the 4 games before getting Boldy on his line. Playing with Boldy certainly elevates his game, but it’s not like he wasn’t getting 10 chances a game and driving offense before that too. Pucks just weren’t finding the twine.

it should also be noted that Ek, Greenway, Spurgeon, Brodin (pretty much EVERY contract GMBG has signed) has been the player taking less than what their perceived market value was…Fiala has every right NOT to do that, but it appears like he’s the only one (stress we don’t know all the contract offer facts)

tswoboda wrote:

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

All Situations:
32 G – 32 A – 64 P in 47 games (888:31 TOI)
26 G – 37 A – 63 P in 48 games (847:34 TOI)

5v5:
14 G – 17 A – 31 P in 47 games (677:03 TOI)
20 G – 22 A – 42 P in 48 games (622:40 TOI)

People forget Fiala shot 3% and led the league in posts and crossbars until Christmas. His season actually turned around before Boldy was called up, 3G & 2A in the 4 games before getting Boldy on his line. Playing with Boldy certainly elevates his game, but it’s not like he wasn’t getting 10 chances a game and driving offense before that too. Pucks just weren’t finding the twine.

thx for doing the legwork..

Didn’t forget, but everybody hits posts and crossbars, but agree he was overly cursed early in the season, his talent alone can equate to short spurts of individual production, but it’s the sustained production that elevates good players to great players, he’s absolutely done that the last half of the season…

No matter how you slice it, it’s shaping up to be quite the historic season for this crew. Fiala is 2 points from moving into 2nd for all time team season points. Zucci isn’t far behind and Hartman is having a very respectable season. If they can get/stay healthy, especially on D, postseason should be fun.

List is old, Fiala is already in sole 2nd place with 84 points. Watching the point totals continue to climb is truly surreal. I remember asking last summer if they’ve ever even had a point-per-game player. The answer was 1 season of Gaborik. Once in 20 years!

I think the coaching staff deserves a lot of credit for the big point totals too. It’s not going to happen without elite players, but 10+ players hitting career highs doesn’t just randomly happen either. The system they play with D constantly jumping in is leading to higher scoring games. Not great for contract negotiations!!

JoeMX1825 wrote:

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….

Welcome to an early preview of Playoff Officiating. Whistle in the pocket and head up the @ss. You haven’t seen the last of that type of bull$hit call. It’ll only get worse from here for the Wild.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

I don’t give much credit the GMBG group for getting Kaprizov to initially sign…

Correct, but what I DO give GMBG credit for was that he stopped treating Kaprizov like dogsh!t stuck on the bottom of the Wild’s shoe the way Fletcher did. BG made KK WANT to play HERE. Not just want to play in the NHL, but want to play in Minnesota.

Without this attitude shift, we’d have another Gaborik and we would be now looking at KK’s last year in MN.

Fletcher (or somebody near and dear to him) had a clear mental problem with Russian players. It ain’t about who he drafted, it’s about who he passed on and how the organization treted Russian players.

I recall Fiala being totally snake bitten in the playoffs last year against Vegas and that seemed to carry over to the start of this season. Fluery was both good and lucky during that series. The signs have been there for awhile with Fiala. Too much water under the bridge between him and Evason.

Not so sure we “bury” Fiala in Ottowa. He will have his choice of places I believe right? If I understand this correctly BG has to give him a qualifying offer. He then signs it or don’t. After that he can accept a offer from anyone. Correct? I have no reasoning behind it but for some reason I see him in a LA jersey.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

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

The ‘team in a box’ nickname just doesn’t quite hit the same after the Seattle draft.

I’m in the minority but as a guy who likes to watch NHL playoff hockey, I would love to see Vegas make the playoffs. I know that won’t happen, but man The Stars might be the most boring team in the league to watch. An Aves/Knights first round matchup would be poetry and probably even better for the Wild than giving Colorado a free pass to the 2nd round through Dallas. As Daryl Sutter would say, It’ll be a waste of 8 days.

Ice Cap wrote:

I recall Fiala being totally snake bitten in the playoffs last year against Vegas and that seemed to carry over to the start of this season. Fluery was both good and lucky during that series. The signs have been there for awhile with Fiala. Too much water under the bridge between him and Evason.

Not so sure we “bury” Fiala in Ottowa. He will have his choice of places I believe right? If I understand this correctly BG has to give him a qualifying offer. He then signs it or don’t. After that he can accept a offer from anyone. Correct? I have no reasoning behind it but for some reason I see him in a LA jersey.

Most likely traded before that offer. No?

Welcome to an early preview of Playoff Officiating. Whistle in the pocket and head up the @ss. You haven’t seen the last of that type of bull$hit call. It’ll only get worse from here

If the refs keep there whistle in their pocket during the playoffs that will only help their cause. Special teams is not their specialty. 5 on 5 however they are as good as anyone.

I just want the Vegas game against the Blues to mean something, would love to see the Blues lose and maybe an impactful player gets knicked up…

Ice Cap wrote:

Not so sure we “bury” Fiala in Ottowa. He will have his choice of places I believe right? If I understand this correctly BG has to give him a qualifying offer. He then signs it or don’t. After that he can accept a offer from anyone. Correct? I have no reasoning behind it but for some reason I see him in a LA jersey.

IF he makes it past the draft… They will tender him a qualifying offer (QO). The QO is set in stone at 1 year x $5.1million (previous salary). He will decline the QO and then he becomes a Restricted Free Agent (RFA). As an RFA the Wild retain his signing rights so he can traded but he can also negotiate and sign an offer sheet with another team. If he elects arbitration then he cannot sign an offer sheet, but I doubt he’ll go for arbitration because he wants a long term deal. He will have some say in a trade because he could refuse to sign a long term deal with certain teams which would essentially kill his trade value to those teams.

They should trade Fiala to whoever offers the best package – Ottawa has been scouting him and wanting him all season. Aside from Sanderson, The Sens don’t really have any top prospects to offer as all their good young players are in the NHL and are probably untouchable (Batherson, Norris, Stutzle) – but they will have a high draft pick.

The Ottawa comment from me was more tongue and cheek. I just know they are very interested in him have the space to sign him and have some assets to trade for him.

We are not the only team that is going to lose high end talent.

I am not going to worry about Fiala situation until after their run to the Cup finals. 😎
Maybe someone goes on LTIR after hoisting the cup and straining their wrist.

The Sens will never trade Sanderson (they think he’s Bobby Orr Jr) but they have a few really good prospects (Ridley Grieg/Shane Pinto) and as mentioned a likely top 5 pick in this draft as well as two 2nd rounders…..

tswoboda wrote:

The ‘team in a box’ nickname just doesn’t quite hit the same after the Seattle draft.

That was because Seattle totally Risebroughed that draft. They were getting the same looks that The MN Wild draft table used to get when Douggie was blowing our R1 picks on the likes of AJ Thelen and Superstar Colton Ghillies.

And nothing is going to make up for he league making MN and CBJ share an expansion draft. Total d!ck move.

Sorry not sorry, there Foldin’ Knights. Sugar Daddy Gary ain’t gonna give you any more freebees, time to do it the hard way like everybody else.

I think Judd/GMBG and the scouting team will be very aggressive in this years draft in terms of moving up and grabbing top forward talent, adding additional picks just allows them more ammo to move up higher. This draft has 6-8 elite prospects that are likely only 1-2 years away from the NHL, after that the talent drops down a level or 2.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

That was because Seattle totally Risebroughed that draft. They were getting the same looks that The MN Wild draft table used to get when Douggie was blowing our R1 picks on the likes of AJ Thelen and Superstar Colton Ghillies.

And nothing is going to make up for he league making MN and CBJ share an expansion draft. Total d!ck move.

Sorry not sorry, there Foldin’ Knights. Sugar Daddy Gary ain’t gonna give you any more freebees, time to do it the hard way like everybody else.

Ahh the bitter taste is still there after 22 years.

I get that revisionist history is easy, but Vegas wasn’t given anything. They took a pile of draft picks and young players from stupid GMs who needed a trial run before getting it right in Seattle. Their first year cup run was nothing but dumb luck, every analyst and fan predicted them finishing bottom 5 of the league their first season. They had 18 players set career highs and their goalie, who just lost his job to a 20 year old, also decided to be vezina caliber again. Compare that to Seattle who’s Vezina finalist goalie decided to be by far the worst goalie in the league.

Comparing the expansion draft for Vegas and CBJ/MIN is really not fair. True Vegas had an instantly capable team, but the expansion fee is grotesquely higher than for previous expansion teams so they had to change it up to make it worth it for the new ownership. If they would have done it the way CBJ and MIN did, they would have been terrible to begin with and Bettman and the NHL didnt want a market like Vegas to flounder after all the money they were putting in

I think expansion fees for both drafts fall right in line with club values at the time, NHL teams just weren’t worth much in the 90s and early 2000s. But the expansion rules for the Wild and all the 90s expansion drafts were a complete joke. The NHL had dumb expansion rules and they finally fixed them before the Vegas draft, they gave new teams a chance to be competitive. But holding a grudge against Vegas 20 years later for the NHL giving them a chance to be good is just TMSF jealousy. Did I get the acronym right?

I dont hold a grudge against Vegas, they played the hand they were dealt. I blame the NHL for changing the rules, but I get why it was done. Its a credit to Vegas for how they handled it vs SEA because they did a terrible job. I think they thought they were going to fleece teams too and expected too much and floundered.

I think Seattle’s biggest mistake was hiring Hakstol.

The biggest difference is how the other GMs handled it…
In 2017 GMs said “OMG will you please accept Kaprizov or Tuch to spare Matt dumba?” and “You can have this Shea Theodore kid, he’s just a prospect” and “How many high first round picks would you like”
2021 GMs were like “Go ahead and take Tarasenko for free, I dare ya” and “You want our Norris winning captain Mark Giordano, you can have him”

for those interested, Freddy Hockey is shooting pucks in his backyard right now on Ballys

JoeMX1825 wrote:

for those interested, Freddy Hockey is shooting pucks in his backyard right now on Ballys

As much as we dogged that signing, he has actually really played well lately. He has been putting up points and playing well defensively.
Is he working on faceoffs? Sorry, couldnt resist as we havent talked about that in a couple pages.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Is he working on faceoffs? Sorry, couldnt resist as we havent talked about that in a couple pages.

He’s been pretty good lately, in fact it seems like everyone has done alot BETTER lately…but we’re still bad…

Just watching the game replay and Spurgeon looks like his right shoulder got twisted and driven hard into the boards, yet he threw his stick down the tunnel with his right arm without any noticable discomfort, it looked like he was favoring the left shoulder… hopefully its just a bad muscle bruise or a strain..

Yeah I think that was the closest I’ve ever seen Spurgeon to being mad.

Interesting article from The Athletic last week pointing to Spurgeon being terrible in the playoffs. It was the piece about if size is important for playoffs and trying to prove/disprove a trend that small players are worse in the playoffs. The obvious big name examples are Marner and Freddy’s brother Johnny… but Spurgeon was just as bad as those two if not worse based on the numbers they used in the article.

Yeah, I saw that article too and it was quite interesting. Its amazing the types of analysis these nerds can come up with. It doesnt always mean cause and effect, but it gets you thinking.

While there’s always been an increased level of physicallity in the playoffs, it seems like the past 5 years or so there’s an emphasis on finishing EVERY check possible, obviously this wears on the smaller framed players (especially Defensman who are retrieving dump-ins all game)

It will be interesting to see how Torrey Krug holds up during the playoff series, I would think the Wild’s 3rd & 4th lines will focus on finishing checks on him for sure…

The opening few shifts of the start of the playoff series are always the craziest physical 1-2 minutes of hockey all year…

Yeah you need to take it with a grain of salt, but it was at least more in depth than simply saying well the cup winners had big D so you need big D to win the cup. It highlighted exactly what Joe said in that it’s been the big size change since the Caps won the cup. Before that we had the little dynasties of the Pens and Blackhawks. My biggest takeaway was that Spurgeon fit the mold with Gaudreau and Marner, and I somehow never realized that before. And it has nothing to do with him getting run down and hurt, it’s about him just not being as effective in a more physical game.

This Torey Krug?? Yeah I think he’ll be fine…

Lol, simple physics on that hit, Krug going 100 mph hits a guy who put the brakes on and is basically standing still…

Torey Krug’s been in 2 Stanley cup finals and probably played 100 NHL playoff games. I don’t think it’s a big mystery how he is going to handle playoff hockey.

Man I wish players were still allowed to play when their helmet pops off.