2022 MN WILD/NHL THREAD

CaptainMusky wrote:

I wouldnt write off the Wild as a cup contender over the next few years. It is going to take a lot of things to fall into place, but look what Montreal did last year. Yeah, that was a strange season with the conferences all messed up, but catch lightning in a bottle and it could happen.

Everything pretty much fell into place for them this year. I believe nine players had individual career years. Franchise records were set, scoring records were rewritten mostly by KK. League records including the most comeback wins being two goals down. Actually that record made me a bit uneasy as it means you are playing from behind too much and those magical comebacks are going to fade eventually and they did especially in the playoffs. The Wild just had a longer than usual run at it.

Nope this was the year for probably the next four. That was written about in numerous blogs talked about on all the studio shows and talked about even here extensively. Sure anything can happen as it did with Montreal but it’s hard to imagine how if it didn’t happen this year.

Right, a lot of things happened that really no one saw coming. It was a special year and really a bummer it ended so quickly, but there is no shame losing to the Blues. They are a solid team and took the Avs to OT last night albeit with their goalie standing on his head. Seems like Binner might be back which is what I was a afraid of when they made the switch against us.
Im a glass half full guy. I wont write this team off until they show me I should. Lots of questions about what is going to happen and I think big changes will be made and it will allow them to continue being competitive.

oh and they have the #3 Prospect pool in the entire league judged by guys who’s job it is to know…and they expect to add several more top prosptects to that list in this draft with at least 3 picks in the top 56, and likely more to come via trades…The Iowa Wild feeder system will be sending top prospects up to the NHL for years to come and this also gives GMBG poker chips (we can’t expect to keep/play/afford all of our prospects) to trade for established players in the offseason and/or the trade deadline.

So how many top prospects are in the #3 pool? How many would you wager become better than average NHL’ers on a consistent basis and how long would you say it would take for them to develop to that level?

I think Guerin does a great job, and he looked at Suter/Parise cuts as step one, this season/offseason is step 2 and the entire roster (save Brodin, Ek, Spurgeon and Kirill) likely to be turned over sooner rather than later. Plenty of moves to be made this offseason, and more the following as his drafted guys develop and move onto the big league club. Those guys mentioned earlier, and Merrill and Greenway are the only players signed beyond 2024, I’m sure a few others will get extended but not many imo.

Ice Cap wrote:

So how many top prospects are in the #3 pool? How many would you wager become better than average NHL’ers on a consistent basis and how long would you say it would take for them to develop to that level?

Rossi, Wallstedt, Lambos, Addison are the top prospects per Scott Wheeler and only 2 have played any NHL games. Beckman will get another good look next year. Khusnutidinov is going to be down the road a ways because of his KHL contract. Dewar will see a lot of ice. Pavel Novak recently signed with the Wild and would probably project a couple years out before getting a shot, but he did really well this year. Its really tough to say who will turn out, but the fact remains that the experts all feel the Wild have a strong pool. They could turn out to be duds, but when you have a deep pool a few of those is OK because there could also be a surprise in there.

Ice Cap wrote:

So how many top prospects are in the #3 pool? How many would you wager become better than average NHL’ers on a consistent basis and how long would you say it would take for them to develop to that level?

To start, of course no prospect is a guarentee, but how do you think players end up in the NHL, they just don’t one day appear on the ice at the X…would you rather have a top ranked prospect pool or bottom ranked pool? and typically the top ranked pools are teams that have SUCKED the past 3-5 seasons and picking in the top 5 of the draft, the Wild have made the playoffs like 9 of the past 10 seasons and the highest we’ve picked in that time has been 9 when we took Rossi.

Boldy/Rossi/Wallstedt are all ranked tier 1 prospects, these are expected to be top 3 forwards and a franchise starter in the goalie position’s case. Boldy was on a 75+ point pace and likely Calder finalists had he played all season, but 2 ankle injuries early on derailed that…but he’s a great example of a prospect coming upto the NHL and having an immediate positive impact on a $900k contract, something the Wild will rely upon the next few years..

The next tier 2 prospects are expected to become everyday NHL players, players include Addison, Lambos, Khusnidinov, Peart, Hunt, O’Rourke

final tier 3 includes players that have a good shot of making an NHL team, but their impact is expected to be low, players like Beckman, Novak, Hentges, Nesterenko, Firstov

Now some of these players can move up/down the tiers depending on how their development goes, but it paints a projection of what’s coming up the feeder chain. It typically takes an 18 year old drafted player 2-4 years to make the NHL (again totally depends on their development and 1st rounders typcially have a much higher % of making in sooner vs later drafted players. For every top pick like #2 overall Quinton Byfield that takes 2 years to make the NHL, there’s a kid like Seth Jarvis who makes the NHL his 1st season…most experts agree Rossi would have made the Wild his 1st year had he not contracted Myocarditis..

So you can see a steady stream of top prospects that should start making their way into the Wild lineup this upcomming season and for years to come, if GMBG can get a top 5 pick in this years draft for Fiala and still keep his other 3 picks in the first 56, it will only add more top talent to join the back of the pipeline…

The other thing to understand about young prospects is that it’s not like at the end of every NHL season each team has 2-3 players that retire. There’s only 21 spots on the roster each season, each NHL team typcially drafts between 6-9 players every year, just doing the math you will always have a backlog of young prospects every year and not enough retired players to open spots for them. So this adds to the timeline that prospects stay in the minors, even though they might be ready for the NHL, there’s just no place to put them or the guy you would like to replace them with has 3 years left on his contract and you can’t find another team to trade him to…A good exmaple of this is Calen Addison, he’s proven he can play in the NHL, but this season and next season we already have 6 Defenseman under contract…where do you play him then? He’s was the odd man out becuase he’s the only one who can be sent down to Iowa and not have to go through waivers, I don’t think he qualifies for that next season so a decision will need to be made about keeping him in the organization…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

This drop in production was perfectly expected by the Wild brass when they originaly offered the contracts and had these final 3 seasons costing the Wild only $1 million each, but we all know how the NHL retroactively applied new rules to the contracts and the rest is buyout history…

Yes their salary would have gone down, but they were still both on full NTC clauses AND obviously were also 1-way contracts so as long as they were available they would have been tying up roster spots regardless of production.

It was still insane to offer ANY player a 13-year contract AND a full NTC in today’s NHL. But doing it times 2 in a single day? Lunacy. There’s dumb. There’s dumber. And then there’s the Wild GMs of the past.

GMBG has some tough decisions ahead, but at least IMO he’s the first Wild GM that’s anywhere near major-league caliber. The rest of the Wild GMs combined were barely qualified to manage a lemonade stand.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

It was still insane to offer ANY player a 13-year contract AND a full NTC in today’s NHL. But doing it times 2 in a single day? Lunacy. There’s dumb. There’s dumber. And then there’s the Wild GMs of the past.

There were 30 other GMs that would have done the same thing if they had the means to. Parise turned down MORE money to come here. It wasnt a mistake doing it. Had the NHL not done the Cap Recapture thing this would have never been an issue, but because of those two deals and Shea Weber the NHL made a change and made it retroactively effective dooming teams who had done those deals. Previously they could have just bought them out late in the contract and a severely reduced cap hit. The NHL is to blame not Fletcher.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>JoeMX1825 wrote:</div>
This drop in production was perfectly expected by the Wild brass when they originaly offered the contracts and had these final 3 seasons costing the Wild only $1 million each, but we all know how the NHL retroactively applied new rules to the contracts and the rest is buyout history…

Yes their salary would have gone down, but they were still both on full NTC clauses AND obviously were also 1-way contracts so as long as they were available they would have been tying up roster spots regardless of production.

It was still insane to offer ANY player a 13-year contract AND a full NTC in today’s NHL. But doing it times 2 in a single day? Lunacy. There’s dumb. There’s dumber. And then there’s the Wild GMs of the past.

GMBG has some tough decisions ahead, but at least IMO he’s the first Wild GM that’s anywhere near major-league caliber. The rest of the Wild GMs combined were barely qualified to manage a lemonade stand.

I forgot to mention the plan was likely to then just buy out their remaining 3 years at $3 million total spread out over 6 years… so the contracts were truly written up as 10 year deals…as mentioned, other teams we’re willing to pay them more…if the contract rules in place when these were signed were grandfathered in, we wouldn’t be having any of this mess as Zack would have been bought out last year, Suter perhaps as well (although he would still be a worthy defenseman at only a $1 million salary, locker room issues and all)

I never looked at the Blues playoff series stats for the Wild until just now, wow…our 2nd & 4th lines and 3rd pairing defense absolutely killed us…

I guess the positive way to look at this is that (outside of the 2nd line) we don’t have alot of money and term tied into these players…

Back to Sutter Parise contract topic again eh?

I don’t see the need for Flower. Waste of money in my opinion unless he signs for way less than the $3.5-4 million being thrown around to sign him. I am also a bit concerned that KK will be stuck in Russia, and will not be allowed to leave for next season. Maybe that shouldn’t be a concern, but who knows what is going to happen later this year.

Ripjiggen wrote:

Back to Sutter Parise contract topic again eh?

We’ll never hit 300 if we dont recycle topics every now and then.

Ripjiggen wrote:

Back to Sutter Parise contract topic again eh?

nah, I hope not, but their names will be mentioned everytime the media brings up the cap contraints the next 3 years…

mojogunter wrote:

I don’t see the need for Flower. Waste of money in my opinion unless he signs for way less than the $3.5-4 million being thrown around to sign him. I am also a bit concerned that KK will be stuck in Russia, and will not be allowed to leave for next season. Maybe that shouldn’t be a concern, but who knows what is going to happen later this year.

If he is so will lots of other Russian players…Wild tank and get a top 5 pick. Win-Win

mojogunter wrote:

I am also a bit concerned that KK will be stuck in Russia

sweet, then his contract extends another year when we have capspace

others have mentioned their agents would NEVER let them leave if there wasnt gaurentees they could get back into the USA next season….

CaptainMusky wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Ripjiggen wrote:</div>
Back to Sutter Parise contract topic again eh?

We’ll never hit 300 if we dont recycle topics every now and then.

Just don’t see the need to discuss the contracts that were offered x amount of years ago and justifying them or ripping them. Not directed at you in particular Capt.

As far as goalies they have to move on someone as they only have 1 NHL goalie under contract for next season.

Is Hunter Jones pretty worthless at this point. He was drafted in second round and his stats with Iowa have been pretty dismal. Then again his stats in juniors were not that great either.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

others have mentioned their agents would NEVER let them leave if there wasnt gaurentees they could get back into the USA next season….

IDK if they could stay since they come here on a work VISA right? That has a defined start and end date which I would imagine would coincide with the NHL season no?

I wonder if he can’t get here then would his salary be off the books, and his new contract not kick in until he was able to play? That would really be a win win if he can’t play. I doubt this situation has happened before if it comes up.

Ripjiggen wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>mojogunter wrote:</div>
I don’t see the need for Flower. Waste of money in my opinion unless he signs for way less than the $3.5-4 million being thrown around to sign him. I am also a bit concerned that KK will be stuck in Russia, and will not be allowed to leave for next season. Maybe that shouldn’t be a concern, but who knows what is going to happen later this year.

If he is so will lots of other Russian players…Wild tank and get a top 5 pick. Win-Win

mojogunter wrote:

I wonder if he can’t get here then would his salary be off the books, and his new contract not kick in until he was able to play? That would really be a win win if he can’t play. I doubt this situation has happened before if it comes up.

This season was the first of his 5 year deal…if Russian players somehow couldn’t get into the US next season I would imagine the NHL would handle it the same way the NFL handled players who opted out last year for covid reasons, just push their existing contract out another season…

If Russians are stuck in Russia next year then they are suspended without pay. Contract year goes on but they don’t get paid and don’t count against the cap.

Also the Suter Parise buyout stuff stated here isn’t true. Their buyout rules never changed, the only thing that changed is if they would have retired… and neither was ready to retire so the cap recapture is mostly a moot point. 13 year contracts were signed because every GM signing them knew they would be fired well before having to deal with back end of them.

tswoboda wrote:

The goalie tandem was very good after the trade deadline, so it makes sense why they’d want to run it back. The concern is when you look at the entire seasons of Talbot and Fleury, both were well below average starters last season and both are on the wrong side of 35. You also run into the same situation at playoffs next year where if you have 2 goalies, you really have none.

I’m not saying they’ll be bad, they were actually very good together, just that there’s plenty of reason for caution. Not really sure how they could do better starting from scratch either. Honestly though it doesn’t feel like Flower really wants to sign here anyway. Most of the chatter has him going back to Pittsburgh which makes a ton of sense.

Finally someone with some sense about this topic.

This Canuck hockey game is wild. First to double digits wins.

Ripjiggen wrote:

This Canuck hockey game is wild. First to double digits wins.

I watched the first two periods and it was like watching a video game.

Ian Cole with the OT winner for the Canes last night good for him! Nino hit the pipe on a breakaway for the tie in the first. Hasn’t quite shaken the Wild jinx yet!!

Another player the Wild could target IF they can somehow get the #2 pick away from the Devils for Fiala is:

Draft Player Profile – Juraj Slafkovský
6’4″ 225 winger, Shoots Left
Plays for a Slovakia Men’s League Club Team
He can skate, has a filthy set of hands for a big guy, can score and is super physical…
He already has an NHL frame and most think he could only be 1-2 years away from the NHL. He hasn’t had a ton of experience playing top competition yet, Slovakia league is many levels below AHL.

Here’s a highlight video of him – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7inWeDu3_hw

I’m a draft nut so i’ll be posting players I think the Wild could legitimately get at their own pick (likely #25-27) and our wish list with a top 7 pick (possible Fiala trade return)

The problem with trading Fiala is he is a UFA after next season. Teams are going to want to have a extension in place for him before a trade. Otherwise who is going to want to trade a high round draft pick for a one year and possibly gone player. Depending on what Fiala is going to ask for that may limit the number of teams interested and we are only talking about two as it is. And will his lack of playoff performance make teams skittish?

At this point BG and Evason just want him gone much the same way of Parise and Suter. They may not get for him what we think they will. Not to mention teams are well aware of the Wild’s cap space issue and will use that to drive hard bargains.

There will be more than two teams interested in Fiala. The question is will he share that same interest. I believe his fiance is a model or aspiring one so a location to exploit those talents would be desirable hence the reason I mentioned LA. Do we honestly think NJ would give up the #2 pick? That seems pretty hefty to me but if we could swing that it would be awesome.