2022 MN WILD/NHL THREAD

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

All we need is Rask.
All we need is Rask.
All we need is Rask, Rask, Rask.
Vic is all we need.

Besides being just awesome on the ice, can we talk about about his totally awesome hair for a minute? Gawd, it’s just terrific seeing the dual exhaust blowing in the slipstream over each shoulder. Rasklicious.

And my God but what’s gotten into Greenway? Second game in a row playing like a beast. He was just awesome, how in the hell can we get him to play like that every game?

Seriously, Rask has taken way too much crap in MN. What else can you ask from the guy? Total respect to him for going out there and doing what he’s been asked to do to the best of his ability.

Benn must have blown half a dozen Grade A scoring chances last night. He couldn’t find his stick with both hands.

we’re still in the 3-5 game post Having a 1-1 talk with the coach honeymoon period with Greenway…we know how this will play out… maybe the trick is to just schedule 1-1 talks with him every 5 games?

I’m not feeling sorry for Rask one bit, he’s sat in the press box the last 3-4 weeks eating popcorn making more $ most humans earn in a lifetime!

I agree his salad is on point though! he’s almost reached the “Legends of the Fall” status!

Ice Cap wrote:

KK looked the best he has but I’m not ready to say he’s back. His goal was a empty net tap in from a stellar Zuccarello pass. Any one on the team could have tapped it in especially Ek it was that close in! His pass to Gaudreau was a heads up play but a lot of luck involved. Off a defenders skate then off the side of the net directly onto Gaudreau’s stick. Seems he finally had a little more room last night because he was able to skate on his edges in the O zone more than he has but that may be due to the Stars pi$$ poor play all night.

Four points certainly is going to boost his confidence and hopefully that’s all he needed. The schedule going forward all the way through the month of December is a tough one. After this road trip we have the Jets and then the Lightning again and end with the Yotes, followed by the Devils and Toronto at home.
Back on the road to Edmonton and McDavid and company then the Sharks, Kings and Vegas all on the road. That’s followed by Carolina, Buffalo and the Panthers at home. Dallas on the road followed by a home game against the Wings and then finally end the month away at the Jets.

We will know a lot more about this team at the end of this stretch I think.

I think last nights game was a good indication of what this team is capable of when it’s stars produce like they should and you add the bottom 6 scoring like we’ve always been getting… explosive!

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

All we need is Rask.
All we need is Rask.
All we need is Rask, Rask, Rask.
Vic is all we need.

Besides being just awesome on the ice, can we talk about about his totally awesome hair for a minute? Gawd, it’s just terrific seeing the dual exhaust blowing in the slipstream over each shoulder. Rasklicious.

And my God but what’s gotten into Greenway? Second game in a row playing like a beast. He was just awesome, how in the hell can we get him to play like that every game?

Seriously, Rask has taken way too much crap in MN. What else can you ask from the guy? Total respect to him for going out there and doing what he’s been asked to do to the best of his ability.

Benn must have blown half a dozen Grade A scoring chances last night. He couldn’t find his stick with both hands.

Grouse tipping the bottle back early today? LOL

Is anyone else more annoyed this year looking at the standings and seeing teams with less wins have the same or more points than the wild. Take Calgary for instance. The have 9 wins with 8 losses and have more points than the Wild who are 11-5. Jets 9 wins 7 loses same points as the Wild. I know it balances out and Wild will eventually have a third number in their standings but my OCD is kicking in.

Yeah it pays to lose in OT or shootout vs lose in regulation. Its the dreaded 3 pt vs 2 pt game. The Wild used to live and die by that only a few years ago.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

i hear ya, that 1 vote (from the Dallas beat writer) was a travesty…

That’s not true, Joe.

tswoboda wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>JoeMX1825 wrote:</div>
i hear ya, that 1 vote (from the Dallas beat writer) was a travesty…

That’s not true, Joe.

You are correct! I remember hearing Lavelle Neil push that rumor on KFAN the day after…It was some Swedish NHL blogger/reporter, mission accomplished by his vote, we all know his name now…

Who is that guy and why is he voting on NHL awards? I hope they kick him out this year.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Grouse tipping the bottle back early today? LOL

You’re just jealous that I was the first ever to use “Rasklicious” in an IDO post. Don’t be bitter. You’ll get past it someday.

Totally agree Deano should just put a recurring event on his calendar to remind himself to chew Greenway’s ass out every 5 days. Even if he doesn’t deserve it, if you wait 6 days, he’ll definitely deserve it so might as well get ahead of it.

Ripjiggen wrote:

Is anyone else more annoyed this year looking at the standings and seeing teams with less wins have the same or more points than the wild. Take Calgary for instance. The have 9 wins with 8 losses and have more points than the Wild who are 11-5. Jets 9 wins 7 loses same points as the Wild. I know it balances out and Wild will eventually have a third number in their standings but my OCD is kicking in.

First thing to do when using the NHL Standings site is to click on “P%”
Second thing is to call Gary and tell him shootouts and loser points are the worst part of the NHL.

Seriously I turn on every game that goes to 3v3 OT… it’s electric hockey. I also turn those games off if they make it to the shootout.

Jets/Oilers last night featured another 4 forward OT powerplay. Jets didn’t score but they hit a post and had about 5 grade A chances that didn’t go in.

Rossi with 3 assists, Boldy with a goal and assist half way through the 2nd period tonight in Iowa. Rossi extended his point streak to 9 games! He Leads the Wild in points despite missing some games due to the flu bug a few weeks ago…

Future looks pretty damn bright!

If Rossi keeps this up I don’t see how the Wild can possibly keep him down there given their glaring lack of a legit center. Especially if Fiala and KK continue to struggle to score. They may just have to burn a year of his elc and worry about it two years down the road.

I don’t know that trading a Dumba, Fiala, Greenway or any combination to get a center makes much sense when you have one in the minors tearing it up. I get it we are eventually not going to be able to sign all those guys at some point but when you are playing well enough to be winning as they are do you want to mess with the chemistry?

Boldy added another goal, 2G1A in his first game of the season after injury, I dont think he’ll be down in Iowa for long…

Sheesh what a return for Boldy last night! Rossi had a game too. Love to see it.

Ice Cap wrote:

If Rossi keeps this up I don’t see how the Wild can possibly keep him down there given their glaring lack of a legit center.

Bringing Rossi up for more than 9 games would burn a year of his ELC contract for a partial season of play. This creates an even bigger cap problem down the road when we are taking the max cap hit for the S/P buyouts because then you need to sign Rossi to a full contract.

That means am even bigger problem with cap space down the road.

Managing the players ELCs to get key players past the end of the buyouts vs win now is the problem.

If on the NHL roster Rossi wouldn’t get the minutes and special teams time he is in Iowa. No doubt he’ll get some time with the big club but it’s better for his development and for our future he plays less than 9 games in NHL.

imo you don’t miss 18 months of serious hockey and then step right into the AHL (2nd best league in the world) as a fresh 20 year old and dominate like he’s doing if you’re not a really special player…

as Grouse pointed out and we’ve talked about it before, keeping him in Iowa this season is ALL ABOUT not burning the 1st year of the ELC and instead having it expire when the major buyout pain is over with in 4 years…If Rossi was a normal player, GMBG and the Wild brass would have the easy excuse of keeping him in Iowa all year due to the lack of playing time over the past 18 months and continued recovery of his game and proper development, but Rossi is a special player and it’s pretty likely he could step into the NHL right now and be an impact player for the Wild.

Its a very tight rope GMBG is walking in terms of not pissing Rossi and the fanbase off if he keeps ripping up the AHL as he’s been doing vs doing what’s best for the team’s cap situation long term and keeping him in Iowa to slide his ELC. Billy might have said too much this preseason when he talked about how the young players will show the brass how much time they need in the AHL, he said some guys need 1-2 years, others only need 20-30 games, but it will be upto the player to determine that…well Rossi might make him eat his words a bit…

It’s a good problem to have and my guess is the team will really hype-up Boldy’s eventual call-up this season to hopefully appease some of the fanbases desire to see Rossi (at least give us one shiny new toy to watch this season)

Until then we’ll have to accept the 9 NHL games he’ll get towards the end of the season and then wait all summer at least knowing we might have finally solved our 1C problem via the draft…

I guess the question is this. How far do we think this team can take us? Are they one center away from being a bonafide contender? Do you bring Rossi up and see what he does for a couple games if it looks like he’s what we need burn his year of ELC? Do we trade a piece like Fiala, Dumba or Greenway and some draft picks to get someone like Miller or Hertl if it can be done while letting Rossi stay in Iowa? Or do we just stand pat keep the current band together and see where they take us?

I think if you trade for a center you urine Rossi off and put some doubt in his mind. Like Joe says BG may have to eat some words but apparently he has a appetite for them because he sent Beckman down after he clearly earned a spot in training camp and pre season when BG kept yapping about the youngin’s will have to earn it if they earn the spot they get it. Beckman did and there was no joy for him. I think it makes BG a little less credible in the future to these kids when he tells them something.

I think if GMBG could swing a trade that basically replaced Fiala or Dumba with a JT Miller or Bo Horvat for the next 2 years he’d do it in a heartbeat…

Fiala and Dumba have rookies that could immediately replace them in Boldy and Addison (not to the same level immediately, but comparable)

We have no immediate Center depth in the org right now besides Rossi and he wont play this year…

Man they are really going after Greenway tonight.

Good lord does Florida play fast & hard! Buckle up for 2 more periods! Fun game to watch!

Why oh why did we get a 3rd straight game with Gigi? She’s just terrible…

Did Carter drop on F bomb on the air or something? They can’t possibly be happy with how Gigi does. She seems like a nice person but she really struggles on the air.

My goodness fiala

Charlie W wrote:

My goodness fiala

He needs an exorcism or something, just nothing but bad vibes around him…

There was some torque on that snipe! First legit hard shot I’ve seen him take since the Jets game…

I’m having flashbacks tonight of wild teams of old who gave up goals right after scoring.

Dumba is killing this team defensively. Another bad step up on the second goal and couldn’t keep up with another guy on the fifth goal.

*Edit* Almost cost us on the fifth goal that was negated….ha.

mahtofire14 wrote:

Dumba is killing this team defensively. Another bad step up on the second goal and couldn’t keep up with another guy on the fifth goal.

*Edit* Almost cost us on the fifth goal that was negated….ha.

What’s scary is that Dumba had no idea Huberdeau was breaking toward the net… he thought it was a harmless 1-2

Gotta say though, Florida is on a different level. They get through the neutral zone quicker than any team I’ve seen.