2023/2024 NHL/WILD Offseason-Season-Postseason Thread

So happy to see Hynes keeping Rossi on the 1st line to build some chemistry with Kirill and Zuccy and keeping Freddy on the 4th line where he belongs…

I agree with Joe. He’s had Backstrom with him for almost his whole career feeding him on that PP. Now he has Oshie as a middle bumper type, and Carlson has been hurt a lot this season too. Other than that their PP isn’t too deadly anymore.

This is the 3rd year without the real Backstrom and it didn’t slow him down a bit the last 2 years so it’s not that. The team is bad, but they were worse last year. And not sure having a bad team around him cuts his shooting percentage by more than half.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

So happy to see Hynes keeping Rossi on the 1st line to build some chemistry with Kirill and Zuccy and keeping Freddy on the 4th line where he belongs…

Hopefully this is a one off injury riddled year for Freddy. But if not it’s a tough lesson to learn don’t give 5 year contracts to players who are a product of their coach. Any coach in the league could be fired yet this season with a few injuries and some bad goaltending.

tswoboda wrote:

This is the 3rd year without the real Backstrom and it didn’t slow him down a bit the last 2 years so it’s not that. The team is bad, but they were worse last year. And not sure having a bad team around him cuts his shooting percentage by more than half.

Kuznetsov falling apart is another factor…fewer weapons for other teams to worry about so Ovi gets more attention (hard to beleive) The games I’ve watched this year the PK just kept a guy in the Ovi office lane and Carlson was forced to either shoot or pass it to the other side boards player… anxious to see how the Wild PK plays it tonight, its like they never learn their lesson with him…

tswoboda wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>JoeMX1825 wrote:</div>
So happy to see Hynes keeping Rossi on the 1st line to build some chemistry with Kirill and Zuccy and keeping Freddy on the 4th line where he belongs…

Hopefully this is a one off injury riddled year for Freddy. But if not it’s a tough lesson to learn don’t give 5 year contracts to players who are a product of their coach. Any coach in the league could be fired yet this season with a few injuries and some bad goaltending.

it’s a movable contract at least (Center experience, low aav, 15 team no trade) and Deano will likely be back in the league soon so there’s 1 team who would be interested…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Kuznetsov falling apart is another factor…

Another guy who’s been a shell of himself since they won the cup and the league took away his PEDs.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

it’s a movable contract at least (Center experience, low aav, 15 team no trade) and Deano will likely be back in the league soon so there’s 1 team who would be interested…

LOL I remember saying this about V1Ctor Rask when Fenton got hired in Florida. Rask for Barkov and a 1st

tswoboda wrote:

Another guy who’s been a shell of himself since they won the cup and the league took away his PEDs.

Im sure he is still doing the coke.

We can criticize BG for a lot of things, but that contract that Pierre Luc Dubois got and now he is benched is not one of them. What a terrible deal.

CaptainMusky wrote:

We can criticize BG for a lot of things, but that contract that Pierre Luc Dubois got and now he is benched is not one of them. What a terrible deal.

Sure there were some big character warning signs and i’m sure the Kings thinking was/is that he would grow out of them as he matured…but the guy is a prototype Center that i’m sure alot of GMs would have loved to sign…You’d think Rob Blake did his homework on PLD’s attitude and was ok with it and having guys like Kopitar and Doughty around to straighten him out..

it’s a movable contract at least (Center experience, low aav, 15 team no trade) and Deano will likely be back in the league soon so there’s 1 team who would be interested…

Easy if you eat half the salary.

The scars on Shaws legs from all the surgeries are insane.

Faber’s value just keeps going up!

Might be a quick night for Darcy…

Hey T has Faber gotten up to 50 pt pace yet? Checks notes he scored tonight.

Dang…Ovi passes up a shot with a clear lane to the net on a 2-1… When that guy doesn’t have confidence shooting you know its not good…

Yeah Ovi doesn’t look like himself.

Does Ovi have some sort of weird, lingering injury or is it just a mental thing?

basseyes wrote:

Does Ovi have some sort of weird, lingering injury or is it just a mental thing?

It appears to be a nagging injury but he does not look the same. Which is good for us

CaptainMusky wrote:

Hey T has Faber gotten up to 50 pt pace yet? Checks notes he scored tonight.

He was up to 49.9 when he scored 2 minutes into the game but by the end of the 1st period he was back down to 49.55

Yes, those numbers are actually real

Stonehands!

big water wrote:

Yes, those numbers are actually real

LOL I love it. Thank you T!

Jeez, Caps PP looks terrible, Ovi gets no looks… They have no talent besides Ovi and Carlson…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Jeez, Caps PP looks terrible, Ovi gets no looks… They have no talent besides Ovi and Carlson…

Why is Ovi even on the pp? He looked like the kid picked last at recess kickball sitting in his office. Like he wasn’t even in the arena.

basseyes wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>JoeMX1825 wrote:</div>
Jeez, Caps PP looks terrible, Ovi gets no looks… They have no talent besides Ovi and Carlson…

Why is Ovi even on the pp? He looked like the kid picked last at recess kickball sitting in his office. Like he wasn’t even in the arena.

he basically takes up 1 of the penalty killers so it an easier 4-3 Powerplay, they just dont have the talent around him anymore to make teams pay for it…

I was at the game with the kiddo who is a big Ovi fan. He looks old. He has nobody to get him the puck in his office on the PP. They definitely didn’t park someone on him during the PP. He was open they just didn’t funnel it towards him.

Kind of sad to see someone so close to Gretzky’s record all of a sudden look 50. Camera panned over to him on the bench tonight with his helmet off, uff dah. He looked like he’s aged a lot this season. Like a president in office from year one to year 4. Really hoped he’d beat Gretzky’s record, but not looking great right now at this pace.

Ripjiggen wrote:

I was at the game with the kiddo who is a big Ovi fan. He looks old. He has nobody to get him the puck in his office on the PP. They definitely didn’t park someone on him during the PP. He was open they just didn’t funnel it towards him.

from the TV broadcast angle looking right at him as soon as the puck got to the Top QB guy (mostly Carlson) there was a Wild stick in the Ovi passing lane everytime…. He would go much higher in the zone to finally get a pass but then his only option was to pass it back..They left him open when the puck was on the far boards because that guy (Mantha?) couldn’t make that pass across ice if he wanted to. I believe he got 1 shot off when the Wild got scrambling… They tried the low to backdoor play a few times but the Wild defended it well…

It looked like they finally said Ovi wasn’t going to beat them, only took them 18 years…

basseyes wrote:

Does Ovi have some sort of weird, lingering injury or is it just a mental thing?

Yes he does, the injury is classified as OLD.

basseyes wrote:

Camera panned over to him on the bench tonight with his helmet off, uff dah. He looked like he’s aged a lot this season

very true, but he’s been grey haired and weathered for the past few years now and he still pumped in 100 goals over the last 2.5 seasons…The Caps will reload a bit this offseason and get him some help, they’ll have some capspace to spend finally…