2024/2025 NHL/WILD Offseason-Season-Postseason Thread

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

The main X factor this coming season is which goaltending crew shows up? Is it the A team or the C team?

Ding ding ding we have a winner folks

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

I’m looking for a banner year from Rossi so we can finally take out the “trade him” trash. Rossi had so many iron ringers and bad bounces last year and I feel like this year he’ll finish more.

Aside from that how many goals did he have taken away because of that stupid off-sides challenges? I can think of at least 3. He would have easily had 10 more goals adding those in and the pipes you are talking about.

It starts between the pipes. Mediocrity there and they will look similar to last year.
Spurgeon health and to some degree Brodins health will be key in keeping the puck out of the net.
If they don’t show improvement from last year I think their is a real chance this thread next year is talking about what we are going to get in a KK trade to rebuild again.

Not holding my breath on Rossi scoring goals. He’s always been more of set up guy than a shooter at every other level. Never even hit 20 goals in the AHL and had twice as many assists as goals in juniors. Can’t argue that he had a ton of chances last year though with a lot of them coming from dirty areas. Would be great if he continues that but I expect something more like the same goal total and double the assists next season.

Ripjiggen wrote:

If they don’t show improvement from last year I think their is a real chance this thread next year is talking about what we are going to get in a KK trade to rebuild again.

Get that sht outta here too

I’m only sensitive to it because it’s so true

How much of last year’s goalie mediocrity was due to replacements like Goose/ Hunt/Mermis/Bogo/Merrill getting significant games & minutes (for them) because Spurgeon was out for 80% of the season and Brodin about 25% ?

tswoboda wrote:

Not holding my breath on Rossi scoring goals. He’s always been more of set up guy than a shooter at every other level. Never even hit 20 goals in the AHL and had twice as many assists as goals in juniors. Can’t argue that he had a ton of chances last year though with a lot of them coming from dirty areas. Would be great if he continues that but I expect something more like the same goal total and double the assists next season.

Agree…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

How much of last year’s goalie mediocrity was due to replacements like Goose/ Hunt/Mermis/Bogo/Merrill getting significant games & minutes (for them) because Spurgeon was out for 80% of the season and Brodin about 25% ?

Hard to say how much of it was a 50 year old goalie and an unproven one that was by many reports out of shape.

I’d absolutely hate it, but IF we lose Kirill it’s not a franchise death sentence….it free’s up $14 million a year in capspace for free agents and we’ll likely get a decent haul of picks & prospects back…not ideal, but not the end of the world…

Why even worry about it anymore? its all Kirill’s decision… ALL of our prospects could strike superstar gold in the next 2 years but if he wants to play where he can have a house on the ocean coast with no state income taxes, he’ll go there…

ALL? Yeah I guess I could win the lottery too.

but if he wants to play where he can have a house on the ocean coast with no state income taxes, he’ll go there…

Sounds nice. I am guessing most top end FA also think like this.

Don’t think many SC teams are built by having a boat load of FA money to spend. If you don’t keep your stars in house you are a revolving door.

It would suck to lose KK for sure but that will surely be in his hands and no one else’s. Even if BG gets some more talent around him he could decide to leave anyway.

Are they any examples where a franchise player left in FA or traded the year before and it worked out well for the team? Maybe Tavares on the isle? Most end real bad for the team

tswoboda wrote:

Are they any examples where a franchise player left in FA or traded the year before and it worked out well for the team? Maybe Tavares on the isle? Most end real bad for the team

Exactly. Keep hearing “well they will have a boat load of money to spend then.” Oh yeah on who. Minny is not exactly a top destination for the top FA’s unless you are from here.

If you didn’t like some of BG signings already you better hope KK signs otherwise you are going to see all sorts of overpays and NMC.

If Kirill doesn’t re-sign then GMBG is likely gone and we’ll have a whole new philosophy on how to build the Wild and none of these decisions will matter as players will get moved out that don’t fit the new team mold…

So another rebuild.
Like I said revolving door.
By next summer we should know if it is going to be another five years of wait and see.

Maybe they should offer KK the new naming rights to the arena for free..

well, USA hockey seems to think GMBG knows what he’s doing in terms of building a hockey team since they gave him the keys to 2 of the biggest USA Hockey events the world has seen in the past 15-20 years with what’s likely the greatest USA hockey talent ever available?

So maybe this is all part of the plan…

Ripjiggen wrote:

By next summer we should know if it is going to be another five years of wait and see.

King Leon will be the case study future top UFA’s build their playbook around… I used to think the San Jose rumors were just silly, but if they offer him a max $16.7aav would he say no? He could demand the Oilers to only trade him to San Jose or he’ll just play out his Oilers contract and they get no compensation back, thus reducing the Oilers return quite substantially and keeping the young core of Sharks prospects in their system to build around him with…

Building a team with zero money and the best developed players in the country is slightly different I would think.

Ripjiggen wrote:

Building a team with zero money and the best developed players in the country is slightly different I would think.

maybe, but with all the smoke around Billy it adds to the intrigue of why they picked him unless they thought he had the best plan…

Gotta love Deano at his press conference today when a reporter asked him if facing the Wild in the season opener is just another game to him and his response was “Heck no it’s not just another game, it will mean alot to him, those guys fired me”

Should make for a fun opener…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Ripjiggen wrote:</div>
Building a team with zero money and the best developed players in the country is slightly different I would think.

maybe, but with all the smoke around Billy it adds to the intrigue of why they picked him unless they thought he had the best plan…

Highly doubtful. Most likely he was the first one to say yes.

These general managers are very busy and very wealthy guys. There’s going to be a hard limit to how many of them are willing to add to their already substantial workload. My guess is that Guerin put his name forward because his apple could use a little shine and that’s not going to come from praise of his wildly successful buyout move.

Did I miss something but I thought Michkov was staying in Russia for a bit but I saw he arrived in Philly.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Gotta love Deano at his press conference today when a reporter asked him if facing the Wild in the season opener is just another game to him and his response was “Heck no it’s not just another game, it will mean alot to him, those guys fired me”

Should make for a fun opener…

Haha I heard that on KFAN too. At least he’s honest.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Did I miss something but I thought Michkov was staying in Russia for a bit but I saw he arrived in Philly.

Nope, Philly likely paid under the table to get him out of his multi-year deal with SKA in the KHL..It also didn’t hurt that Matvie likely wanted to get the F out of Russia asap…especially after what happened to his father and last season getting jerked around to different teams….

Remember when Wild fans were told it’s simply NOT POSSIBLE to get Kirill out of his KHL deal early? Turns out it is, we just didn’t want to pay the extortion fee…

Replacement for Capfriendly released. https://thehockeynews.com/lineups/pacific/san-jose-sharks-projected-lineup-and-depth-chart

That is direct to SJ but I am sure you can figure out how to get to the Wild page.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Replacement for Capfriendly released.

That is direct to SJ but I am sure you can figure out how to get to the Wild page.

Sweet! Thanks for posting. Bookmarked in place of CapFriendly

with a few more tweaks, I think Puckpedia will become the new go to website

https://puckpedia.com/team/minnesota-wild

For Wild fans who didn’t follow Zeev Buium much this season and instead have mostly watched highlight videos of him, Here’s a shift by shift video of Buium in a Denver vs UMD game, its cool because its not just highlights, you get to see how he plays for full shifts and all of the little exceptional things he does on the ice…

Some spots in the video to watch him make special plays:
1:50 (ridiculous)
3:18
7:10
9:21
18:21 (ridiculous)

That will prove to be a great pick.

Laine removed from the Players Assistance Program today allowing Columbus and other teams to talk with him regarding a trade. If something is going to happen, it will likely happen soon…

I’m not 100% convinced him coming to the Wild would work, but I wouldn’t fault GMBG for getting him to try and help shore up secondary scoring…obviously it would take likely 2 contracts going back to Columbus to make the capspace work and they’ve been on record saying they just want picks/prospects back, so that might be a deal breaker…