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

Sounds like Kaprizov’s MRI took place this morning, fingers crossed…

Travis Boyd got stuck in traffic and had to hoof it to the arena to get there in time yesterday

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Sounds like Kaprizov’s MRI took place this morning, fingers crossed…

Looks like good news

Nice, no point in him playing tomorrow night, give him the few extra days off…

Getting a point against the Flames with the calls and puck luck not going their way, without KK and Zuccy is a big point. That should’ve just been a lost 2 points but somehow they snuck a point out of a ugly game. The amount of money not on the ice is nutso. Being able to snag points in games like that is way better than zero points and a loss in regulation. Not a fan of the shoot outs, but a point is a point. Have no illusions that this team is short in a lot of areas, but they are grinding out points somehow someway.

Hopefully KK is ok and nothing lingering.

I quite watching the game and had no idea they went to OT. They were down 3-1 and generating no offense. Good that they got a point out of it.

Rossi! And JoJo and Freddie are loving the air out west an come alive. Awesome.

in other good Russian news, Danila Yurov was out with a week long injury and scored in his first game back…

Kirill is skating a full morning practice today with full line rushes, wonder if they protect him from himself and still keep him out tonight?

Assuming it’s just a bad thigh contusion (??), there’s not much risk for further injury or delay in healing time there. More of just a play through the pain thing.

Any fallout on the hit? Looked dirty live. Yet no penalty called!

MN Z wrote:

Any fallout on the hit? Looked dirty live. Yet no penalty called!

No, of course, there’s no fallout. The frustrating part for the Wild is the twice-repeated theme of no calls by the on-ice officials in these situations.

Yes, yes, yes, we all get that if you watch the latest hit by NHL Superstar Drake Caggiula in super-super-super-slow motion and hyper-anal-ize it from 142 angles, you may arrive at the conclusion that the hit was a little higher than knee-on-knee, it was more like knee on 2.27 inches above the knee. That’s missing the point.

The point–and I’d have to think the frustration that the Wild coaches/team is feeling–is that if the Wild put that same hit on a McDavid or Draisaitl the whistle gets blown 110 times out of 100. It would not matter one iota that the hit wasn’t exactly knee-on-knee, the Wild player goes to the box on that hit. Every. Freaking. Time. In real time at game speed, there is no way for the refs to see that things may not have been what they looked like, so they just call what it looks like.

But NOT if the hit is on the Wild’s superstar. The Wild are understandably pissed because Kaprizov was already injured once in another no-call situation by Logan Stanly and it 100% was an infraction that should have been called.

Totally agree with what Hines was yelling at the refs, it IS their job to protect players out there. These misses by the NHL refs are just biased bullish!t.

Those types of hits happen all the time, to all type of players (Superstars and 4th liners) its an extremely fast game, stuff is going to happen, intentional or not…
The NHL is trying to get Refs to error on the side of caution and make a call and then have the ability to go back via replay and change their mind and rescind the call if needed. This will take some time to become common, very similar to how NFL refs took forever to learn to NOT blow the whistle on fumbles, sideline tiptoe steps, possible lateral plays etc and just let it play out, then have the ability to change the call afterwards if needed.

I do agree that the limited suspensions the NHL Department of Player Safety can even hand out due to NHLPA negotiated limits isn’t close to evening out with the lost games somebody is out due to a resulting injury, not sure how you would truly fix it? (you can’t keep the offender out as long as the victim is out) that just won’t fly with the NHLPA…

I believe twice a year the NHL GM’s get together to discuss the game and they ALL have the ability to suggest rule changes, sofar this hasn’t been a big enough issue that they would even vote on a potential fix…same with the LTIR Salary Cap loopholes… They don’t want to change it, because ultimately they will all face the consequences of their changes good & bad…

Playoff pace at first here.

Carter throwing in the Middstrom is awesome!

Now that was a fun period of hockey…

Mark it down, Kirill just drew a crosscheck penalty

Dang, Hellebuyck is a freaking monster. There is literally nothing to shoot at.

Forehand, backhand, shelf. Dang that Nino…

CaptainMusky wrote:

Carter throwing in the Middstrom is awesome!

I thought that’s what he said. Didn’t replay it to confirm it.

2 dumb plays that lead to goals (Trenin getting stuck back in the zone and a bad Foligno penalty) and Hellibuck shutting the door…

The rumor is Rangers GM Chris Drury is looking to shake up his lineup with trading either Chris Kreider or Jacob Trouba…could the Wild be interested?

Now Trouba wouldn’t work because we can’t move $8 million back and the likely guy we would need to send back (Spurgeon) has a full NMC, but Kreider’s $6.5 over the next 2 years (including this one) is doable with guys like Trenin and Freddy or Jojo going back…now would Drury want 3 more seasons of Trenin at $3.5? doubtful, so that could end it right there…There would also likely need to be substantial picks or prospects going to the Rangers as well…

BUT

Chris Kreider would be a great top 6 player to add with tons of playoff experience/success and tons of grit (he’s a GMBG type of player)…based on the rumored names potentially on the trade block, would you rather have Kreider or Brock Nelson on the Wild? (I know Nelson is a UFA, but they would likely extend him 3-4 years after this season if they paid the price for him)

I’d rather have 2 years of Kreider at $6.5aav, but it would lock up the top6 for next season likely blocking out Yurov until the the following season when Zuccy’s deal is up. Based on Leopold’s statements, the plan is to sign a top6 guy this offfseason anyways…

They went toe to toe with them for most of the game and Hellibuyk was just outstanding. Nothing like the 7 goal shellacking we put on him in preseason. Gus didnt play bad. The one goal he would have liked to be out of the net farther I am sure and a couple others he really had no chance.
We had plenty of chances but the penalties killed us.

CaptainMusky wrote:

They went toe to toe with them for most of the game and Hellibuyk was just outstanding. Nothing like the 7 goal shellacking we put on him in preseason. Gus didnt play bad. The one goal he would have liked to be out of the net farther I am sure and a couple others he really had no chance.
We had plenty of chances but the penalties killed us.

For sure, Hellibuyk stole that game…lots of shots right into his chest/gut though…

I will take the blame on this one. I brought my kid whose career record is 2 and 12. 0-2 on the season. We showed up after his hockey with 6 minutes left in the first tied 1-1.:???:

The other crazy thing about last night’s game is that we had 38 shots on goal at around 10 minutes of the 2nd period and ended up with 44 for the game, so only 6 in the entire 2nd half of the game…

Rumor also has it Brady Tkachuk is no longer happy in Ottawa. Don’t see how the Wild can make that fit and even if they could something tells me he would say thanks but no thanks like Laine.

Wild looked tired midway through the 2nd and the 3rd was not a great period for them. Everyone, even Faber and Brodin looked off. Gus didn’t look terrible, but didn’t look as quick as he has so far this season. Boldy looked tentative and tired. KK’s turnovers are usually not a big deal because of his point production, but a few turnovers weren’t good last night.

Hartman and Freddy were noticeable and other than that the team looked sluggish in the 3rd.

Spurgeon wasn’t great on a couple board battles.

Middleton looked gased.

Trenin is a major liability at this point. I just don’t see his upside at all yet.

Jets are just deeper and a good team with one heck of a goalie. Even if the shot total wasn’t all grade A scoring chances, a couple of those pucks might of slid through a lot of other goalies in the league.

First period was fun hockey to watch. Few stoppages and good puck movement up and down the ice. Jets are a good team and no reason to get to off track losing to them and Buck. He’s a stud net minder and the main reason the jets are doing so well this year.

Flush this one down the crapper and forget about it.

basseyes wrote:

Trenin is a major liability at this point. I just don’t see his upside at all yet.

Obviously 1 assist in 20 games or whatever is pretty tough, but he’s #7 in the entire league in goals against per 60. That’s his upside. Foligno is #6. Underlying numbers back it up too. They have their shutdown line back for the first time since moving Ek to a scoring line, and the team results speak for themselves.

The Wild can obviously hang with the Jets, Stars and yet to play Avs, but they need to exercise the demons from the past few years of going 0-XX against them asap, this can’t turn into a Yankees vs Twins Playoff record storyline as the post season gets closer and closer…I think GMBG is convinced this team can compete and he’ll be looking to add a top6 guy when he can (if their cap situation doesn’t change and/or he cant send money back in a trade it will need to wait until the trade deadline)

I was and still am a Trenin hater, I just don’t see any of the traits they touted when they signed him, but as TS said, you can’t argue with the stats that he’s not hurting us when he’s on the ice (except for last nights Nino goal) but at $3.5 aav, he MUST produce something offensively…the good thing is that as the cap jumps up the next few years his contract will look less and less as bad and he has zero trade protection, so he can be moved it the need arises…