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

tswoboda wrote:

36g-44a-80p 82 game pace his two “full” seasons in Columbus, not bad for a reclamation project

no doubt the kid can be a scoring machine…that’s why he went #2 overall… Personally I’d love to see the Wild get him and he can unleash his 1 timer on the PP, but we just don’t have what Columbus wants right now (capspace to eat his contract for this year, next year isn’t a problem) maybe once Columbus gets desperate and GMBG gets really creative for the first time and involves another team to move contracts around and can make it work…

Wild ranked #24 in “Fan Confidence” survey The Athletic put out…not good…

Maple Leafs, Kings and Islanders were ranked 30-32…

Flames signed their top goalie prospect Dustin Wolf (who already burned through his ELC) to a 2 year x $850k bridge deal contract… This could give an idea of what Wallstedt’s next contract could look like after this year…

Those fan confidence surveys are hilariously volatile. Miss playoffs = Bad Billy. Make playoffs = In Billy G We Trust

tswoboda wrote:

Those fan confidence surveys are hilariously volatile. Miss playoffs = Bad Billy. Make playoffs = In Billy G We Trust

Hence MapleLeafs 30th

I think the fading confidence reflects a growing suspicion that Billy Gee Wiz might have benefited greatly from grade inflation in his early years as GM. In Minnesota, an average GM looked really, really good at first.

In the cold light of day, fans are now realizing that the Billy Buyouts didn’t really fix anything or change anything for the Wild when it comes to results. I highly doubt that should the wild manage to drag arse into the playoffs this season, the ranking will change much next year.

Billy Gee is on borrowed time. He needs to make a change that makes the Wild dramatically more competitive by next season. His seat is getting very warm.

Grouse, the buyouts had to happen. No one in their right mind would think otherwise. Yes, we have dealt with the pain, but we would have been screwed if either or both of them got hurt and then retired with the recapture penalties. After this year that is pretty much over and we can move forward. THe buyouts were the right move to make at that time and had to do it when he did or it would have been worse.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

In the cold light of day, fans are now realizing that the Billy Buyouts didn’t really fix anything or change anything for the Wild when it comes to results.

They have Brock Faber because of the Parise buyout

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

I think the fading confidence reflects a growing suspicion that Billy Gee Wiz might have benefited greatly from grade inflation in his early years as GM. In Minnesota, an average GM looked really, really good at first.

In the cold light of day, fans are now realizing that the Billy Buyouts didn’t really fix anything or change anything for the Wild when it comes to results. I highly doubt that should the wild manage to drag arse into the playoffs this season, the ranking will change much next year.

Billy Gee is on borrowed time. He needs to make a change that makes the Wild dramatically more competitive by next season. His seat is getting very warm.

I guess i am dumb enough to give him another two years after this one to see what he can do without an arm tied behind his back from the previous regimes terrible long term contracts with mid tier all stars.

The other thing about the buyouts is that Covid stalled the salary cap to rise only $2 million over 3 seasons? I’m sure GMBG and staff expected/relied on it going up more over those years when they made the buyout decision to ease the pain, obvious that didn’t happen…

Didn’t the Wild have 2 of their top 5 best regular seasons ever during this buyout period?

Lastly, there’s a reason why Parise took basically veteran minimum contracts since leaving and Suter being bought out for the 2nd time…

Justin riegel wrote:

I guess i am dumb enough to give him another two years after this one to see what he can do without an arm tied behind his back from the previous regimes terrible long term contracts with mid tier all stars.

I think his fate is tied to Kirill re-signing or not…and we hope Kirill’s decision is based on how he thinks GMBG’s team’s future looks like…

Buyouts happened the summer after the bubble season so the salary cap was already well known to not be going up for the foreseeable future

Grouse I dont get all the hate you have for Billy G. Sure some of the extensions right now seem to be a bad but time will tell. The buyouts absolutely had to happen and with that his hands are kinda tied because of it.

tswoboda wrote:

Buyouts happened the summer after the bubble season so the salary cap was already well known to not be going up for the foreseeable future

Yes I know Covid already hit before the decision was made, but I don’t think they expected the cap stalling for 3 years…I believe GMBG is on record (was it kfan?) saying they expected/hoped it to bounce back sooner, last season’s $1 bump was expected to be more but Bettman held it hostage hoping to get the NHLPA to cave on some CBA concessions…

KP wrote:

Sure some of the extension right now seem to be a bad but time will tell

Hartman’s extension changes from a NMC to 15 Team limited protection after this season, Foligno & Middleton do the same in 2 years, Freddy’s already is a 15 team MNMC…Trenin & Bogosian have none…

So they could get shipped off early if GMBG desired…

Nah the cap freeze and escrow were all agreed to in the return to play memo for the CBA in July 2020 before they returned to play those bubble playoffs. The future years of the cap not going up was put on paper summer of 2020 and is basically exactly how it played out.

If the biggest complaints about Guerin are a couple questionable $2m-$4m mid-term contracts to middle 6 forwards then I think he’s doing just fine. That’s basically a compliment

Buyouts or no buyouts, this team’s future is all dependent on Kirill re-signing next summer… if he doesn’t, we switch back to the old Wild (average team with 2-3 good players but without the superstar)

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Buyouts or no buyouts, this team’s future is all dependent on Kirill re-signing next summer

Completely agree

tswoboda wrote:

Nah the cap freeze and escrow were all agreed to in the return to play memo for the CBA in July 2020 before they returned to play those bubble playoffs. The future years of the cap not going up was put on paper summer of 2020 and is basically exactly how it played out.

I agree upto last season… the Escrow was basically already paid up last year but Bettman held the decision to increase it more than $1 million over the NHLPA’s head for CBA concessions and they didn’t budge, so he kept it at a $1 increase…The last 2 years of the big cap penalties were always going to be the toughest to handle, the $1 million increase last year was brutal…

tswoboda wrote:

If the biggest complaints about Guerin are a couple questionable $2m-$4m mid-term contracts to middle 6 forwards

and most agree the only real issue with those were the 1 extra year of term most thought they would get…Foligno signed for 3 and Hartman for 2 sound alot better and I doubt there would be as much negativity around them as there is …Zuccy was always going to get 2 years…

That’s all media BS. Read the memo, it’s all in there in the first 4 pages. Friedeman reported back in 20-21 that the cap would be basically froze until 24-25 and that’s exactly what happened. Any other reporting was just BS speculation. If Billy told the media he hoped the cap was going up sooner that was nothing more than pandering to fans, and looks like it might have worked

tswoboda wrote:

That’s all media BS. Read the memo, it’s all in there in the first 4 pages. Friedeman reported the cap would be basically froze until 24-25 and that’s exactly what happened. Any other reporting was just BS speculation.

wasn’t that all based on their conservative projected timeline for paying back the Escrow? The NHLPA was set to pay it off a year early…

Not gonna discuss this any more

Here’s the memo https://media.nhl.com/site/asset/public/ext/NHLPA_NHL_MOU.pdf

If you’re still not satisfied look up any cap projection from Friedman in the last 3 years

This is the article I was referencing in the Athletic, Bettman tied the cap increase to paying off 100% of the escrow, the NHLPA was going to be at 94% paid off by the start of the season, Bettman wouldn’t budge…

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/4590229/2023/06/08/nhl-salary-cap-increase/?source=user_shared_article

KP wrote:

Grouse I dont get all the hate you have for Billy G. Sure some of the extensions right now seem to be a bad but time will tell. The buyouts absolutely had to happen and with that his hands are kinda tied because of it.

I don’t hate him, it’s exactly as the survey says: He’s average. Just your basic, no frills GM. He’s not great, he’s not really good, he’s… average.

You Billy G lovers out the got any timelines on when GM Average will be able to assemble something better than a bubble playoff team? Because that’s exactly what we were when he got here.

I mentioned earlier that he has 2 years to either re-sign Kaprizov or get a worthy haul back in a trade if he can’t… if Kirill has zero interest in re-signing here, not sure how Billy takes the blame for that, but he’ll then be on the hook to maximize the return when trading him…

He assumed an aging roster locked into longterm deals that were never going to end well and an empty prospect pool, Fletcher signed the 13 year deals knowing he wouldn’t be around to deal with the ramifications…He’s built up a core of prospects that should be foundational players at all positions (Wallstedt, Faber, Buium, Yurov, Rossi, Ohgren) of course they need to develop, but that’s mostly on the players…

IF Kirill doesn’t re-sign by next August, Billys time has likely run out…

Well people here have been clamoring for it for years and it finally happened again. The Blues put in offer SHEETS on 2 Edmonton players. Very interesting.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Well people here have been clamoring for it for years and it finally happened again. The Blues put in offer SHEETS on 2 Edmonton players. Very interesting.

I love it. Welcome back to the NHL Stan Bowman

CaptainMusky wrote:

Well people here have been clamoring for it for years and it finally happened again. The Blues put in offer SHEETS on 2 Edmonton players. Very interesting.

Capitalizing on the unknowns on how much Draisaitl & Kane would re-sign for…it forces their decision making as they now have 7 days to decide to match or not…I bet they let Broberg go, but not Holloway…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

I bet they let Broberg go, but not Holloway…

Agreed – He had a few nice games in the SC Finals but that’s a huge contract for a 23YO high draft pick with virtually no NHL success… taken 4 picks before Matt Boldy
Holloway seems like an easy match

Starting to think the real reason no one uses offer sheets is because they never really work out for either team involved, only the player.