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

Well now that my lawn chair’s schedule free’d up, how we looking on the ice boys? I’m pretty sure I still remember how to get to St Paul…

This is a damn good thing to see for Wild fans….

https://x.com/joesmithnhl/status/1879196859572564228?s=46&t=uoRWUp28rKzoSODmtmr3Lw

BigWerm wrote:

Well now that my lawn chair’s schedule free’d up, how we looking on the ice boys? I’m pretty sure I still remember how to get to St Paul…

We need our guys to get healthy and there are signs a couple of them might be getting closer.

BigWerm wrote:

Well now that my lawn chair’s schedule free’d up, how we looking on the ice boys? I’m pretty sure I still remember how to get to St Paul…

Wild Season Recap – Team has stayed in the top 5 of the entire league for most of the first half of the season (even leading for awhile) before a COLLOSAL string of injuries to most of our top players took hold of the team…they’ve been treading water playing around .500 since (the last 2-3 weeks) but as Musky said, it looks like guys will be coming back soon so hopefully they can pick up where they left off…There’s a month of hockey before the league shuts down for 10 days in mid-February for the 4 Nations Tourney, then its a sprint to the finish the final 2 months with the trade deadline in early March…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

here’s a month of hockey before the league shuts down for 10 days in mid-February for the 4 Nations Tourney…

Can I just say now how unenthusiastic I am about the idea of Brodin, Ek, Faber, and Gus playing multiple games in a meaningless PR stunt? Only bad things can happen. Having just 1 of these players get injured could easily cost us the playoffs.

There’s no fat on this team, no players we don’t need to win. The must-do this year was not just to get to the playoffs but to WIN R1 at a bare minimum. Anything less is a fail and could well cost us the best player the franchise has ever had. There’s no game-changer coming in the pipeline that would cause KK to make a stick around and see decision. If the Wild can’t win an R1 with this team, IMO nothing’s going to convince him that 2 more years would be any different.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

There’s no fat on this team, no players we don’t need to win.

Our most important player has been out how many weeks now and they have won how many games? Yes, we want them all back, but this team has proven they can beat teams and even some good ones without their best players. Lets just hope all these precautions are going to pan out.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

Can I just say now how unenthusiastic I am about the idea of Brodin, Ek, Faber, and Gus playing multiple games in a meaningless PR stunt? Only bad things can happen. Having just 1 of these players get injured could easily cost us the playoffs.

I think its kind of a joke too. The annual all star festivities are an even bigger PR stunt, so they had to come up with this instead.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

Can I just say now how unenthusiastic I am about the idea of Brodin, Ek, Faber, and Gus playing multiple games in a meaningless PR stunt?

I’ve been thinking the same thing Grouse. I don’t really get into the exhibition or non-season games in baseball, basketball, or football, but normally I enjoy the chance to see different players team up and/or display their skills. This year, however, it just seems like a horrible time. The formula for the Wild this year seems to generally be ice time=eventual injuries. So throw those 4 players, who ironically have all been injured already this year, put in more ice time just seems like it’s going to somehow lead to some sort of fatigue, tweak, or outright injury.

There’s X amount of other teams in the same situation, some even more so with their top star(s) playing (Toronto with Mathews & Marner BOTH playing) at least we get Kirill to get some time off…

IF the hockey played is 100% effort and serious, it has the potential to be an awesome hockey event, especially for a USA team that hasn’t been able to get it’s top team together since the 1996 Team that won…if its not 100% effort, yes it could turn into PR nightmare…The injury potential is meh to me, players can just as easily get hurt in practice… I’m excited for it…

I’m in agreement with your excitement Joe, I think it’ll be fun to watch, I just worry that this tournament is going to make a bad injury situation worse for them.

Im looking forward to it as well, but I like national hockey stuff. Probably the only sport I pay attention to globally.

Ripjiggen wrote:

Im looking forward to it as well, but I like national hockey stuff. Probably the only sport I pay attention to globally.

Agree. It’s also arguably the biggest US (major) sport that has legit competitors globally. The rest of our major sports are dominated by the US. I’m talking football, baseball, basketball, and hockey here.

Probably not baseball but agree.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Our most important player has been out how many weeks now and they have won how many games?

The ability to beat teams in the regular season while missing key players isn’t the same as the ability to win a best of 7 game playoff series without key players. With our so-so PK and meh PP, we don’t have any margin for error when it comes to even R1.

We don’t need this kind of risk for a no-gain PR stunt that does nothing for the Minnesota Wild.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

We don’t need this kind of risk for a no-gain PR stunt that does nothing for the Minnesota Wild.

It grows the NHL and thus the Wild…its also a way for the NHL to make money as we all know the Allstar game is an absolute joke…will it absolutely suck if somebody gets hurt? for sure…will that team cry foul? absolutely…will the other 31 fanbases then think the 4 Nations was an awesome experience, probably…

My only worry is that the games played have a similar effort feel to the Allstar game, I think you might see SOME of that in the 1st game as players are a bit unsure of what to expect, but then the competitive juices will start flowing for the rest of the tourney… I at least give the NHL some credit for trying something new…

with their next game being on Saturday vs Nashville, I don’t expect any of the hurt guys to play tonight…4 days of extra rest/rehab is probably worth 1 game at this point…

New episode of Becoming Wild with Marat Khusnutdinov… its a shame the fishing guide couldn’t put him and Ohgren on some fishing in September on the St Croix!?! WTF

I think its going to be fast paced. More like the Olympics than anything else. I guess I didnt see what size sheet they are playing on but I am guessing it will be NHL size so maybe not as wide open as I was initially thinking.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

with their next game being on Saturday vs Nashville, I don’t expect any of the hurt guys to play tonight…4 days of extra rest/rehab is probably worth 1 game at this point…

True.

With the opponent being the defending western conference champs at mostly full strength, who have won 7 of 8, on national TV, this has the potential to get out of hand quickly. And everyone will see it too. Buckle up

CaptainMusky wrote:

I think its going to be fast paced. More like the Olympics than anything else. I guess I didnt see what size sheet they are playing on but I am guessing it will be NHL size so maybe not as wide open as I was initially thinking.

They play in Montreal’s Bell Centre and Boston’s TD Garden NHL arenas…

gim wrote:

With the opponent being the defending western conference champs at mostly full strength, who have won 7 of 8, on national TV, this has the potential to get out of hand quickly. And everyone will see it too. Buckle up

another good game to evaluate Jiricek’s skating ability… I think it’s been over blown sofar…

Tonight could get weird, not Wild.

For a team that’s limping along through injuries, their record doesn’t really show it. 6-3 in games after Christmas when they lost Kaprizov and then the top 3 D, including 3-2 against playoff teams. The ugly stretch was the 2 weeks before Christmas when they really weren’t that injured. Now they’re 7-3 in the last 10 games.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>gim wrote:</div>
With the opponent being the defending western conference champs at mostly full strength, who have won 7 of 8, on national TV, this has the potential to get out of hand quickly. And everyone will see it too. Buckle up

another good game to evaluate Jiricek’s skating ability… I think it’s been over blown sofar…

He has overactive feet when transitioning, what takes a great skater 1-3 strides to accomplish, he needs 4-5. It looks frantic vs smooth. Specifically referring to change of directions and/transitioning back to front vice versa. Its very noticeable if you compare his mechanics to Brock, Spurgeon or Brodin, not so much with the wild d-core he has played with. He also seems to spend more time on the ice, off his feet. But overall he has worked hard and has NOT been why our d core has struggled.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

with their next game being on Saturday vs Nashville, I don’t expect any of the hurt guys to play tonight…4 days of extra rest/rehab is probably worth 1 game at this point…

hang on now…Kaprizov, Faber and Lauko are all skating this morning with the team (no red jerseys) we might get 1 or all 3 back tonight…

Smith now reporting all 3 have moved to the other end of the rink with the non powerplay guys, so maybe not… at least they are this close…

wormdunker wrote:

Its very noticeable if you compare his mechanics to Brock, Spurgeon or Brodin,

true, but look at those names, some of the best D skaters in the league…I think his stride looks a bit awkward because he’s a skinny 6’4″ player, the Skating coaches will tweak what they can, but a Giraffe on skates will never look smooth unless your last name is Hedman… his reach will also help make up for some skating deficiencies by breaking up the opponents stick… I’m not worried at all and the pundits complaining about his skating were just looking for anything negative to say and skating is an easy target for a huge defenseman, all Jiricek needs to be is a 2nd pair defenseman with Faber and Buium likely cementing the 1st pair for 25+ minutes a game for the next generation (or maybe they decide to split them up to spread the wealth?)

This is why I think the injury risk argument against the 4 Nations Tournament participation carries no weight…

Leafs John Tavares hurt in Leafs Power Play practice….

https://x.com/markhmasters/status/1879588202610364628?s=46&t=uoRWUp28rKzoSODmtmr3Lw

or the Canadiens player hit by a car walking to a team meal and is now out 3-4 weeks…$hit happens…

Not that I care, but this argument is really weak. I get guys can get hurt anytime doing anything, but to suggest that walking to eat is anywhere near the same chance to get hurt as playing multiple hockey games in a tournament is borderline delusional.

mojogunter wrote:

Not that I care, but this argument is really weak. I get guys can get hurt anytime doing anything, but to suggest that walking to eat is anywhere near the same chance to get hurt as playing multiple hockey games in a tournament is borderline delusional.

I’m just saying there’s no guarantee a player will get hurt, just like there’s no guarantee they won’t, crazy things happen all the time, to say you don’t want them to play in some extra games because you don’t want to get them hurt is just as delusional or Toronto announcing they will no longer practice because they don’t want players getting hurt, delusional…

mojogunter wrote:

Not that I care, but this argument is really weak. I get guys can get hurt anytime doing anything, but to suggest that walking to eat is anywhere near the same chance to get hurt as playing multiple hockey games in a tournament is borderline delusional.

I agree. PR stunt, nothing more.

I think some players should just take 10 days off instead and recover from nagging injuries.

gim wrote:

I think some players should just take 10 days off instead and recover from nagging injuries.

Yeah 90% of the league is doing that. I think some players want this tournament more than the NHL does – not really a pr stunt. A pr stunt is the typical skills comp and allstar game