Wild

Another poor game thru 2 periods tonight. Looks so much like last years team even with the 2 new additions. 3 shots in the first period makes it tough to win many games.

The Wild, Gopher Basketball, Timber Wolves. Makes it tough to be a sports fan around here.

Yeah being ranked 18th in the country is just pathetic

18th seems temporary. They’ve lost 5 out of the last 7 and looked really bad at times.

Turned off the Wild to watch reruns of Swamp People. They sure don’t have it together. Hope it starts to work soon. Not to sure it will happen this year.

I give up. I sweated the lockout for this? It’d be one thing if they were losing 6-4 because of poor goal tending and defense, but this team are offensively challenged.

This season has been very disappointing and the team seems to be getting worse instead of better. They are just not fun to watch right now.

Wild not immune to the curse of the Pug?

I went to my 1 game a year tonight and they just had no energy out there. The passing was horrible and just no sense of urgency.

Yep, not good. We still have Gopher hockey!

Time to yank Yeo.

Dump and chase is not working. Period.

To my fishing brothers, time to watch the BLACKHAWKS

I agree! I like Mike but the style of hockey he is promoting is no fun to watch. We have some skill players that should be able to carry the puck into the offensive zone instead of dumping and chasing all the time.

Leopold should consider locking them out again

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To my fishing brothers, time to watch the BLACKHAWKS

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Who?

They look like a team that is lost, or in the wrong system for the pieces that are in place. Parise is good but he can’t carry a team through a season offensively. If I was Yeo, I make Heatley a healthy scratch for a night or 2 to send a message and suit up Kassian. It’s a good thing that ended up signing the big 2 over the summer to sell all of those season tickets or I have a feeling there would be plenty of open seats for home games….

I noticed they are selling 5 game ticket packages so people are taking notice. Sellouts are done until they turn the corner on the scoring draught.

Who was behind the bench last year after 20 or so games when we had the best record? Oh I know, that was all on the goalies keeping us in those games like my brother says. The crap that is going on out there is all on the players.

My biggest disappointment this year has been Brodziak. Never seems ready for a pass, always making bad passes and not playing well in his own end. I don’t know if his dog died or what, but he is a different player. And i love the guy.

Charlie Coyle looks like he is going to be the real deal once he adjusts.

Granlund better start adjusting soon. He was another big piece who is struggling. Hopefully the scratch was a wake up.

On a positive note, Torrey Mitchell is working his rear off and Brodin is absolutely solid, especially considering he is a 19 year old.

I think getting Spurgeon back will be a big boost. Stoner, Falk and to an extent, Scandellia are fine, if they are on the 3rd pairing. Brodin, Spurgeon, Suter and Gilbert are pretty solid top 4 pairings.

IT was a lot different watching the highlights this morning. Seemed like a different game. We did have plenty of chances, but a couple breakdowns and a boneheaded play by Stoner cost us.

Sure wish we had a patsy coming in Saturday instead of Nashville. A stingy team is not what we need to play against right now. We need to play a team where we can bury some chances and get some confidence back.

I was wondering how the teams that had set rosters are doing compared to those who made a lot of changes in the off season. In other words, the Wild made a lot of changes and then never had a camp or a pre-season to get it all together. Another team might have pretty much the same group as last year and are better able to pick up where they left off. Just a theory. And if I’m right then maybe these guys will eventually start to play well.

Meanwhile it’s great that we have the Gophers to watch!

Rootski

Good post Mike, however the “patsy” in the schedule everyone is looking for seems to be the Wild.

Yeo is OK as a coach. Like you said they were one of the top teams at the beginning of last year. Unfortunately they have been one of the worst ever since.

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I was wondering how the teams that had set rosters are doing compared to those who made a lot of changes in the off season.

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Good point! I actually wondered the same thing.

we can start with New Jersey #5 and Nashville #10 who lost Parise and Suter respectively. So apparently subtraction from the roster doesn’t seem to hurt.

The free agent pool last year wasn’t very deep. The only other real big name that moved was Nash to the Rangers and they sit at #18.

Looking at the teams at the top, their core (sans NJ & Nashville) remained the same. So maybe there is something to it.

The problem is 10 games in you’d like to at least see signs of them turning around, and it just doesn’t seem to be there. And I don’t have to point out that this is a 48 game season.

On the brightside, the Stanley Cup champs again this year are struggling just as bad as last year. They snuck into the playoffs last year scoring about as many goals as we did. Of course their defense and goalie were much better than ours.

I think the problem with Yeo is that the combination to figuring how to play against the Wild is too easy to crack. He did pretty well last year with a team that didn’t have much for talent. Dump and chase was their best option, until everyone else cracked the code and then the wheels fell off.

I can’t stand watching guys like Koivu and Bouchard dump and chase on a 2 on 2 for gods sake. These guys are of the top 20 players in the league. Don’t tell me they can’t beat a d-man or 2 once in a while.

Grrrrrrr! this style makes me mad!

I feel a little better now that I’m watching the Huskies and Gophs. Buddish should have a hat trick by now!

I was listening to kfan and they had skip sanders on and asked him about the wild. He compared what the wild did to what miami did bringing in there big names and everyone thought they were a bust the first year. his point being it takes some time to get players used to playing together to reach their potential. I like Yeo seems to know what he is doing but I do not like the dump and chase hockey.

Read Mike Russo’s column from today. As he points out, the is the same system (dump and chase) most every NHL team plays. Yeo doesn’t have a mandate that requires they dump and chase every time.

The problem with carrying the puck over the blueline is if you turn it over there it can lead to a scoring opportunity for the other team as your team has to scramble to get back into defensive coverage.

The big problem is the aren’t executing and supporting on the dump and chase.

Like all sports if they start winning it will be fun to watch whatever style they play. Here is to a wild win tonight!

So true

Stick a fork in ’em.

Despite only getting 2 goals, it was a very good win. No one has been able to score goals on these guys.

We had a couple inadvertent penalties, but were able to kill them off. Backs was pretty solid. Setoguchi was possessed all night.

There is still a lot of work to do on the PP though. You can’t let those opportunities go to waste.

Calgary is a good opportunity to score some goals and reall gain some confidence. They give up over 3 goals a game and are one of the worst penalty killers in the league.

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Stick a fork in ’em.

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Take it back out, it looks like we picked up a win tonight.
DT