Official Wild Threa – The Playoff Run

How about Colorado taking care of business, along side of us beating the blues, puts them in first in the central, and as of now they would be our first round match up.

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Room for error? You get one chance, one shot.

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Columbus shooter Johanson a few games ago, lost the puck mid-move, regained it and scored..

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Room for error? You get one chance, one shot.

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Columbus shooter Johanson a few games ago, lost the puck mid-move, regained it and scored..

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Good lord! So you want me to look up all the times a player has lost the puck before getting the shot off? Or the times when a player has made a bunch of fancy moves only to shoot the puck wide.

If it is that important to you….Koivu should start mixing it up because his backhander is just not successful enough.

Actually they should just eliminate the shootout all together. Award 3 points for a regulation win. 2 points for a overtime win and zip for a tie.

Play to win or don’t bother.

There are a lot of things that I would prefer over the shoot out. However, its not going to change anytime soon, because I think the league thinks it is exciting to non-purists. I think they could care less how it affects the standings.

Wild get the Avs. I’ve seen a lot of inexperienced upstart teams get bounced in the first round. That being said, it’ll be tough to get out of the first round. I’d rather we win by solid play than to win because a young team chokes. 2 teams that have been playing very good hockey to end the season. Should be a good match up.

If you can frustrate these youngsters, you give yourself a chance. Keep an eye on defenseman Barrie. He’s an unsung hero for the Avs.

Interested in playing in bracket?
Name: Coyled Snake Pass: snakecoil

First the Gophs and now this?
DT

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There are a lot of things that I would prefer over the shoot out. However, its not going to change anytime soon, because I think the league thinks it is exciting to non-purists. I think they could care less how it affects the standings.

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Id love to hear those ideas.

Nothing to do with non purist. Until somebody comes up with a better way to decide a tie game in a timely fashion the shootout remains the best option. Its kind of like AIS everybody bitches but they dont have a better way or any good ideas on how to fix it.
And no they arnt going to waste their time playing straight OT all night in relatively meanless Regular season game when they already have 82 to play in.

Im a purist and dont mind 1 additional point to be decided by a shootout. They are actual quite fun and entertaining So just relax and enjoy them like 15000 of us did in the Boston game.

Go Wild+ if we can steal game 1 or 2 we can make series of it.

I agree, it’s pointless to discuss the shootout because it’s here to stay. The league isn’t going to budge, mainly because if you look at “what it does to the standings”, the short answer is: Not much. Which is why the league will stick with the shootout. It decides games in a way that has the least overall impact when averaged over all the games in the regular season.

Boy did the Wild stink it up against Nashvegas last night. Peeeee ewwwwwww. Wow, note to self. Avoid taking the tickets for the last game of the year at all costs. Yeeeach.

Get Grandlund back, get Bryzgalov some skating lessons, and get Poor John Curry a large pack of Tums, and we’ll be fine.

The Avs are on a hot streak, but they are beatable. Their defense is so-so and their offense can be frustrated with solid play. Key for the Wild will be scoring early and keeping up constant pressure even when ahead.

3rd and 4th lines need to be the ones to take advantage of the lack of defensive depth. Haula might get pushed back down if Grandlund returns, but here’s his chance to really shine against a matchup that may not be able to handle his speed.

It’s great to see the Wild in it to actually DO something this year.

Grouse

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Id love to hear those ideas.

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The 3 point system…
8 Minute OT…
5 Minute 3 on 3 OT…

While not eliminating the 1 -0 break away drills to get an extra point, it would hopefully reduce them.

Forget messing with the shootout, suddenly the NHL has a crisis on its hands. C’mon you guys! Do you really think the league is going to spend time messing with the shootout when the most serious crisis ever just landed on the NHL’s doorstep?

In case you guys haven’t noticed, only one Canadian team made the playoffs. And I don’t think they’re on the fast track to the cup.

The league clearly has a crisis that must be dealt with.

Grouse

How come there isn’t a NHL team called “The Americans”? I think the Wild missed a great marking opportunity by going with the Wild instead.

The Leafs really collapsed down the stretch. If you think the calls for Yeo’s head here are bad can you imagine the fan onslaught against Carlyle in Canada?

Surprised he hasnt been fired yet or we havn’t heard about his house being burnt down. Oh wait coaches rent apartments now just to be safe in the Real Estate end of things.

I have been saying all year we want Colorado but I’m not so sure now. I didnt think they had a chance to sustain the top level of play but it appears they have.

It’s a pretty amazing story, Semyon Varlamov “goalie” led the league in LOSS’s last year now he may be the best in the game in one short year..suppose it doesnt hurt that your coach is Patrick Roy..

Lets hope we can rattle him and some of the younger more inexperienced players the Lanch have.

Go Wild!

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How come there isn’t a NHL team called “The Americans”? I think the Wild missed a great marking opportunity by going with the Wild instead.

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I think the Wild missed a great opportunity by not naming the team the Minnesota North Stars.

Let Numbnuts Norm and his Texass Team Stealers find their own name. Maybe call them the Rustlers? Seems fitting somehow.

Grouse

Barry Trotz out after 15 seasons as Predators head coach, the longest tenured coach (formerly). Which is absurd, considering the success he has had with minimal talent. Good luck finding someone who will get out as much as he did from the Preds.

The Wild are in real danger of losing Justin Fontaine this summer. If he doesn’t play 3 games he becomes an unrestricted free agent. He certainly should be offered a starting top 6 roles somewhere. There are plenty of bad young teams that could use him. Here he faces being a healthy scratch unless there are injuries and depending on what the Wild does this summer.

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The Wild are in real danger of losing Justin Fontaine this summer. If he doesn’t play 3 games he becomes an unrestricted free agent. He certainly should be offered a starting top 6 roles somewhere. There are plenty of bad young teams that could use him. Here he faces being a healthy scratch unless there are injuries and depending on what the Wild does this summer.

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I’m sure there’s a reason why Coaching Genius Mike Yeo allowed this situation to occur. After all, as one of the most experienced coaches in the league, Yeo would certainly NOT have allowed this situation to occur without a masterful strategy behind the fact that Fontaine was in the top 5 goal scorers on the team, yet was benched more than the bottom 5 combined.

Maybe this is part of Yeo’s master plan to bring Fontaine with him to his next job? Although, I think he may have miscalculated this a bit since Yeo’s next job is going to be coaching a third division team in Estonia’s budding semi-pro women’s league.

Grouse

Fontaine as noted earlier in the thread or if have watched the games at all this is worthless defensivley. Now we are into the playoffs. Of course hes not going to play a whole lot
I get the casual fan that just looks at goals and cant rationalize any of this.

Maybe. You can’t win a 1-0 game without scoring. Same as you can’t win a 1-0 game by allowing a goal.

Go ahead and play Fontaine unless you are 100% sure he doesn’t make the team next year. He just needs to make a appearance. Play him a shift or two and see how the game is going. I’m thinking if you fall behind by 2 goals you might need a goal scorer?

additionally….if you wanted a goal im pretty sure your odds of putting a guy “fontaine” who has 8 freakin assist in 66 games woulnt be your best option.

Also if Fletcher doent think Fonty is in the wilds future then I assume hes not to worried about getting those games in for him. Ill trust fletchs call on this situation wether he plays or we resign him.

But feel free to blame Yeo for fontaines vast limitations.

Whoah, lets all calm down now. There is no guarantee he is gone and even if he does leave, we’ll be ok.

Wow, that Canadian v Lightning game was like watching a video game.

Man I love playoff hockey.

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Wow, that Canadian v Lightning game was like watching a video game.

Man I love playoff hockey.

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The little bit I got to watch the Canadians were really out playing the Lightning. Its the playoffs anything can happen, all of the games were close.

I didn’t watch it all, but much of the 3rd period. I jumped in when it was the Canadians up 3-2. The Canadians just were not taking care of things defensively and the defensemen were inexplicably aggressive with the lead. You can’t do that in the playoffs.

I watched pretty much the whole thing and ya that was an awesome game…I was hoping Tampa would win it…I’m hoping the wild game is like that tonight..

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I watched pretty much the whole thing and ya that was an awesome game…I was hoping Tampa would win it…I’m hoping the wild game is like that tonight..

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I dunno about that! A track meet with the Avs probably means the Avs are killing us

I know what you were saying. It is pretty incredible how much different a playoff game is from the regular season. So much faster and so much more physical.

Maybe the Wild will come out playing like they did the first dozen games or so when they were flying.

No doubt the Wild need to come out with focus and playoff intensity, but I’d be wary of them trying to play someone else’s game.

IMO they don’t need to play some kind of alternative “playoff hockey”, they need to do exactly what they did over the last 8-10 games (forget the throwaway against Nashville).

Play patient, smart, organized and play the whole game. The Wild’s ability to play well deep into the 3rd period has got to be on the Avs radar and they pressure to score early and often will hopefully make them try to force the pace.

Obviously, Bryzgalov has to come out strong and if he can keep the Avs off the board or doing minimal damage, I think that will create opportunities for the Wild by making the Avs play outside of their game. There’s no point in saying anything more about the goaltending situation, at this point there’s only one horse to ride.

As always, in the playoffs it really helps to have someone outside of the usual scoring suspects rise to the occasion. I’d love to see someone like Haula, Fontaine, or anyone else suddenly break out with a red hot streak.

I think they can do it. Let’s go Wild!

Grouse

They definitely need to keep playing defensively how they have been. Let Bryz see the puck and limit the shots, and more importantly, scoring chances.

It would be cool to see Brodziak break out on a hot streak by burying the chances he has been getting lately.

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It would be cool to see Brodziak break out on a hot streak by burying the chances he has been getting lately.

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Yep, anything that spreads out the scoring and makes the defense start second guessing who the “threats” are would be a huge plus.

In reading a lot about this series from sports sites, nobody is saying this is a walk-off for the Avs. In fact, there’s no consensus that the Avs are even the favorite in this series. MN seems to be cast as a dark horse and nobody want to be the one to say that a team with the Wild’s talent can’t do it. The question mark is the netminding buy as one pundit put it, “Isn’t that always the question?” Even somewhere where it shouldn’t be the question like in St. Louis, it’s still the question.

I think the Wild got a great chance with this matchup. Playoff teams are all good, but considering what the likely matchup was looking like before the Blues tanked, I think a heck of an opportunity opened up.

I’d just love to see the Wild come out hitting on all cylinders and take the wind out of the Avs home-ice advantage with an opening game win.

Grouse