Why did Bruce put Parise early in the shootout last night? He has ZERO confidence right now, Nino & Granny would have been a much better choices, almost cost us a point? When was the last time Zack even scored in a shootout? none this year I can think of… Coyle is like a Deer in headlights right now…my god that turn-over in OT, that’s bench worthy!
The Zucker/Koivu/Granlund line is just money right now, they generate quality chances on pretty much every shift, fun to watch!
Interesting you bring up making Coyle available in the expansion draft. I just caught the beginning of a conversation on KFAN this morning with Mark Parrish discussing how the play of the team this year is going to make Fletcher’s decision of who to protect or not a very tough one. Good problem to have I guess.
Halifax NS could draw more fans on a year in year out basis than Dallas can.
Having been there many times, it is a great hockey city. Although it isn’t all that big and I don’t think the NHL wants to add another time zone. They would have one hell of a travel schedule.
It feels weird watching the wild right now. I have very little interest in the outcome of the game and so much more in how they play. I may have to skip watching a few games.
Geez, so much negativity that I had to double check the score on NHL.com to make sure I didn’t dream thast victory last night. 
I got no problem with the Coyle guy who turns 25 in March. Yes he is streaky, but it isn’t like he’s an aged veteran who best days are behind him. There are those times where he shows flashes of actually being a power forward, the times where he leans into the defenseman and protects the puck on his way to the net or when guys can’t move him off the puck.
I just think he’s too nice. He needs a little nastiness and intensity. I mean he appears to have the same demeanor as Suter, but Suter isn’t passive.
I don’t really see it as negativity, the darn team is just so good right now we can’t brag on them all day long 
Just some points of note if you will 
Coyle is a big kid and he got good strength, he just doesn’t use it as much as he should. He has to win more puck battles in the corner. Yes, a little more nastiness if you want to call it that.
Nice to see Pominville a little more consistent on the scoring sheet as of late. We have til April to get slumps worked thru, focus re-adjusted, confidences rebuilt, etc. Hopefully, we don’t get some kind of injury bug.
Man I love Stewie! I will admit, when I saw him skate out for the shootout attempt I thought to myself “what is he thinking?” but seeing Stewart attack the puck with speed and make a few nice moves and a dandy backhand to win it! Who I am to question what BB does?
Apparently Stewart basically begged to get out there for a chance. I love that in a guy. Shootout isn’t as much about skill as it is about confidence. All these guys at this level can score, but you want the guy who isn’t going to fold under the pressure. Stewart seems to embrace it.
I was texting my buddy during the game and I kept telling him “keep this game 1 – 0”. We saw what happened.
Not happy with them building leads like that and losing the lead, but I am impressed they keep winning.
Did you guys see the ridiculous play where Roussell literally pulled the stick out of Zucker’s hands and threw it in the corner, almost hitting the ref and NO CALL?!!! Benn completely tackles a guy (I think Granlund) and NO CALL!?
Pretty poor officiating the last couple games for sure.
Having been there many times, it is a great hockey city. Although it isn’t all that big and I don’t think the NHL wants to add another time zone. They would have one hell of a travel schedule.
That was an entirely serious suggestion, I was not making fun of Halifax and yes it IS a great hockey town. And IMO vastly more deserving of a team than is Arizona, that’s why I mentioned them. Yes, I know that Halifax is likely to be way down on the list compared to some Central Belt cities that have been begging for a team for years.
Even with the lower population compared to the sun-baked hellhole that is Pheonix or Dallas, it’s hard for me to believe that attendance wouldn’t actually be BIGGER in Halifax.
Grouse
meanwhile future Wild prospect news – Last night Kirill Kaprizov broke Kuznetsov’s record for points in the KHL by a U20 player, pretty darn impressive! This kid could be a legit star in the making!
It’s almost a gift that Kaprizov is tied up under contract until the end of the 2017-18 season in the KHL to keep him far, far away from the expansion draft.
Can the Wild buy out a KHL contract? I would have to think that doing so would mean that the buyout money gets counted against the salary cap if it were even possible.
Get Greenway, Kunin, Ek, Tuch, and Kaprizov all up to the big club and we’re going to have a pretty interesting team given that we’ll still have some pretty good vets when these kids get up here.
Grouse
I knew it was serious. It was mentioned years ago when they were talking about expansion. Awesome city to visit. Great bars and great food. The people are even better.
1st & 2nd year players are excluded from the expansion draft, but yes, the future looks pretty good…The fact that they are the more difficult type of players to get/develop (Centers, Offensive bigmen, Snipers) is the cherry on top…
found this nugget on Kaprizov’s contract:
This means that the only way he’ll be in the Minnesota lineup any earlier than 2018-19 is if the final year of his existing deal gets bought out. His KHL team certainly won’t be buying him out, so it would be up to the player himself to pay the required amount to terminate the deal.
This has been done before, most recently last year by a Penguins prospect…
Can the Wild buy out a KHL contract? I would have to think that doing so would mean that the buyout money gets counted against the salary cap if it were even possible.
I believe the NHL does not have any agreements with the KHL like they do with juniors and the European leagues. I believe that means they have to fulfill their KHL contracts.
I just Googled it and skimmed it. They attempted to work out a transfer deal in 2015, but it fell apart.
correct, it’s upto the player himself to buy himself out of his contract…it’s been done before..the kid is only 19 years old, another KHL season wouldn’t hurt…it then lines up with Pommer’s anchor contract finally coming off the books too 
it then lines up with Pommer’s anchor contract finally coming off the books too
The fact that we have all these young studs at the same age should bode well on the cap for a while when they’re on their entry level contracts. The wild should have some serious cap space when they’re here. Obviously singing those guys after their entry level deal is going to be tough but that’ll be the time for trades to reload their draft picks.
I forgot who it was (Parrish I think), but someone on KFAN was speculating that Coyle was playing injured and should be sat down for a few extra games around the All-Star break.
I have a hard time getting excited about any prospects having waited so long on Coyle, Zucker, Dumba, Niño, Granlund, etc. But I will admit Krill at this point smells like a guy who can come over and make the squad and compete for the Calder. That hasn’t happened since Gaborik. It’s kind of sad in 15 seasons we only approached having an elite scorer once….Not including the aged vets like Owen Nolan.
I miss Owen. He’s easily top ten all time fav wild if not top 5.
I miss Owen. He’s easily top ten all time fav wild if not top 5.
Same Here.
I suppose the Wild can’t offer Kaprisov a “signing bonus” that would, purely by coincidence, cover the buyout amount?
Hey and all you guys dissing Pominville, let’s not be too hard on the leadoff shootout man from the SO win against the stars. Oh, and the guy who potted 50% of our goals that night and was 3 inches away from having 66% of our goals that night. Pominville’s problem is in the 6 inchs between his ears. He’s got point in the last 3-4 games, let’s hope he comes around because there’s no reason he shouldn’t be getting in on the “everybody scores” mantra.
Plus, somebody’s gotta cover the lack of production from Coyle.
I’m glad the all star break is almost here, this team needs a rest. The schedule these days are nuts. I hate to say it as a fan, but they to take 6 games out of the schedule.
Grouse
Krill will be served well developing another year in the KHL. Hopefully there will be no set backs. He’ll be NHL ready Oct 2018.
I’ll admit the last few games Pommer has played better, but he’s slow, wins ZERO puck battles and floats on defense. Look at his points the last 10 games or so, majority of them are 2nd assists, his goals being the open net goal that broke his drought and then scored the other 2 goals on 2 on 1’s (one of them being a bad goal to let in against Nashville) Dallas goal was nice, but that’s his bread & butter shot…
All of this ontop of making 5.75 million dollars this season…so we’re mostly just salty because his production isn’t in the same area code as his salary and for a team with major cap problems, that’s a big deal…
just focus on him during his shifts, it’s comical in the defensive zone…
Jesus I just noticed Pommer has TWO more years on his contract AFTER this season…so if we buy him out after this season then it’s almost a 3.7 million hit for the next 4 years….unreal
Granlund, Nino and Haula are all up for new contracts after this season…Koivu is up after next year…Granny and Nino are in-line for big raises, Haula will likely get a Zucker like contract, Koivu hopefully gets brought back down to earth and is in the 4.5 million per year range…
this year we’re paying a combined 2.5 million hit for Cooke and Vanek…next year we’re paying a 2.5 million dollar hit just for Vanek…
on a positive note, look how nice Dubnyk and Staal’s contracts look
this year we’re paying a combined 2.5 million hit for Cooke and Vanek…next year we’re paying a 2.5 million dollar hit just for Vanek…
Let’s bring back Vanek! Yeaaaaah. As long as we’re paying for him…
It’s a cruel, cruel irony. Playing in Detoilet, he’s got one less goal than Coyle… Uh oh, there I go again.
Problem with all contracts in sports is that past performance does not guarantee future results. Nobody was saying “dump Pomminville” after the first season.
Question about Staal, how long did we sign him for? Was it 2 years? It’d be totally bitter to lose him after he has what amounts to a possible career season.
Grouse
3 years for Staal. Nice job Fletch!
We were paying $6.5M for Vanek (not sure what it would have been this year) and Coyle about half that. We dumped him and that enabled us to pick up a guy with 2Xs the Production to $.
Coyle is still just a 24 year old who had early success this season and somewhat hit a wall (let’s remember he’s still 3rd on the team in scoring and is only 5 points behind his career high from last year) he’s locked in at a modest 3.2 million for 3 more years. I have no issues with “Chahlie” hopefully Bruce gets Scott Stevens to work with him on building some toughness (There’s been glimpses of it these last few games when you can see him get pissed off and bullrush through players) that’s the player hopefully he can turn into.
I’m really getting worried about Parise’s contract, hopefully it’s just a slump and not related to his back flaring up again…
It will be interesting to see if Fletcher does anything at the trade deadline, we have Brodin/Dumba/Scandella/Olofson to dangle because we would likely just lose one of them for nothing in the xpac draft anyways…i’m not sure what to even try and get though besides 4th line/3rd D paring depth. Who (besides Pommer) would you even drop from our top 9 forwards? My god do I dare say our Center’s finally seem to be locked in? Amazing how adding Staal has solidified this team…
You brought up one of the perils of this year’s trade deadline. I am thinking the opposite, why trade a guy, that’s like losing 2 players in the expansion draft. Also, why trade a rental with an expiring contract. If you have a good player with an expiring contract who you can’t sign because of cap space or whatever, why not keep him and hope Las Vegas takes him as bait? Unsigned free agents selected count against the team they last played for.
Then flip that, if you want to go all in this year, you can acquire a rental and then expose him at the expansion draft. However, if you are las Vegas, why draft an UFA, when you could just acquired him in the free agent period?
I have a feeling a lot of teams are going to be sour after the expansion draft. I also think some teams are going to be “creative” and come out unscathed, by the perception of how they did it is going to cause other owners to cry foul.
They had a rough time last night breaking out of their own end in the first period, but after that they came out firing on all cylinders!! Great way to head into the all star break.
Oh, and don’t worry, Yeo has always had trouble winning in the Excell Center 
remember there will be negotiating that goes on with Vegas for them to NOT pick certain unprotected players, no idea how that is allowed, but it is…so we can say leave Nino & Granny exposed, but give Vegas draft picks for them NOT to select them…
Great game last night, Bruce really has these guys dialed in and not looking in the future, how many stories have you read in the last day about how teams often overlook this last game before the allstar break, not this team!
Hopefully Brodin is ahead of schedule, Scandella and Dumba gave up how many stretch passes up the middle last night?
Here is an interesting read. I didn’t think about the fact that if they select a UFA, they still have to sign them, it doesn’t guarantee they’ll sign them.
We don’t really have any UFAs this season. That might be bad? I am sitting here trying to figure out how to game the system. I remember the Wild selected and then traded back several players.
I don’t think Vegas really wants to deal with UFAs.
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