MN Wild 2016-17 – Official thread.

I too am sick of hearing about the invisible Blackhawks. I want nothing more for the Wild than to meet them in the playoffs. That is no exaggeration either. I am somewhat disinterested in the rest of this season because of it.

You can win a game or two in the playoffs by one of your superstars stealing a game. BUT, you can win entire series and possibly the cup riding a great goalie.

Given the way Crawford has been playing lately, that is far and above my biggest concern come playoffs. Which goalie will steal the series?

It’s hard to beat an invisible team. They are hard to track.

Playoff games are a completely different animal anyway. With the youth on that hawks team, I wouldn’t be surprised if they lost in the first round, especially if they chase us all year.

The Wild are invisible when it comes to national recognition.

I think of the wild meet the hawks this year it will be much much different than in past years. All those years we had to scratch and claw to just get into the playoffs. We have never had home ice advantage against them and we have a much more experienced team now. Top to bottom we are a much different team than those other years.
I think not having to fight just to make the playoffs will be huge. The other thing is we have played great on the road and have only lost back to back once.

biggill wrote:

The Wild are invisible when it comes to national recognition.

MN Sports Fans are so self loathing!

I Never meant to imply that they are invincible,just that they have stolen our lunch money for the past three years. I never put much faith in regular season wins early in the year. With that said when the Wild have had the chance to bury the Hawks for the regular season title they have not been able to drive the final nail home.

In other news, the mumps has made another triumphant return. Parise and Pomminville are out.

Am I missing something? Can this still happen if you’ve been vaccinated?

biggill wrote:

In other news, the mumps has made another triumphant return. Parise and Pomminville are out.

Am I missing something? Can this still happen if you’ve been vaccinated?

Scott Stevens as well.

Matt I think you answered your own question.

Wild looked good to start, like a team trying to prove the break didn’t effect them. Then they wained.

White is actually impressing. He may end up being the sleeper in this deal.

I think to Jeff’s point, the wild now have Hanzel and Koivu to match up Kane and Toews when they are on separate lines. Plus, Haula in the past has proven he can shadow Kane.

Mumps isn’t something that you can really vaccinate from. There are boosters but they are marginally effective. Kinda like a shingles vaccine. You can still get it. Hopefully this won’t be like 2014.

Granny!!!!!!!
DT

Might as well start planning the parade route.

That Fletcher is a smart man. He got us depth without losing a player.

We added some pretty sweet hockey hair to the team as well. His beard game….. not so much.
DT

Awesome wild win. Breaking the week off curse.

Grouse

anyone know where I can order a Ryan White jersey? What a game! starting to feel like playoff hockey already

From now on it should be jail time if someone brings up a certain thing Minnesota fan’s have been waiting to kiss for decade’s. It’s like in baseball when a pitcher is, you know what I’m talking about, without actually saying it. I’m so nervous that the great Minnesota ability of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is lurking in the shadows. It should be mandatory Tom Kelly has to be at every game if the wild can somehow make the post season. And no member or anything from a certain team that is purple and gold goes anywhere near the X or wild players. I’m serious. If that net minder or Mr 9 goes down after some db from the queens says let’s play hockey, the US bird killing stadium should be burnt to the ground and the queens dissolved.

Hanzel looked a little lost and slow, but man he is big. I’m sure it’s tough for a center to arrive after 5pm, get briefed on the system and have to go out and play.

It’s going to be a lot of fun here on out. Not that it hasn’t already, but I think the dark cloud has lifted and I can enjoy it.

Who could have predicted 20 goals for granny at this point of the season.

I sure hope the hawks were watching.

Hopefully Koivu/Granny/Zucker are all living inside a bubble right now, we can’t afford for them to get the mumps…they are so much fun to watch and a serious threat to score on every shift. Zucker has earned the right to be protected come the xpac draft…another game with Coyle being invisible out there…it was nice to see Granny get rewarded for all the chances he had that game, awesome win!

Wild eclipsed 40 wins the fastest in team history last night. 60 games. The previous record was 71!!! That should tell you just how special this season is, these boys are rocking.
I thought Hanzal looked OK, he is big so that makes him look slow out there. I like how Boudreau called out White for being in the wrong position for that one goal. The guy wasn’t even here for 2 hrs before the game. LOL He didn’t do it nasty like, just said that he didn’t make the right play and we would work on it once they get more time since he just got here.
We are so lucky to have Boudreau fall into our lap. Not only is he an excellent coach, but he is a quote machine. I just crack up listening to him every time.

Boy, the Wild sure know how to get my heart pumping the last 2 games They sure worked their tails off last night, but came out pretty flat in the beginning of the third. Don’t know what happened on the bench, but they sure turned it around.

Granny has to be the latest hero. That guy never stops for a second. His 2nd, 3rd, and 4th efforts are amazing to me.

I thought Dubbs was pretty soft Monday night and wasn’t impressed with Kemp last night. Speaking of not impressed, our D looks like crap lately. Turn overs in our own end, sleeping in front of the net, not real physical in the corners. That first goal last night caught our best 2 D taking a nap. Spurge was sleeping in front of the net and Suter was very lazy in the corner. Dumba… just terrible. He is either really bad, or pretty good, but very inconsistent. Brodin I wasn’t impressed, Scandela is scared of the puck. We need help on D, but maybe it just because our O is so good that it makes the D look bad.

Ok, I am done b!tching now, 2 great wins for the club. A night off to rest then on the the next victory.

The first ingredient to winning is believing.

I’d take the last two games with a grain of salt. Well, I’d take how players performed with a grain of salt. The games were quite remarkable if you think about it. Wins, gutty, battle it out wins in back to back games after a 5 day break. That shouldn’t be lost on anyone.

Maybe Granny is finally turning into the player we always thought he would be. I’ve never been too hard on him because his playoff performances showed he was a player.

In fact, all of our prospects we were excited about 3-4 years ago are finally showing why we were rated so high with our prospects. It’s been a crazy ride to get to this point, but its crazy to think how things are really coming together. And I hate to say it, I hate to bring up the name, but had Yeo been fired a year earlier, I wonder where we would be today?

What a crazy game last night, Kuemper looked really shaky throughout the game, the puck off the glass wasn’t his fault, but several others were… I suspect the Wild will look to add a playoff Veteran defenseman today to be able to plug-in when needed, sucks that the Hawks got O’Douya back, he would have been good to have…Our forward depth is just ridiculous now, we can roll 4 lines against anybody and routinely score with our 4th!

I think the only thing that could derail our team now is if Dubs gets hurt…

I’m guessing they slowly bring Suter back, all the more reason to pickup a vet defenseman today…

I don’t know how Fletch does it and not give up a roster player. I suspect if anything he’ll sign guys like Mike Weber that he can stick down in Iowa with a 2 way and put on the playoff roster as needed once they expand.

Bryz is back! LOL

Well, the Jets game was about as sloppy of a D game as I’ve seen the Wild play in all season. Yes, Kuemper was part of the problem, but that’s not where it began or ended. Puck watching, guys left uncovered in the slot, no finished checks, the list is shorter if we just talk about what the Wild D did well. Which was exactly nothing.

Now what is extraordinary to me is that the Wild have the firepower to overcome even that awful of a D performance! Granny is basically a one man wrecking machine out there, he’s like a wildcat with his tail on fire. This is the season in which we can really say that Granny has become a legit NHL star in his own right.

But the hits keep on coming! That Haula to Zucker connection for the game winner was a work of art. Haula deliberatly led the two Jets deep into the corner before dishing the puck. Getting that kind of play out of the whole offense up and down the lines is what makes this Wild team special.

And White! I love him! He looks so comfortable already. Hanzel got in on the points as well last night.

OK, now I have a few complaints.

1. Coyle. Aka the Invisible Man. What is it going to take to get some consistent production out of this guy? Uncle Bruce needs to have a sit down with Charlie and figure him out. I hate to say it, but I’m starting to lose hope. I’m afraid Coyle is going to end up wiht his name on the long list of “didn’t pan out” wild forwards. It is now obvious that Coyle will dangled as trade bait at the end of the season and/or will not have a seat on the “protected bus” for the expansion draft.

2. Once again the refs were just awful last night. Total amateur hour. The only saving grace was that the hit on Suter actually got called a major which is a minor miracle becuase this is exactly the kind of call that the Wild get screwed on 99% of the time. I cannot understand how the NHL isn’t embarassed enough to do something about the terrible inconsistency of referees.

Grouse

Can anyone tell me why the goal was disallowed last night? We did not kick it in. Their player was the one that put it in. It was a very good third period to watch, we had a quite a few chances. That’s two games in the last couple of weeks that we lost 1-0.

Haula said ref told him if puck went off Karlsson’s stick, not skate, it’s a goal

Walleye Man42 wrote:

Can anyone tell me why the goal was disallowed last night? We did not kick it in. Their player was the one that put it in. It was a very good third period to watch, we had a quite a few chances. That’s two games in the last couple of weeks that we lost 1-0.

I was hoping Pug “the rule guy” would help us out with that. The announcers on FNS don’t know a dang thing about the rules so we can’t go by what they said. They have proven that many times. I can see if you kicked the puck at the net and it went off someone that it could be disallowed, but that was NOT the case. He kicked it across the crease in an attempt to kick it up to his stick.

The way the FSN guys explained it everyone on the ice was in violation because they all use their skates to move the puck..

I would also like some clarification on that if someone can help.

Hopefully you can read this.

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