MN Wild 2016-17 – Official thread.

bradl110 wrote:

Sorry if offended any of you wild fans, I just don’t see with this team where you could get any excitement from. There were literally no changes made to the team besides the head coach and they were just an OK team last year.

Actually there were “literally” many other changes. Vanek was bought out, signed Staal to a team friendly deal which should make the team more stable at center, excitement about potentially seeing some of our young draft picks come up and play like Tuch, Erikson-Ek. Plucked a guy with a cannon of a shot Pulkkonen from Detroit waiver wire. Our other young players like Coyle, Haula, Neiderreiter have another year of experience so we hope for jumping to the next level.
I get excited because its NHL hockey. If the team makes the playoffs which I believe they will, there is always a chance to win it all. All you have to do is get hot at the right time.

It’s all good bradl110!

I’m on the phone, but when I was on the computer I think you have 100+ posts. So I’m not sure when you joined, but if you haven’t been here long, we’ve had a season long wild thread for at least 2 years running now.

Generally people who don’t care about the wild stay out. That’s not to say not everyone can post hear. Just saying how it’s been all these years.

That being said, I don’t mind a little good natured banter.

And thanks. I’ve been waiting for an excuse to use that gif! Lol

Bradl110 great news for you. They are building a soccer stadium just for you. It’s a much slower game, less effort to keep up with the action. If you really want to know about the North Stars leaving it was because of a sex scandel that was about to be exposed that would have involved the owner.

Go ahead and google it. I’m sure you weren’t even born yet when they left so you might find some interesting reading.

As far as the Timberwolves go, many, many have tried over the years to make them relevant on this site. Unless they are in the play-offs nobody cares.

These are just my biased opinions and in no way reflect the opinion of anybody else here.

Calm down. It’s all good.

Friday I was dead in the afternoon. I think I need to ween myself off the wild a little.

Well throw out the last few minutes of the first period or those 2 nasty mistakes that led to both goals and it was a pretty decent game. PK early was incredible with stifling the jets and leading to 2 on 1 chances. PP needs some work yet but at times they are moving the puck well. Lots of line changes by Boudreau. Its interesting to watch. Haula had a pretty good game. Staal was standing out too. He isn’t fast but I see that line getting some chemistry going and racking up some goals.

Our Russian Prospect Updates

— Wild prospect Kirill Kaprizov was named Kontinental Hockey League Forward of the Week. He has seven goals and 13 points in 19 games this season and had a hat trick last week.

— Wild prospect Dmitry Sokolov, back from a shoulder injury with Sudbury has five goals and an assist in his first six games, including a hat trick.

Sokolov is 5′ 11″ 207-220 lbs (depending which site you look at)!

Ek going to play in the AHL a bit to get conditioning before making a debut.

I got the Apple TV to stream NHL.TV now, but its still not pure HD and the frame rate is 24 f/s at best. Probably closer to 15-20 f/s, which is like watching a hockey game recorded on VHS.

Ok I have to stop in and say GO AVES! Not a wild fan but I am a huge hockey fan so I have been trolling this thread over the last few years. I just love reading or talking hockey. The Aves are looking good this year so far. They won all 6 of their preseason games (including two against the wild) and have won both of their regular season games so far including knocking off the defending champs last night in overtime. Colborne got a hat trick in his first game as an ave and had a solid game last night. MacKinnon had a great game last night and was flat out flying. Landeskog came through late in the third to tie the game on a power play then got the game winner by batting it in out of mid air within the first half minute of overtime. Great start to the season so far hopefully they can make it back into the playoffs this year!

How does Tyson Barrie look this year. I’m not in a fantasy league this year, but I had him the last couple years. I think he has a lot of upside still.

Maybe Roy was the problem. Some coaches can come in and have a teams ear for a season, but once things go south, they lose them. This happens to a lot of “players” coaches.

I think Roy was the problem. Often superstar athletes make terrible coaches. He expected his players to have the drive and skill he did.
I still think the Avs are short on talent. Its going to be right this year I think. Kings will be hurting now that Quick is out for months.
The Wild on paper may not be much better But I think Boudreau is making a difference.
Haula is looking really good so far. If he stays healthy he should have 30 goals. Need to get Nino going.

Im on the East Coast in JawJaw so I didn’t see the whole game. Lov th FSN app.

So everybody and their dog got a point lasr night. Nice to see Haula and Pomms score. Good vision on that line. Even L4 got in on it.

Not sure what happened after I went to bed but giving up 2 in the thkrd was a poor wat to end.

Grouse

mplspug wrote:

How does Tyson Barrie look this year. I’m not in a fantasy league this year, but I had him the last couple years. I think he has a lot of upside still.

Maybe Roy was the problem. Some coaches can come in and have a teams ear for a season, but once things go south, they lose them. This happens to a lot of “players” coaches.

Barrie is looking good once again. He has 1 goal and 2 assists in the first 3 games and has a +1 rating right now. Erik Johnson is absolutely flying this year for a defencemen. He has been jumping up into the play a lot which has accounted for his 3 assists so far.

I am not sure if Roy was the problem or not I think it is too early to tell for sure. They got worked last night by the caps so I hope it was just because they played back to back games. They couldn’t hit their mark a few times on wide open nets and then allowed two power play goals. Now they are continuing their road trip down into your neck of the woods to play Tampa so we will see how that goes.

I’m anxious to see Ek play when he comes up from Iowa. Also excited to see this group of guys play in Boudreau’s system. It sounds like guys will be evaluated and played based solely on talent and not salary or name. I’d like to see Zucker take a big step forward this year, God he’s fast! And lastly, my guy Coyle is going to have a big impact this season while I continue to say he’s the next captain of this team.

I hope to get to a lot more games this year, it’s the best sport to attend, hands down!

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

Not sure what happened after I went to bed but giving up 2 in the thkrd was a poor wat to end.

It’s what happens. How often do we see 5-0 routes? It felt like a lot closer of a score than the scoreboard would indicate.

I like seeing the stretch passes working and spring Zucker and Haula. We had a lot of breakaways last night.

Zucker isn’t going to have a big impact until he finds himself off the 4th line. That’s probably going to take an injury.

belletaine wrote:

I’m anxious to see Ek play when he comes up from Iowa. Also excited to see this group of guys play in Boudreau’s system. It sounds like guys will be evaluated and played based solely on talent and not salary or name.

I’m anxious for this too, but the salary thing is certainly going to come into play. They are only $400K below the cap right now so it will matter with callups and what options they have.

vanek

I thought it was kind of an interesting read. I hope he does well, last year he kind of grew on me. Personally I believe he has to have the right linemates and system to succeed. He’s creative, but that creativity turns into a lot of turnovers if his linemates don’t understand his game.

I was happy that Vanek found a home in Detroit. I thought the buyout made sense and in terms of salary dollars per goal produced, keeping him didn’t make sense.

But I also felt like a lot of MN fans for some reason got bitter at Vanek for no reason. Not sure if it was that they had very high expectations that weren’t met, or if it was that he got tagged with the dreaded rep of being “lazy”, which in MN is a sin for which you will never be forgiven, even if it turned out to be rooted more in injury than anything else.

I said it before, I’ll say it again. All the Vanek haters out there never had an answer for what OTHER player could have been gotten at the time Vanek was acquired that could contribute at the 20+ GPY level. The correct answer, of course, was nobody. Vanek’s 20 goals in 2014-15 were the difference between a playoff slot and not in that season.

Also, unlike Nino, Pomms, etc, the Wild didn’t give anything except money to get those 20 goals, so by that measure, Vanek turned out to be, IMO, a pretty good value for the goals and points produced. Yes, we took a cash hit over the buyout, but with other players we’ll never know the hit we took because we don’t know what the draft picks would have done, but it’s a little depressing to think about what we COULD have had if you look at our picks given up.

Grouse

Dumba out, Reilly in.

mplspug wrote:

Dumba out, Reilly in.

Interesting. Also Zucker out.

Should be interesting to see the Leaf’s rookie Auston Matthews come to town to play tonight. Looking forward to watching him for a full game against the Wild.

Grouse

Zucker didn’t practice yesterday so he must be banged up a bit.

Complained earlier tonight to bros about Dalpe. I have not been impressed and then he goes and makes a nice goal.

mplspug wrote:

Complained earlier tonight to bros about Dalpe. I have not been impressed and then he goes and makes a nice goal.

I said the same thing to the wife, then he bangs one in! Although the Wild are starting kind of sluggish, I really like the way they are finishing the games, Winning!

I also complained about how slow Staal seems and he gets a breakaway goal. I liked his second goal better. He made space in an area that I rarely see Wild players taking shots from.

Wild were lucky to get away with a W last night IMO. A couple of more inches of elevation on any of about 4 blind pad saves that Dubs had to make and it was tied or worse. The D was starting to look like they thought they had another 3 goal lead type of night. Dubs totally bailed them out, which I understand a goaltender has to do sometimes, but you’d like to keep it to 1-2 times, not 5 or 6 times.

Staal. I’m liking his play a lot and now that he’s established himself, I think this is going to be great–for Parise. More threats on that line mean more distractions and less ability to gang up on Parise.

Will be interesting to see if there are any line combo changes from Bruce for the next game.

Grouse

This is what I texted my bros after 2 periods tonight.

I like what I see from the wild. Lots of room for improvement, but they are winning and defensively sound

Sorry in advance if they lose.

Dumba has had a good game, even without that hit on Hall.

Nice for Ek to get that first goal out of the way. He was beaming on the bench.

Dalpe is starting to grow on me.

Oh well, it’s a point on the road I guess.

I’d be curious to see what Koivu’s career +- is in overtime?

Not good when your supposed two best defensive players don’t know how to defend a simple 2-2, this is peewee stuff folks…

Defensive game is thrown out the window when you have gimmicky 3 on 3 OT IMO. I don’t think koivu and suter should be out there together in OT. They lack creativity and speed to take advantage of mistakes from the opposing team. It’s 1 pt, but they need to get 5 on this road trip.

Maybe if they did away with the phony participation point you get for overtime it would help. Either win or lose. Either get 2 points or you get nothing. If the goal is to make everybody feel good for getting to overtime then hand out little blue ribbons to all the fans as they exit the arena also.

Dutchboy wrote:

Maybe if they did away with the phony participation point you get for overtime it would help. Either win or lose. Either get 2 points or you get nothing. If the goal is to make everybody feel good for getting to overtime then hand out little blue ribbons to all the fans as they exit the arena also.

To make everybody feel good is not the reason for 3 point games. Originally it was because you had less to lose. You’d play with a little more risk in ot.

Now it’s because it creates a much more even points race. That’s what the league wants to fill seats. But it now has a different effect. Teams defend really hard during regulation just to get that point.

Exactly…….they play harder to get a tie then a win.