Woah mama, that goal from Zucker to Graovac with the behind the back pass was pretty! Also, the Koivu to Granny short hander was a great way to get things started and get Grandlund on the score sheet with his first goal.
Totally agree Mojo, the Wild have had issues in the past with taking a period off. Now that Bordreau got them to get it in gear in the first, he needs to get them playing a complete game.
What can you say about Doobs? 3 shutouts in a row, a franchise first.
Grouse
The Wild are getting out shot by double digits during Doobs shutout streak. Are the numbers inflated with weak shots? I’ve listened on and off on the radio..
He can’t stop em forever.
Are the numbers inflated with weak shots?
I suppose you could argue both ways. Any SOG is dangerous in theory, but for example last night I did feel like Dallas was throwing weak and low % shots at the goal, but clearly that was in hopes of generating net-front chaos and rebounds which certainly can generate goals when you have the likes of Benn and Segun.
Against a quality goaltender, if they can see the shot, they’re going to stop a very, very high %. We used to have another season ticket holder that sat next to us at games and he would go crazy yelling “shoot” constantly on power plays when the Wild had it up by the blue line. Those are very, very low % shots if there’s no screen, even if they are shots on goal.
It’s kind of hard to argue that the SOG deficit is hurting very much at this point when the Wild have 13 goals in just three games.
Grouse
The way Kuemper was fighting the puck in his last outing any puck toward the net was a “quality scoring chance”. Many of the Stars shots were not grade A chances and we also blocked around 20 shots I believe. I think the total count is inflated a bit, but we have been stung by the softies before. Regardless of whether or not the numbers are inflated by low percentage shots there is still a chance they go in off a deflection or something so managing to go 3 straight games without allowing a goal is a big accomplishment. It isn’t done often.
A little bit quiet here at game tonight. Wild cashed in on game’s only pp to tie 1-1.
Cmon 3rd period.
Grouse
Grouse, your thoughts on the game since you were there?
From my luxury of my man grotto, they looked really sloppy and slow in the first. Had a very impressive 2nd period, but only found the net that one time. The goal by Granlund was actually quite good because he charged hard to the net which is something I think he needs to do more of.
The 3rd was pretty active. The Sabres found their legs back. Dubnyk did have a pretty solid game. The second goal was one of those lucky bounces since it deflected 3 times before going in. Pretty hard to stop something like that.
Pominville had a WIDE open net from 10 feet away and he missed the net by 5 feet in the second. They really put the pressure on in the second. Certainly had chances just no enough to get that second goal. I think if they had scored, the flood gates would have opened, but weathering that storm just fueled Lehner even more. He played solid IMO.
You know, I have no idea what the problem was last night. The Wild seemed to be flat, slow, and off-kilter the whole game. The first period was painful, we were pinned in the D zone way too much and then the exit passes were producing constant N zone turnovers.
The power play actually looked good and a nice Grandlund goal. Power play. As in singular. There were 2 obvious no-calls it was clear in a close game the refs were determined to stay out of it.
Other than that, the Wild just looked like they were in phone-it-in mode and paid the price. Nothing looked REALLY bad, it all just looked pretty bad.
Grouse
I went to bed after the second. I liked granny’s goal because he didn’t just take a shot, he seemed and had a yawning net.
Coyle had a couple crazy shifts. It frustrates me more than gets me excited. Why can’t he do that more often?
http://www.nhlauthenticshop.com/category/minnesota-wild/22441/1
I already have a Dubnyk home jersey but really want the salute to service one.
DT
Just watched my recording of the Colorado game. Blah.
Please! Somebody tell me we’re not going into one of those Anemic Offensive Funks where we produce almost no goals and all the key players look at the other key players as if it’s the other guy who should be scoring. Tell me it’s not happening. Please…
Grouse
Grouse, OK, I wont tell you that… 
Well, our Wild are in one of those anemic goal-scoring funks where they are needing 2-3 and scoring 1-2. Defensively, they’ve proven over the last 5 games that they can hang with anyone, but the firepower has been wasted clanking posts and with near misses.
Decent game against the Texass Team Rustlers this week, after managing to play 18:30 of the first period on defense.
I have the game tonight with the Jets. Should be a wild one with the Jets fans invading by the tens of thousands.
A couple of interesting notes from around the league. Brent Burns signed a MegaDeal for 8 years and $64 million, of which I believe it was said that over $40 m was guaranteed and the contract is heavily front-loaded in years 1-4, so something like $50-55 million is a likely pay for him in the first 4 years. Wow! Have to give Sasquatch credit. He had the Sharks GM right where he wanted him. Hockey sites report that he made the Sharks owners cry like little girls while they signed on the dotted line. Hard to see how he left even a pug nickel on the table with that deal.
And now we have the Las Vegas Golden Knights for 2017. The Vegas team has an official name and will be robbing teams blind in the expansion draft in just a few short months.
In other news, anyone who complains about how MN has to shell out for sports facilities would NOT like what’s going to happen in Arizona. The Coyotes are abandoning their arena in Glendale to move to a brand new arena across town by the ASU campus. This will be arena #3 in the short franchise history if I’m recalling correctly. I can’t believe they have even played 10 seasons in the Glendale arena have they?
What a cluster. I can’t believe the league didn’t take the opportunity to bust the coyotes out of there and put them where we KNOW the league is going to allow the next expansion franchise anyway. It must be nice to be a Canadian city where all you have to do is sniffle and you get a franchise even if you once had one and it went broke. MN had its team stolen and it took a decade to get a new one.
Grouse
Glad someone finally gave this a bump.
For the most part I think the d has played ok. Seems like the goals against come off some kind of coverage breakdown though. Dubs and Keumps have been stellar and in my opinion the only reason we’ve competed lately.
Suter has looked foolish at times. Bad passes, bad pinch, misplayed pucks. More so than usual. Maybe he just has too much energy with the reduced minutes?
Koivu has frustrated me as well. I really expected him to be contributing more to the offense. Maybe it’s his new line mates? Regardless he’s the leader and NEEDS to step up.
Pomminville needs to demagnetize his stick. He’s been Mr. Post most of his career here.
In other news, anyone who complains about how MN has to shell out for sports facilities would NOT like what’s going to happen in Arizona. The Coyotes are abandoning their arena in Glendale to move to a brand new arena across town by the ASU campus. This will be arena #3 in the short franchise history if I’m recalling correctly. I can’t believe they have even played 10 seasons in the Glendale arena have they?
Don’t forget there was talk not long ago of Arizona having D1 hockey so the arena would get used for that also. Pro sports when you think about it are a joke these days. It’s no longer about putting the best product on display for the fans. It’s about finding the breaking point for how much money you can get them to stand still for. I wouldn’t mind a bit if the NHL pulled out of some the U.S. markets. Like baseball the product is already watered down and now they are expanding. Is what it is. Only say the fans have is voting with their ticket money.
Wild needs to have goal scorers score goals. Pretty simple.
Orange hat night at the game tonight.
No score in 2nd.
Grouse
1479949872722623283574.jpg
How front loaded is burn’s contract? I thought they got rid of that tom foolery with the last collective bargaining agreement?
Same old wild as I see it. Explosive start (what happened to all the breakaways), scoring drought, pp sucks, defense strong and goaltending saving them. Yawn
I can’t wait for the annual mid season slump.
He’ll make $10 million in the first four seasons of the deal, $7.5 million in 2021-22, $6.5 million in 2022-23 and $5 million in the final two years.
Well, I finally got caught up on the games from the weekend.
Backing up for a second to the Jets game last week, it was just terrific to see another goal overturned on the challenge. The refs had been calling offside very tight against the Wild all night, so predictably it WOULD have been the offside call that they didn’t make that resulted in a goal. I love replay!
The Wild also managed another empty netter! I might still be suffering from Colorado Syndrome, but I love, love, love to see the Wild ram one up the backside of any team that pulls the goalie. Being dangerous with the opponents net empty is a good, good thing because when the score is tight you know that this plays into the “When do we pull the goalie?” thinking.
Against the Pens, what a game. I don’t know if we’ve gotten inside the Pens heads or what. Maybe they don’t take the Wild seriously? Or maybe it just shows how weak the East is and it’s hard for the Pens to adjust and suddenly have to play western conf style? Who knows, but a great win for sure and it’s also good for the Wild to play a quality D game against 3 very dangerous players in the Pens lineup.
Unfortunately, it came at the cost of losing Folin to a knee on knee hit from Crosby. It will surprise absolutely no one that there was no penalty call on the play. I challenge anyone in the NHL to knee on knee hit Crosby such that he goes down without getting a penalty call against them.
Against the Blues, not much to say. Lots of tough teams in the Central, the Blues are one of them. There aren’t going to be many easy wins against teams like STL or CHI for anyone in the league.
Bordreau is still emphasizing that the Wild need to shoot more. It appears to be getting through, especially with Grandlund who has ha some terrific looks lately. That toe drag with big move to the forehand against the Pens was just freaking awesome. The Wild need that kind of play where the D is forced to watch both the shot and the pass on all plays and the more unpredictable Grandlund can be, the more it opens up other players.
Grouse
Jekyl and Hyde, typical roller coaster ride with the Wild. They look like world beaters one night (Pens) then cannot finish when they need to or give up the lead in the 3rd (Blues).
This will be a tough road trip for the Wild starting tomorrow. Should be a great test. Hopefully our D keeps it together because IMO they have been playing fantastic. Offensively we have gotten some good looks lately on the PP so that is good to see. We just need 5 on 5 scoring.
Well, the Wild’s Wild Western Road Trip was a mixed bag. Could have been better, could have been worse.
We shouldn’t lose sight of a continued bright spot. Dubnyk is a brick wall. Another 1 GA night and a 1.63 goals against average. It’s easy to forget how huge this is for the Wild, any team that has to face Dubnyk knows they essentially have to find a way to score 2 (not easy) and hold the Wild to 1. Every single night.
Goal production is not where it needs to be and that’s frustrating in a way, but also it’s not the usual goal drought where they just do nothing. We’ve been clanking pipes at a prodigious rate. I’d like to see a lot more consistency and Parise needs to get back on the tally sheet in a big way.
Awesome way to cap off the Western swing with an OT win against the Oilers. Good tight D against McDavid had him totally shut down and Scandella laid him out pretty good when he got caught trying to be cute with the puck. I think McDavid was trying to do to much and carry the team last night. This just shows how hard it is to build a top level team in THIS current NHL. Edmonton is stacked with #1 overall picks and other high draft talent and they still struggle to win consistently because their D is suspect and their goaltending is shaky.
And then they come back and win in OT. Man is that a joyous occasion, I’m still suffering from PTOTS (Post Traumatic Overtime Syndrome) from the switch to 3-3 when Yeo had no clue how to devise a system. They look much better now, the back-skating to allow for changes and the puck movement. Ol’ Cagey Koivu saw the Oilers goalie go to the well one too many times with the poke check and he burned him on it. Experience matters, boys and girls.
Going back it was pretty frustrating to lose to Calgary in a shootout. The Wild should have won that game outright.
Now heading out east for another team with a #1 OA star. I’ll have to wait and see, are the Leafs for real or is this a case of looking
good because of a so-so schedule of opponents? I guess we’ll see.
Grouse
Agreed Grouse. They certainly could have faired better thus far on the roadtrip, but I will take the 4 pts thus far and run. Shouldn’t have let the Vancouver game get away from them, that is one they should have gotten 2 pts but left with nothing. Blues are a solid team and the Flames have been getting much better goal tending so those were hard fought 1pt games. Last night I was nervous. We have such a lopsided advantage in recent years against the Oilers that I knew it had to come crashing down at some point and thought it was going to be last night. Oilers get up early and I thought it was going to be the end.
They fought hard and kept McDavid in check.
I saw a hit that Prosser laid on McDavid and then Lucic got a penalty for coming to his aid. Dumb move on his part, but worked out good for the Wild.
I would like to see this team move a D man to get a forward. Tough part is getting the dollars to match up. Scandella or Dumba I am ready to part ways with. I think we could survive with a combo platter of Olofsson/Reilly in replace of the loss.
NHL rumors have Landeskog and Pacioretti on the market. Not sure if I care much for either, but both a cagey veterans.
Koivu finally got to add a +1 to his terrible career Overtime plus/minus…
NHL rumors have Landeskog and Pacioretti on the market. Not sure if I care much for either, but both a cagey veterans.
I’m kind of wary of trading for yet another mid-career vet and hoping they work out. I don’t think the Wild could work a trade for a top tier forward even if they wanted to given the cap situation. I don’t think they can make the numbers work unless it’s a combo deal that involves shifting more then 1 player on the Wild’s end. Even though there are teams in desperate need of defense, the problem was this was the thinking last year as well, but no trades materialized.
My conclusion is that teams want to talk about the importance of D, but they don’t want to pay money for it.
Coyle is finally achieving numbers that I think he should, so that’s good news. Now Parise, Zucker, and a few others need to get on the goal tally sheet with more frequency. Assists are great, but somebody needs to put the puck in the net in the first place.
Grouse
I am non plussed. I find myself rooting for Dubnyk every night to keep his unbelievable stats, that’s about it. The rest of the game tends to be pretty boring.
It feels like a rerun of the last 4 seasons. Let’s see them get hot the rest of December and go into a slump.
It’s frustrating seeing Coyle pull off some of those moves like he did last night, but not see that kind of play on nightly basis. He looks like he can dominate a game. I know not even elite players do it night in and night out, but they do it more frequently.
The entire team is inconsistent and has been for years. It feels like some sort of sports purgatory.
The only player (skater) that has been consistently good is Suter.
C’mon Wild fans. Where’s the love? Your boys are 3-1 in the last 4 and Dubnyk has a GAA average that’s so small you can’t even see it from the upper deck.
Dare I even say it, but the Wild have won their last 2 games in OT/Shootouts! What the hell is going on???
I was at the game yesterday against St. Louis and right now the Wild is the team that nobody wants to play. With Dubnyk’s microscopic GAA average–that sunk to 1.63 after yesterday’s game–teams facing the Wild have the double whammy. They have to score at least 2 against Dubnyk and the Wild D, which is currently very difficult, AND then hold the Wild to less than 2, which despite the Wild’s low offensive production, is still very hard. But having to do BOTH, together, makes the Wild very dangerous to any team in the league right now. The Wild just faced the top 3 young superstars in the league and won all 3 games.
The Wild continued to spread the goalscoring around so basically everybody gets to score two goals per month and that’s it. Just when people were starting to complain about Dumba, he fires a sneaky wrister yesterday to beat Allen and get the Wild the lead they never gave up. Then Nino gets one. And Grandlund gets the dagger empty netter early enough that the Wild players actually tried to get Dubnyk to shoot the puck at the empty net late in the 3rd.
As usual, the Wild got hosed by the WORST goaltender interference call on Staal. Staal was pushed toward Allen from behind AND the collision happened with Allen 3 feet outside of the crease. And he still got the box. That’s the kind of Bogus call the Wild always get hosed with when up 2-1 against St. Louis. Bruce rightly gave the refs plenty of business over this BS call. Luckily the Wild PK held again.
Terrific win yesterday and over the last 10+ games the Wild have played well. The league is very tough right now with plenty of good teams in both east and west, so the Wild have been winning tough games against tough teams and that’s fun to watch.
It would be nice to see Parise get in on the scoring and it would be nice to hit the net instead of the post about 2 more times a game, but both tend to come in streaks.
Grouse
They are playing well right now, we’ll see if Yeo took the annaul mid-season collapse with him to St.Louis in the next month or so…Dubs has been lights out!
Balanced scoring has been nice as well, but Parise better start picking it up!
I guess one of the benefits of balanced scoring is where does the opponent match up their top line? Or their top D line? Even the Wild’s 4th line is dangerous. There’s no obvious weak spot right now for a team to try to generate mismatches off of.
Grouse
It feels like a rerun of the last 4 seasons. Let’s see them get hot the rest of December and go into a slump.
They better find a way to get that PP going soon.
I am surprised the Wild are ranked 10th in goals per game. I’ll take that with how well they are playing defensively.
Last game Parise started showing me a little more. I can’t help but think he is playing through something right now. It’s something that doesn’t keep him out and can’t get worse from playing or heal faster by resting. I know it’s the age old excuse, but I can’t believe Parise would have that much of a drop off in productions for no reason.
The 2 things I find exciting when watching the game is our play in the defense and Dooby. I root for a shutout or at least 92% saves. So I am always eyeballing the opponents shot count. And I love watching the 4th line. I was a little blind sided when Gabriel entered the lineup, I didn’t know they recalled him, but I was excited to see it. I remember his scouting report being that he was a leader. It was pretty funny seeing Reeve’s reaction when Gabriel was all fired up after the fight.
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