MN Wild 2017-18 Official Thread

People can complain about Parise’s price tag, but he’s a consistent scorer, puts up PP points and is always hustling even when injured. Suter is worth every penny. It was quite an accomplishment to get the top F/D UFAs that year. Those guys were top 5 earners for 3 season, but they are locked in and the market is getting ridiculously steep, especially with little cap movement. If I went back I’d still want Fletch to make that move.

Kane and Toes lock up $26M in salary. That’s forced the Hawks to get creative in the offseason and they have done it by moving good players for older guys they had before.

I agree Pug. The length of the contracts may not be real good but the $$ per year is certainly not that big of deal. It averages out to $7.5M or so. I just wish it was a bit shorter. I think Suter will play out his contract and still be effective, but Parise I have my doubts.
At any rate, I would still do that trade today without hesitation. It immediately catapulted us to a playoff contender when we had missed the playoffs 5 of the prior 7 seasons.

If I heard things correctly Nino is in the books for a 5-yr/$26M deal.

Granny is next, should be north of $6 million per, although I would let him go to arbitration, you’ll likely pay a little more, but you get some insurance that he just didn’t have a fluke season.. if he can physically survive the next year or two and continue to put up big numbers, then sign him long-term before he’s a UFA…

If he goes to arbitration, isn’t it pretty much a guarantee of short term, high salary and he gets to be an UFA at the end?

it would be 1 or 2 year term and the Wild make their case why his salary should be lower and Granny’s agent makes their case why it should be higher, the arbitrator then makes a decision based on several comparables (typically siding more towards the players expressed value)… I don’t believe their UFA status changes at all, that’s all based on years of experience…Both Granny and Nino would become UFA’s in 2 more years?

So the Wild pays more up front in arbitration, but if Granny gets hurt or doesn’t play at the same level after a year or two, the Wild isn’t still on the hook for 3 more years (ala Nino’s deal) If Granny does play well, then the Wild should reward him with a big contract or Granny can likely look elsewhere…

Who knows what Fletcher is thinking, I just look at how Pierre Mark Bouchard fizzled out of the league due to being small and getting injured…

Granlund signed… 3 years – $5.75 mil AAV. I think the Wild did well with these two recent contracts.

http://www.startribune.com/mikael-granlund-agrees-to-three-year-17-25-million-deal-with-wild/437950583/

Over the age of 27 or 7 years in the league to be a UFA.

This means Coyle and Granlund will be free agents the same year. 3 years is probably smart, for both parties. If he’s injury prone, wild can cut ties. If he keeps building on this year, he’s going to get paid.

All intents and purposes, free agent status isn’t a huge deal.

I was wondering why the oiler would extend McDavid before he is even a RFA. I assume it’s because they were afraid someone would throw a massive offer sheet at him?

mplspug wrote:

I was wondering why the oiler would extend McDavid before he is even a RFA. I assume it’s because they were afraid someone would throw a massive offer sheet at him?

I am sure that is it. Can you imagine someone like LV or Arizona (most likely not) throwing a huge offer at him? They are likely going to be well below the cap for the foreseeable future and they could certainly do it.
LV would love him because he would be a huge draw for them and help build the fanbase.

On a side note, any of you guys on Twitter? If you are, you owe it to yourself to follow the LV Golden Knights. They have a clever social media person. Pretty funny. They were trolling the Pens the other day and it was quite funny.

I’m going to have to follow them.

I added offer sheet to my McDavid search. Someone definitely could have done that, but I think most GMs are wary of doing that.

They are in the same position right now with Draisaitl. No one has made an offer. As a GM you take a big risk doing offer sheets. Remember Lowe and Burke when Lowe did an offer sheet to Dustin Penner? Not a good way to deal with people you may want to work deals out with in the future.

With the “Big Kids” signed, what do you all think they’ll do with the remaining 4.7 Million? They still have Foligno to deal with. Last year I believe he had a 2.5mil cap hit. If they do something similar, that doesn’t leave much room for free agents.. Thoughts?

mplspug wrote:

I added offer sheet to my McDavid search. Someone definitely could have done that, but I think most GMs are wary of doing that.

They are in the same position right now with Draisaitl. No one has made an offer. As a GM you take a big risk doing offer sheets. Remember Lowe and Burke when Lowe did an offer sheet to Dustin Penner? Not a good way to deal with people you may want to work deals out with in the future.

Absolutely! Kind of a gentleman’s agreement. Though, if there is a GM on the hotseat, they may not pull any punches and go for it. I guess I didn’t realize Draisaitl was a UFA, I thought he was an RFA.

IceNEyes1986 wrote:

With the “Big Kids” signed, what do you all think they’ll do with the remaining 4.7 Million? They still have Foligno to deal with. Last year I believe he had a 2.5mil cap hit. If they do something similar, that doesn’t leave much room for free agents.. Thoughts?

Comparables for Foligno would have him under $3M, but you are right, that doesn’t leave much left. Maybe a little room for another forward to add some depth, but this could be the roster we go to camp with.
Similar to this time last year, I don’t have high expectations with this roster. I am not sure we improved at all. We lost some guys that had significant roles for us and are sprinkling in folks we are not familiar with Foligno, Ennis, Quincey. I think Quincey will be an upgrade over Scandella. Foligno will be a solid 4th line, possible 3rd line guy. Ennis is the wildcard because he just hasn’t been healthy. He has a lot of talent, but can he play more than 70 games for us? Not so sure. He has done it only 3 times in his 9 seasons so far (one was a EOY callup so I guess that doesn’t count).

CaptainMusky wrote:

I guess I didn’t realize Draisaitl was a UFA, I thought he was an RFA.

He is a RFA, that’s the tier FA that get’s offer sheets. If a player is offered a offer sheet and the team with his rights doesn’t match, then the team who owns his rights gets compensated in draft picks.

mplspug wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>CaptainMusky wrote:</div>
I guess I didn’t realize Draisaitl was a UFA, I thought he was an RFA.

He is a RFA, that’s the tier FA that get’s offer sheets. If a player is offered a offer sheet and the team with his rights doesn’t match, then the team who owns his rights gets compensated in draft picks.

Yes, sorry, my bad.

Oilers will be dealing with some major cap headaches in the coming years…

Everybody is going to have cap problems in a few years the way player salaries are going up, but the cap isn’t. We have 4 seasons left before the next lockout. Enjoy!

My understanding for the cap not going up like it was expected to, is due to the Canadian dollar being weak. Anyone else hear that?

Could be, I have not heard, but the revenue isn’t coming in, that we know.

One of my favorites is retiring. Mike Fisher announced his retirement.

Poor guy, he’s going to have to spend more time with Carrie Underwood.

mplspug wrote:

Poor guy, he’s going to have to spend more time with Carrie Underwood.

Such a terrible thing. To ease his suffering I will offer to spend time with her on weekends and some Holidays.

Not bothering to look through older threads in this post to see if this topic was already mentioned earlier… I just finished reading a good write-up of the Wild’s off season and while Fletcher takes alot of heat for some of his moves, he really needs a pat on the back for how everything turned out this summer…

at the end of the season this is what was staring at him on his plate:

1) Vegas will be taking a good Wild player (likely one of our top D) for nothing in return…
2) Wild have 2 big RFA’s to sign (our overall top scorer and #2 goal scorer) that will expect big contracts in the range of $5.5-$6.0 million per season
3) The Wild has only a few million in salary cap space to work with, meaning a big contract will likely need to be traded or released so we take no salary in return…

Fletcher turned that into:
1) We gave up Tuch and negotiated Haula being taken by Vegas, not losing any of out top 4 D. Tuch was not living upto his initial draft potential and Haula was a RFA in line for a huge raise that we couldn’t afford anyways…Who would Tuch be replacing this season if we kept him? Greenway would likely be taking his spot in 1 or 2 seasons…
2) Fletcher deserves GM of the year award to unloading Pommer’s contract and trading Scandella’s large cap hit to Buffalo for a proven NHL scorer “when healthy” (Ennis) and a young Cal Clutterbuck clone in Foligno… This move removed about 5 million from the cap (before we resign Foligno) and boosted the offense with upgrades over Pommer…
3) with the added cap space Fletcher then signed Nino & Granny to multi-year contracts with cap hits a less than what most expected…
4) We still have enough money to sign Foligno and a veteran center (Gianta, Cullen, etc)
5) We didn’t lose any of our core…and opened spots for Kunin and Olofson to prove themselves in the NHL…

Now some folks will say we needed to do more because this current core of players didn’t do anything in the playoffs last year, but you can put alot of that 1st round loss on Jake Allen’s 98+% save percentage… We were the best team in the NHL for a good chunk of the entire season. Nashville proved that anything can happen once you get in the playoffs and have a hot goalie, but you have to get in to do it…

bottom line – let’s give some kudos to Fletcher!

I agree 100%!!

I agree and will add Tuch still has a lot of potential at 21 years old. But we essentially replaced him with an NHL ready forward in Foligno. Tuch has a lot more offensive potential, but Foligno is a proven power forward. Something both Coyle and Nino proved not to be and Tuch may never be.

Ennis is high risk, high reward. Hopefully he is healthy at least toward the end of the season into the playoffs. If he stays healthy, at 27 years old with the numbers he’s had in the past, he could get 25-30 goals.

I am glad the D corp is intact. Scanny already wasn’t really missed in the lineup when he was hurt.

The one thing I don’t want to happen is Coyle needing to play center full time, or even worse Granny. Those 2 need to play wing unless injuries force them to the middle for some games.

I think Fletch will sign Foligno and hold off on a cheap center. He’ll probably wait until after camp to see if any prospects can fill the gap and/or see who he can nab off the waiver wire.

Yeah, he got done what desperately needed to get done. I was impressed by the ability to move Pominville. Scandella had a terrible year last year and was the oldest of our “prospect” D men, so the others should have a chance to grow their game more. With Scandella, he was pretty much what he was going to be. In 4 games of the playoffs though I thought he was spectacular. The last game wasn’t a good one however. So, to unload Pominville while sacrificing Scandella I think was absolutely worth it.
Also, Kyle Quincey we picked up and I think he will be a more consistent player than Scandella and his numbers overall are better too. So that is a plus.
I’m hopefully optimistic about this team, but we are going to need Kunin and Ek to play some significant minutes and contribute I think in order for us to be a real contender.
The Stars certainly got better this offseason. The Avs will continue to be terrible. The Blues I don’t think will be significantly different, but a full season under Yeo will likely have them playing better so mark them as improved. The Preds will be tough, Hawks are the Hawks.
I think we finish 3rd in the Division with 99 pts.

Granny will never play center again, last season showed how he can be effective in the NHL by keeping him on the boards and out of traffic…

I really think this year will be different, last year’s 1 and out really left a bad taste in their mouths and I think we stay top 5 in the league all season long…playoffs are the playoffs, hopefully we peak when they start…

Projected lines? that’s pretty good forward depth…perhaps they replace Kunin with a veteran and let him mature in the AHL or be a good call-up option if somebody gets hurt..

Parise – Staal – Nino
Granny – Koivu – Zucker
Ennis – Erickson Ek – Coyle
Foligno – Kunin – Stewart

Suter – Spurgeon
Dumba – Brodin
Quincey – Olfson

Injuries are everything, but that’s a solid NHL lineup!

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Parise – Staal – Nino
Granny – Koivu – Zucker
Ennis – Erickson Ek – Coyle
Foligno – Kunin – Stewart

Suter – Spurgeon
Dumba – Brodin
Quincey – Olfson

Injuries are everything, but that’s a solid NHL lineup!

Agreed on Granlund. He excelled because of being in his most suited position. I think he will remain consistent there and produce consistently as well.
That Staal/Nino/Parise line will tick off a lot of teams. Lots of possession strength there for sure.
As you said, injuries will be key. Always the wild card. Last year wasn’t too bad for us, but we need it to continue to be that way.

Sad day seeing Brian Bryan Murray passing.

isn’t it kinda strange that we still have yet to get a confirmation if Kaprizov signed that KHL extension or not? There was a posting online a week or so ago that said he didn’t sign anything and fired his agent, Russo didn’t have any other info on it…

Do we need to get somebody from the Drumpf cabinet to make a few calls and get some answers?

Update – Nevermind, TSN just posted something a few days ago, the 3 year contract is official…

NHL Network Wild Preview

I wouldn’t worry about what this guy is saying. Zucker, Nino, Coyle and Granlund, along with Dumba and Spurgeon are all just entering their prime for their respective positions. He didn’t even touch on any of that.

True, a Dallas renaissance kind of throws a monkey wrench into the playoff picture, but the Wild had an excellent year last year in just about every category. Losing Scandella and Haula should be fairly easy to overcome, especially if Ek has a stellar rookie year.

mplspug wrote:

I wouldn’t worry about what this guy is saying. Zucker, Nino, Coyle and Granlund, along with Dumba and Spurgeon are all just entering their prime for their respective positions. He didn’t even touch on any of that.

True, a Dallas renaissance kind of throws a monkey wrench into the playoff picture, but the Wild had an excellent year last year in just about every category. Losing Scandella and Haula should be fairly easy to overcome, especially if Ek has a stellar rookie year.

Lets face it the only real losses we had in the offseason were Haula and Scandella. We can argue that both of them were inconsistent at best throughout the season. Scandella IMO had his worst full season to date last year. I see this offseason as addition by subtraction. I do agree, on paper the team doesn’t look as good as last year, but I didn’t have much for expectations with that team to begin with and look where they finished the regular season.
Dallas is the juggernaut. They should finally have a decent goal tender, but their D corps isn’t really that great, so they will probably still struggle there.
They will likely finish tops in the league in scoring, but bottom half in goals allowed. My guess.
It is getting tougher for the Central though. There are 3 legit teams out West and one that certainly is good enough to snag a 4th spot so to think the Central will send 5 again is going to be tough.
That means Chicago, Nashville, St Louis, Wild, Dallas should really be fighting for 4 spots. I have a feeling Chicago drops a peg. They lost Darling to Carolina. He was big for them to spell Crawford. I think that really hurts. They lost their most promising young forward too. My thoughts are they are probably the team to miss out on the playoffs, but you can never count them out for sure. 50 days until the regular season starts.