MN Wild 2017-18 Official Thread

sticker wrote:

It was almost sickening the way the announcers groveled over that line, yet they played 90% of their shifts in the defensive zone!

Yes, I pointed out the same thing with the announcers during the Dallas game. They went on and on about how awesome Benn and Sequin are. Literally, as the Wild were eliminating Dallas from the playoffs, on and on they blathered about Benn.

Same thing with McDavid last night. At one point they were talking about how if you eliminated McDavid’s PP goals, he’d still be in the top 10 for goals, blah, blah. Hey how’s about he eliminates all his defensive play and scores more goals? Oh, wait, he doesn’t play defense… Wait, I think I may have found Edmonton’s problem… I suppose they have to do something amp up some interest in a team that’s otherwise spinning into the sea in flames.

One thing that has me a little worried as the playoffs loom is what if the Wild take another injury to a d-man? Things have got to be getting a little thin down in Iowa. Not a good situation, hope we don’t have to go there.

Grouse

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

One thing that has me a little worried as the playoffs loom is what if the Wild take another injury to a d-man? Things have got to be getting a little thin down in Iowa. Not a good situation, hope we don’t have to go there.

Grouse

Well if Murphy gets hurt we could throw a sack of used pucks out there and you wouldn’t notice a difference…well except less turn overs in the D-end

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

One thing that has me a little worried as the playoffs loom is what if the Wild take another injury to a d-man? Things have got to be getting a little thin down in Iowa. Not a good situation, hope we don’t have to go there.

Grouse

It sounds like Spurgeon should be back in time for playoffs… he is skating and travelling with the team to practice. Olofsson is day to day with a concussion and not making the trip out west.

As long as no one gets hurt in the last 3 games they should have 8 defensemen going into the playoffs.

It will be interesting where they play Spurgeon if he does come back game 1. Aside from a few games with Brodin after injury, I don’t recall ever seeing him play with anyone but Suter or Scandella. I don’t think they can put Dumba with anyone but Brodin for insurance purposes. I doubt they break up Prosser/Seeler as the 3rd pair. So what’s left is Murphy-would play his off hand and scary to watch at best, Olofsson-pretty obvious he and Bruce have zero confidence in his play, and Soucy-a whopping 1 NHL game on his resume.

I’m excited to see Brodin get thrust into playing Suter-type minutes. He’s definitely capable of it but has never been given the opportunity before. He was an animal last night so hopefully that’s a sign of things to come.

Russo said they should be signing Belpedio in the next day or so. It took longer than expected solely because of the Suter injury and they had to make roster moves so the signing had to wait. Belpedio isn’t expected to get much time with the big club, but there is a shot and he could play in playoffs I believe if needed. I haven’t seen him play much other than WJC and he looked decent there so…

tswoboda wrote:

I’m excited to see Brodin get thrust into playing Suter-type minutes. He’s definitely capable of it but has never been given the opportunity before. He was an animal last night so hopefully that’s a sign of things to come.

Agreed.

RS playoff record is far from stellar, so we ain’t really out much imo. Loose with him, it’s still a loss. At least now we can let some other players see ice time vs a minutes/ice hog. And yeah I get it, he’s a really solid, durable player, who just seems to always be stuck in second gear. Not glad he got hurt, but there’s some positives that could come out of it. If they get past the first round without him, that should at minimum open up some discussions about his affect on the team and his attitude.

basseyes wrote:

If they get past the first round without him, that should at minimum open up some discussions about his affect on the team and his attitude.

Yeah, cuz we need more of that.

The discussion is moot. He’s here for the next 3 decades for $7.5/yr. there’s nothing to discuss.

basseyes wrote:

If they get past the first round without him, that should at minimum open up some discussions about his effect on the team and his attitude.

It’s worth noting that nobody associated with the Wild, former players, or reporters covering the team who have much closer contact than any fan could, have ever supported this “Suter is a cancer in the dressing room” theory. Not one.

This is 100% driven by casual fans who interpret the way Suter carries himself as an attitude problem, disinterested, a drag on morale, etc. They also see his long stride, efficient skating style, and smooth puck handling as “dogging it”.

Suter doesn’t have to skate around like a chicken with his head cut off because he is an absolute master at positional defense. The casual fan wouldn’t know positional defense if it bit him in the @ss, but it means everything if you want to be a top D man in the NHL and Suter is one of the best.

For some reason, some casual fans just want a screamer. And if you’re not screaming, yelling, and doing all the rah-rah sh!t, you can’t possibly be any good.

Grouse

He gets top 5 minutes in the league for a reason.

Agreed, the Suter haters are about to see how sorely he is missed. I for one an not looking forward to his absence, especially in the play offs

Grouse, you nailed it, he looks like he is just going thru the motions, when in reality he is just that efficient.

You hear “lack of effort” associated with highly paid athletes.Joe Mauer, Suter, James and others. Funny how those people never claim a “lack of effort” when pecking out a response during work or when discussing their own wages.

It’s a envy thing plain and simple.

my worry with Suter’s injury is that it will add MORE minutes to our weaker defenseman… Playoffs are all about finishing checks and playing physical, other than Seeler and sometimes Dumba, we have none of that…Suter was never overly physical, but he knew all the tricks of using body positioning and leverage…

Suter’s greatness is that he makes everything look effortless, we’ll really feel the pain of not having him out there half the game. As mentioned, the good is that Brodin and Dumba will get major minutes, so we’ll see how they react…

I’m not expecting much from Spurgeon, if he does come back, he’s one stride away from re-injuring it again…

If we can somehow sneak into 4th place and get home ice, we have a good chance to get to the 2nd round…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

If we can somehow sneak into 4th place and get home ice, we have a good chance to get to the 2nd round…

4th place? Do you mean 2nd? They would have to finish 2nd in the central to get home ice in the first round. I’d say a very slim chance of that. Wild would have to get at least 5 of the next 6 points and Winnipeg would have to get 0 of their last 4 points.

They are also almost assured no worse than 3rd in the central. Need only 1 point to clinch 3rd.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

It’s worth noting that nobody associated with the Wild, former players, or reporters covering the team who have much closer contact than any fan could, have ever supported this “Suter is a cancer in the dressing room” theory. Not one.
Grouse

I agree with 99% of what you have said, but there was at least ONE former player that spoke out about it, Stoner. Granted, his case was more or less sour grapes because he thought somehow he was entitled to more ice time and funny, leaves here for greener pastures and has been bouncing around the league ever since. Stoner focused on the ice time and did elude to the “primadonna” in Suter if not getting specialty minutes which certainly could be construed as a “cancer”.
I don’t agree with it, but it was voiced at least. Stoner was a decent bottom pair guy who certainly thought he was better than he actually was.

Dutchboy wrote:

You hear “lack of effort” associated with highly paid athletes.Joe Mauer, Suter, James and others.

Fishing isn’t a sport…

…neither is basketball

Another underrated part of Suters game is he makes great stretch passes and he doesn’t make the mistake of trying to force many. He has great vision.

Personally I don’t hate RS. He’s a solid player. But to claim he’s anything more than that, I think is stretching it.

His nickname fits him perfectly.

Since him and ZP have been here, how many times have they gotten past the first round?

I’m not saying blown the team up or trade either one of them. Just dealing in facts. This team would do Denny Green proud. Great in the regular season. God awful post season. I for one would like that looked at, as to why they absolutely suck in the playoffs. If you are OK with that, good for you. I’m not Sid Hartman or a hometown fan boy team defender come heck or high water. This team has playoff deficiencies, if you can’t see that you’re a casual hockey fan, drinking the hometown cool aid.

I’m actually excited to see what happens this post season. If they loose without RS, it doesn’t really matter, cause they’ve lost in the first round with him more often than not. I doubt they’ll get past the first round, but you never know who could step up.

basseyes wrote:

Since him and ZP have been here, how many times have they gotten past the first round?

Before they were here how many times did they make the playoffs?

Hockey playoffs are different in that a hot goalie can often carry a team farther than it probably deserves to go and a goalie CAN win a series by himself… Unfortunately the Wild has run into this in many of their playoff series…I’d hardly pin any series lost on Suter/Parise…

Check the stats vs other top 10 d-men, Suter is close in all of them and i’d bet his salary is now at the low end of that group… I’d say he has been great so far 6 years into the contract with no signs of degrading skills…obviously maintaining that performance in the back half of the contract while aging will be key, but it was written to provide the Wild some insurance at the end with a cheaper buyout clause the remaining 3 or so years…

What else do you want from a defensman? More goals? sure but at the cost of actually playing defense? (Brent Burns is -18 on a top 5 West team)

I have alot more problems/worry about Parise’s contract vs Suter’s

Its going to suck playing our final 3 games on the west coast, and then turn around to open the playoffs on the road in the Jets.

True, but it beats having the Wild be done and playing golf by Sunday. At least Winn is in the same time zone and only a short run north.

It’s great they get to the playoffs, I like that.

RS is a good, solid player, don’t hate the guy.

Just wish we could get past the first round. It drives me bat chatty crazy there’s southern team’s and other expansion team’s that have done way more. We are the state of hockey and haven’t had a cup competing team on the ice in forever. Sorry,but that bug’s me more than a little.

Canada is the country of hockey. Think Jets fans are having the same discussion on their boards?

I get what you mean but the other guys are getting paid to win also.

Dutchboy wrote:

Canada is the country of hockey. Think Jets fans are having the same discussion on their boards?

Yes. Tenfold. The wives argue about who should be the second line center at the hair salon.

Well at least Anaheim, LA, Carolina and Tampa all have cups, that’s sacrilegious in my book. It’ll be like when London and Mexico City have won the super bowl, and the Vikings have yet to even get to another one.

basseyes wrote:

Well at least Anaheim, LA, Carolina and Tampa all have cup…

None of those cities had their hockey teams stolen by a POS owner who was desperate to get out of town to escape his scorned mistress.

Grouse

I’ll go with her version of sexual harassment but your description of him is spot on.

Without Suter the Wild have to have Dubnyk stand on his head in order to beat the Jets.
Injuries have left the Cupboard bare.
I would go as far as saying the Wild starting with tonights game and including playoffs will not win 4 games the rest of this year.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>basseyes wrote:</div>
Well at least Anaheim, LA, Carolina and Tampa all have cup…

None of those cities had their hockey teams stolen by a POS owner who was desperate to get out of town to escape his scorned mistress.

Grouse

I’m still bitter about that a hole and what the league let that turd do. Then to get a cup, uNrEal.

Let me just reiterate that Murphy is not impressing me. I counted 4 turn overs from him in their own end last night.

sticker wrote:

Let me just reiterate that Murphy is not impressing me. I counted 4 turn overs from him in their own end last night.

Yeah, he has seemed to regress. I thought he was better the first time up, not sure what his deal is now.

The more icetime they are forced to get, the more obvious it becomes they don’t belong in the NHL… Another Prosser mistake led to the winning goal last night…

The goal these last two games are to get nobody else hurt…you’ll see ALOT of the 4th line and 3rd D pair…

I’m a little worried the Stahl line has disappeared the last 2-3 games…