Did Leopold have any oversight on this guy? I don’t understand how he made those deadline moves and then the owner signs off on Zuccarello?
…thankfully he never completed any of the Zucker trades…
And this firing will help that whole debacle. Now Zucker doesn’t have to go into the next season with that hanging over his head.
I might have to excuse myself from this topic for good. I can’t keep up with this crap.
Russo wrote “numerous accounts of unhappy employees throughout the organization and countless other turbulent incidents that made their way into Leipold’s office” this lead to the firing.
Could be a sexual assault case or allegations to come which is very unfortunate if true.
My favorite Fenton moment will always be saying Zuccarello was like a lizard.
Rest in Peace Lizard Whisperer
So you are ruling out Modano?
from what I’ve read, it sounds like he wants to be in upper management, not a GM…he would likely sit in on the GM interviews, etc
When armchair GM’s like all of us can see that there’s ZERO sense of direction to the moves that were made you know those same thoughts were happening much earlier in-house…like I said earlier, I give Leopold credit for seeing his mistake and making the move now vs letting it drag on and likely hurting the team more for the future…
New GM’s priority should be:
1) Decide on either moving forward with this team or rebuilding, if Parise and Suter aren’t on board with a rebuild, tell them to lift their No Trade Clause and deal them…
2) Shed our bad contracts (We see other GMs doing this all of the time)
2) Creating a relationship with Kaprizov asap
3) Change how the org evaluates prospects, other than Kaprizov, our mid/late round draft % is terrible…
New GM’s priority should be:
1) Decide on either moving forward with this team or rebuilding, if Parise and Suter aren’t on board with a rebuild, tell them to lift their No Trade Clause and deal them…
2) Shed our bad contracts (We see other GMs doing this all of the time)
2) Creating a relationship with Kaprizov asap
3) Change how the org evaluates prospects, other than Kaprizov, our mid/late round draft % is terrible…
Priority #1 needs to be Spurgeon, then the rest of your list. What he decides with Spurgeon will determine what happens with your list, with the exception of Kaprisov. If they deal Spurgeon, then its rebuild, then look to move Parise, but will have to eat salary to do that because of the recapture penalty should he retire.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>JoeMX1825 wrote:</div>
New GM’s priority should be:1) Decide on either moving forward with this team or rebuilding, if Parise and Suter aren’t on board with a rebuild, tell them to lift their No Trade Clause and deal them…
2) Shed our bad contracts (We see other GMs doing this all of the time)
2) Creating a relationship with Kaprizov asap
3) Change how the org evaluates prospects, other than Kaprizov, our mid/late round draft % is terrible…Priority #1 needs to be Spurgeon, then the rest of your list. What he decides with Spurgeon will determine what happens with your list, with the exception of Kaprisov. If they deal Spurgeon, then its rebuild, then look to move Parise, but will have to eat salary to do that because of the recapture penalty should he retire.
agreed, forgot about Spurg
Other than Fenton, did anyone’s day just change any more than Jason Zucker’s? He can probably sit back a little, at least for awhile anyway.
I do agree with JoeMX1825, he wasn’t a colossal failure yet, just some major head-scratchers with no real success in sight for the near future. Some of the things others have posted about his interactions in the organization could have something to do with it.
LOL, the train wreck rolls on!!!
Agreed!
Reading what Russo has written and the comments coming from Leipold, this has less to do with the moves he made, didnt make, return he received, didnt receive, it was primarily just more the day to day inner workings of the GM job. Seems the 10 other opportunities he wasnt considered for had him figured out.
Leipold said “He can scout” … its the other details he wasnt a great fit for our organization.
I was willing to give him a shot, but it begs the question with all the issues that came across Leipold’s desk that he references, how much is that a cancerous culture within the org/lockerroom OR was it Fenton?
I think if Fenton ever talks about this we might hear a different tale.
OMG, literally as I was typing the above comment I get a call from the MN Wild Ticket recruiting! LOL Cannot make it up. The timing.
a cancerous culture within the org/lockerroom
I have thought this for a couple years now.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>CaptainMusky wrote:</div>
a cancerous culture within the org/lockerroomI have thought this for a couple years now.
It’s the ghost of Martin Havlat
Russo wrote “numerous accounts of unhappy employees throughout the organization and countless other turbulent incidents that made their way into Leipold’s office” this lead to the firing.
Could be a sexual assault case or allegations to come which is very unfortunate if true.
I lost track of Russo. Where can you read him these days? Or is it just Twitter now?
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>KP wrote:</div>
Russo wrote “numerous accounts of unhappy employees throughout the organization and countless other turbulent incidents that made their way into Leipold’s office” this lead to the firing.Could be a sexual assault case or allegations to come which is very unfortunate if true.
I lost track of Russo. Where can you read him these days? Or is it just Twitter now?
The Athletic
Well, well, well. The rumors WERE true that Fenton was on borrowed time. And now his useless buttski is history. Goodbye Feckless Fenton, don’t let the door hit you in the a55 on the way out.
I wasn’t a fan of Fenton’s from the first presser. And his trades were terrible–not in the “who we got” sense, but that they lacked a sense of direction. Fenton was just moving pieces randomly around the board, there was no strategy.
Obviously, there is good news here. First, Craig clearly sees what many of us saw from about the second month of Fenton’s short stay–that he had no real core strategy. He was micro when the Wild needed macro.
First, he’s on a “get younger” push. Then he’s chasing Kessle and bringing in Zuccarello. Get younger to get older? Clearly, Fenton had no clue what to do.
The other good news is that Craig is clearly getting more experienced and he’s NOT willing to repeat the Yeo mistake of letting a festering problem go on and on and on hoping it will get better. Fenton got the chance. he sucked. Move on.
Forming a list of to-do’s for the new GM is tactical. I want an experienced GM with a 50,000 foot view of STRATEGY. I want to know what the new GM sees as the strategy to move this team to a playoff contender, not playoff participant. Fenton’s answer was that the Wild needed “tweaking”. Well, we now know what the WRONG answer is.
Grouse
I want an owner who is less involved/engaged and lets the GM/et al do their job and not give false mandates/expectations of where he feels the team is.
He fricken said this is a playoff team in his presser yesterday. I dont know on which planet he is on, but he is setting up the next GM to fail too.
He needs to step back a bit, wait, a LOT.
I want an owner who is less involved/engaged and lets the GM/et al do their job and not give false mandates/expectations of where he feels the team is.
He fricken said this is a playoff team in his presser yesterday. I dont know on which planet he is on, but he is setting up the next GM to fail too.
He needs to step back a bit, wait, a LOT.
Do you expect him to tell everybody his team sucks and they have ZERO chance so don’t buy tickets for the next few seasons? I think this season will have alot of growing pains, but this team isn’t that far off, especially with a couple of older players coming off the books the next few years and a couple of highly touted prospects coming…
This is a playoff team. At least a participant but not a serious contender. Dubnyk isn’t good enough to carry this team deep in the playoffs unless the offense catches fire and is scoring 5,6 goals a game. But yeah Leipold isn’t going to tell everybody publicly what he really thinks of the team.
Here are a couple of my thoughts on it all:
-They are still a playoff team but like Keith said maybe not a contender
-Mats Zucerelo will help the team now but damn giving him a no-trade clause was just dumb
-Fentons direction was all over the place
-Russo said that he has only spent 6 days in the office this offseason
-Fenton also fired one of their Analytics persons and the other quit
-Seems like he really couldn’t run an organization
-I give Leipold a ton of credit for admitting that he made a mistake on hiring him and ending before it got even worse
Do you expect him to tell everybody his team sucks and they have ZERO chance so don’t buy tickets for the next few seasons? I think this season will have alot of growing pains, but this team isn’t that far off, especially with a couple of older players coming off the books the next few years and a couple of highly touted prospects coming…
No, I dont expect him to say they suck, but this team when compared to the rest of the division, at least on paper is NOT a playoff team. We will see who steps up and how things play out, but I dont see them making the playoffs this year. In the hunt? Sure, sniffing around the perimeter, but in the playoffs? No.
I agree they are not far off and have stated the as such earlier about after this season they will have a lot of options with only losing Koivu and Brown. Neither of them should be signed IMO. Maybe Koivu, but 1 year deal, very low $ and he plays 3rd line no PP. The elephant in the room though is Spurgeon. Id love to have him around, but IDK if I want him at $8MM per type of deal…
They will have roughly $25MM in Cap space once the contracts for Ek and Fiala get signed this year. I cannot imagine that will be more that $5MM combined per year at least it better not be. They can do a lot with that.
Here are a couple of my thoughts on it all:
-Fenton also fired one of their Analytics persons and the other quit
This one to me is just a huge red flag in the 2019. I think the quote I heard was that Fenton said he ‘Didn’t have time for analytics’, or something to that effect.
Which nowadays basically reads, “I don’t have time to learn something that is going to help me make more informed decisions.” Apparently he was going off of his vast past experience as a GM..
I would be very surprised if there are many front offices in any sport not investing/emphasizing data and analytics. Now, that doesn’t mean you follow the analytics team blindly, but to not even take anything they say into consideration is just unacceptable in my opinion.
The ‘go by the gut’ decision making is going the way of the dinosaurs, and it would be a huge red flag for a GM to come in and say something like that.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>KP wrote:</div>
Here are a couple of my thoughts on it all:
-Fenton also fired one of their Analytics persons and the other quitThis one to me is just a huge red flag in the 2019. I think the quote I heard was that Fenton said he ‘Didn’t have time for analytics’, or something to that effect.
Which nowadays basically reads, “I don’t have time to learn something that is going to help me make more informed decisions.” Apparently he was going off of his vast past experience as a GM..
I would be very surprised if there are many front offices in any sport not investing/emphasizing data and analytics. Now, that doesn’t mean you follow the analytics team blindly, but to not even take anything they say into consideration is just unacceptable in my opinion.
The ‘go by the gut’ decision making is going the way of the dinosaurs, and it would be a huge red flag for a GM to come in and say something like that.
Other than shootout tendencies, I really don’t see how analytics can have a huge impact in hockey? Sure it might show you some trends in special teams personnel failure/success, but what will it tell you vs what the expanded +/- stats tell you already??
Other than shootout tendencies, I really don’t see how analytics can have a huge impact in hockey? Sure it might show you some trends in special teams personnel failure/success, but what will it tell you vs what the expanded +/- stats tell you already??
Im certainly not a Hockey Analytics guru by any means, but what the expanded analytics provide are detailed stats on puck possession, zone entry, their shot tendencies, expected saves, etc etc. There are a lot of metrics to be considered. It was convenient for Fenton to fire the head analytics guy right after the trades he made no doubt because there wasnt any analytics to support them being as good moves. Russo and countless others particularly looked at the Nino for Rask deal in this as well to a lesser extent the Granlund for Fiala trade.
I dont think +/- is a real telling statistic on its own, it tells a story, but not the whole story. How many times did Ovechkin win the scoring title with a -20 plus? This has since changed, but still I dont think it means a whole lot on its own.
No, I dont expect him to say they suck, but this team when compared to the rest of the division, at least on paper is NOT a playoff team.
Well, the problem with “on paper” analysis is this: How did the Blues look to everyone “on paper” last season? Especially in late December? Uh huh. Yep, I’m sure a lot of armchair analysts had them going deep-deep.
And even if anyone HAD seen the Blues as a Cup contender-again, just on paper–(which NOBODY did), they STILL would not have said the breakout star would have to be Teresenko putting the team on his back and carrying them… No mention would have been made of O’Riley.
This one to me is just a huge red flag in the 2019. I think the quote I heard was that Fenton said he ‘Didn’t have time for analytics’, or something to that effect.
Which nowadays basically reads, “I don’t have time to learn something that is going to help me make more informed decisions.” Apparently he was going off of his vast past experience as a GM..
You’re exactly right. There were red flags all over the place with Fenton, but the biggest one was his bizarre, room-silencing first draft pick as GM last year.
Fentard was literally too inexperienced to know what the team NEEDED so he just picked the player he wanted and left everyone in the room looking at each other with “WTF” expressions on thier faces. A d-man? Really?
Grouse
Grouse, do you think the Wild are a playoff team? The teams in our division have gotten better, we have not IMO.
Especially after seeing what the Blues did last year with where they started you have to think we are really behind where the rest of the division is currently.
At least that is how I see it.
I realize no one gave the Blues a shot last year when they faltered BUT they were picked to finish high in the division at the beginning of the season, but were under performing. Fire the coach and get a hot goalie and boom.
The Wild will be picked dead last I almost guarantee it.
As it stands today; the state of Hockey is in for several sub par seasons this owner should look at his GM and ask which direction are you taking us?
This Zucarello signing for five years @ 6 mil is going to drag the Wild back into the same hole they were trying to get out of.
I do not see any kind of forward progress here. Did the owner have a brain fart and all of a sudden decide he wants Fletcher back?
They are starting to remind me of the Timberpuppies, when you have current top NHL players who look at the Wild as a sinking ship and will not come here, the results are you over paying for 2nd and 3rd tier players to come here. That’s what they had, that’s what they traded away, and now right down the same worm hole!
I was, and still am on the side of developing young talent plan and willing to endure a few growing pains, but come on? Mats Zucarello @ 6 mil
The big question is how long do you keep a GM who is becoming a Les Steckle?
It’s like watching a dog drag his butt across the lawn.
Well, the problem with “on paper” analysis is this: How did the Blues look to everyone “on paper” last season? Especially in late December? Uh huh. Yep, I’m sure a lot of armchair analysts had them going deep-deep.
And even if anyone HAD seen the Blues as a Cup contender-again, just on paper–(which NOBODY did), they STILL would not have said the breakout star would have to be Teresenko putting the team on his back and carrying them… No mention would have been made of O’Riley.
This is exactly why analytics is going to grow in hockey. Why did they win the cup? The team that can decode that mystery and show trends that improve odds is going to succeed.
I like to call it Money Puck
This is exactly why analytics is going to grow in hockey. Why did they win the cup? The team that can decode that mystery and show trends that improve odds is going to succeed.
Analytics describe what happened in the past. They can indicate what’s possible, but they don’t tell you how to make it happen again in the future. It’s steering the boat by watching your wake.
They also don’t show the ultimate potential. What do the analytics tell you about Kaprisov, is he a 20 goal guy when he gets to the NHL or a 40 goal guy?
Sorry, but I don’t have the faith in past numbers as an indicator of future results. Look at baseball, there’s a stat for everything so how come nobody’s cracked the code and winning 90% of their games?
The analytics on the Blues last season will tell you that they won the cup because they got hot goaltending and totally awesome play from O’Riley at the right time. I’m sure glad we have a supercomputer to crunch those numbers and give us the real story of what happened.
Grouse
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