MN Wild 2018-19 Official Thread

Dutchboy wrote:

He could always hire somebody off this board / thread.

I was going to say that.

Sorry, unless I can work remotely, I am not interested.

I see no reason you would need to live here to GM the team. In fact you might be harder to fire if it involved taking a plane trip to Florida.

Just get Russo on the pay-roll to hype the team and their prospects and you will be golden. With the demise of Gopher hockey it shouldn’t be hard for you to keep the Wild front and center in the hockey world. Job 1 will be making the play-offs yearly. Job 2 have a exciting product. Job 3 don’t draft Russians you can’t get over here.

Well here it is only August and I already find the Wild uninteresting and they haven’t played a game in the new season yet. Usually they remain interesting to me through the holidays before they look bad on the ice and become uninteresting.

Oh well the Minnesota Wilderness of the NAHL play about 5 minutes from the house. For the cost of 1 Wild game I can almost buy season tickets for them and those kids play hard all the time.

biggill wrote:

He did more damage in 12 months than Riesbrough did in 10 years.

This might be a little heat of the moment talk, but I dont think Fenton did near the damage Riesbrough did. When Fletcher took over he had no farm system to work with and actually drafted some good players that became our core. Unfortunately he also dumped a lot of picks which then left our cupboard bare again. Fenton did some damage, no doubt, but not near the hole like Riesbrough did.

I wont post the whole article from the Athletic, but I will post some snippets, much of which Russo eluded to on KFAN.

“After talking with dozens of sources throughout the season and since the firing, the GM’s demise can really be isolated to three main factors:

1. He failed to build trusting relationships, both internally with his staff and externally with his NHL counterparts, agents and the media.

2. He expended an incredible amount of time and energy trying to patch up what he perceived as leaks, accusing staff of having loose lips and routinely threatening jobs to the point staff members in all departments walked on eggshells even when the most minor of stories broke.

3. Even though there’s an understandable learning curve for every first-year GM, it was alarming how somebody with so much front-office experience had trouble grasping key aspects of the job, from simple rules to other facets of the collective bargaining agreement to understanding that it was part of a GM’s duty to get his message across to fans in a polished way.”

“Fenton had little time for analytics, and the stories of him dismissing the data and research and not taking the resulting advice are plentiful.

“Part of it was he didn’t understand it, and what you don’t know, you’re afraid of,” one person with knowledge said. “Right away, it was clearly evident.”

Advanced statistics, of course, aren’t perfect, and it’s reasonable to view them as just part of the decision-making process. Fenton said at his introductory news conference in May 2018 that analytics should “support everything we do with our eyes.”

But the Wild did have two of the brightest minds in the advanced stats game and now both are gone. They employed the co-founders of the former analytics site, WAR on Ice, Andrew Thomas and Alex Mandrycky.

When the front office had a Florida retreat in January to prepare for the trade deadline, neither Thomas nor Mandrycky were invited, sources said.

It was during that week when Fenton made his first two player trades as Wild GM on consecutive days — Justin Kloos for Pontus Aberg and Nino Niederreiter for Victor Rask. The latter trade shipped out an analytical darling and brought in one giant analytical red flag.

Not surprisingly, this could go down as one of the worst trades in Wild history.”

Probably the biggest gaffe “Here’s the problem though: According to Hurricanes sources, the Canes planned to buy out Rask this summer and watched Niederreiter 10 times in the weeks leading up to the trade. There was consensus on their pro side that if Niederreiter got elevated minutes in a top-six role, he’d succeed in Raleigh. However, according to sources, not a single Wild scout was sent to watch Rask in person, and there were already limited viewings because he snipped his finger during a kitchen accident last offseason and missed time.”

Time to move on.

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Just gut the team this year where it makes sense and start over in the 2020-2021 season…take your medicine now and hope it leads to a new run for the cup in 2-4 years…look at how quickly Colorado is turning it around…

My point with this post is more about we’ll know alot more about this team and direction AFTER this season… New GM with a direction (hopefully), old players who’s contracts will be up, we’ll know if we have Spurgeon moving forward, we’ll know if Rask will need to be bought out or if his time with the Wild is salvageable, we’ll know if Kaprizov is coming over, etc

That article by Russo was a great read and just sad how bad Fenton really was. It will be interesting to see what Fenton says in the future about his time here.

I’m not the typical Minnesota sports fan and it will show because I still have faith in this team and that they can contend for a playoff spot. Many of you are acting like the team is done. Now they might not seem like a Stanely Cup contender and I’m not saying they are but a lot of things can happen in a season. They still have a solid core of players and I expect many of the guys to bounce back and have big seasons.

I think Zucker will play with a chip on his shoulder and have a big bounce-back year. I don’t like the Zuccarello contract but the guy is going to help this team right away. I’m excited to see how Kunin, Greenway, Ek, and Danoto play this year. I really think Kunin is going to be a great player and leader for the Wild in years to come.

Hockey is an awesome and crazy sport because anything can happen and sometimes you just can’t predict it.

KP wrote:

Hockey is an awesome and crazy sport because anything can happen and sometimes you just can’t predict it.

Yep, last year’s Stanley Cup playoffs and the eventual champ prove this.

https://www.nhl.com/news/over-the-boards-dan-rosen-mailbag-august-7/c-308454884

Pretty interesting 8-ish minute interview with Russo on the GM search.

seems like the Hurricanes are just tempting us to take Waddell off their hands…why?

I would prefer Waddell or Guerin over the other candidates, Hextall is too much of a hothead imo…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

I would prefer Waddell or Guerin over the other candidates, Hextall is too much of a hothead imo…

I agree on Hextall. He seems to be very similar to Fenton in regard to circle of trust and that should shy Leipold away solely based on that.

Circle of trust.

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Classic!

Waddell has removed his name from consideration and accepted a 3 year contract to stay with Carolina. Not surprised. I am sure it was merely a negotiation tactic with the owner.

Setting the stage for one of the others to emerge as a front runner. For all things sacred, no Snow or Chiarelli.
Of the names most frequently mentioned I am intrigued with Guerin, Fitzgerald primarily. I dont think Hextall has a chance since he is too similar to Fenton from a personality standpoint.
Doesnt sound like they are close to making a decision and havent been granted permission from teams to interview some of those they were hoping to. So this could draw out a while.

I would be happy with Guerin or Fitzgerald, both were warriors when they played and good team guys, they both would have alot of experience to fall back on when they need to make tough decisions. I’m guessing they make a decision sooner than most think, the longer this draws out, the more of a distraction it becomes… plus they need to sign their RFA’s and no good agent is gonna want to negotiate with an interim GM…

I really think outside of Montreal’s GM, the rest of the league is blowing it in terms of not taking a shot at some of the stud RFA’s this year with an offer sheet. The worst that can happen is that the other team matches and you keep your draft picks, if they don’t, you lose those high risk draft picks to get a known star player at market rate while they are heading into their prime… The old “code” of not making an offer sheet is hogwash in today’s market of show me results asap or you could get fired after 1 season like Fenton…

Yeah, the ole offersheet deal is a bit perplexing to me too. I am actually very surprised someone hasnt taken a flier on Marner. VERY surprised. There are a few teams that could swing it, but he also has to actually sign it. So, a really terrible team may have no shot.

Appears our wait to hear about the next GM may be coming to an end. Sources (including Russo) reporting it will be Bill Guerin. He has worked under some great ones that is for sure.

Good! He’ll hold ALL players accountable and has a great hockey sense as he’s seen it all…Glad they didn’t go with Hextall….He’ll also be a good influence on Greenway as he was one of the best power forwards in the game…

It’s a good tipping point to end this thread and start anew.

jeff_huberty wrote:

It’s a good tipping point to end this thread and start anew.

Agreed