MN Wild 2018-19 Official Thread

C’mon Wild fans. You guys still in a turkey coma?

After 2 letdown losses, one to what is actually looking like a pretty good team in Buffalo. Who knew! Chicago, well even the blind squirrel gets a nut once every couple of weeks.

Just an excellent full game effort by the Wild against the Jets yesterday. Picking up on past years when they were the team that wouldn’t go away.

The Jets got a little wakeup call yesterday. They seemed to be expecting last year’s injured and depleted Wild team, but times have changed a little and the little ol’ Wild aren’t so little anymore. I just love Foligno, Seeler, and Greenway. The big hit column was decidedly in the Wild’s favor, for once the refs weren’t letting the Jets get away with everything, and the Jets clearly didn’t know what to do next.

More good news. Nino with a sniper shot! Guys, I think he’s doing it. I think Nino is coming back! We really, really need that production and wow if Nino could get going on a 20+ goal pace, the Wild would be very, very dangerous.

Now we’ve got a little work to do. On the power play, of course. The Jets were over-playing the DumbaBomb, but we just could NOT figure out how to make them pay for it on the right side. We can’t let that happen, we need more balance on the right so that having a player move out to cover Dumba will leave the middle too exposed. This need work, you cannot expect to go 0/6 on the PP and win tough games very often.

Staal is just a freaking animal out there. He is easily the best non-trade acquisition the Wild have ever made.

Finally, I really have to believe Bruce got on the team hard during the 2nd intermission about going to the net and getting dirty goals. The netfront effort in the third was huge and it clearly frustrated Helleybuck and took him off his game. Maybe it was the coach, maybe it was the captains, but I have to think someone leads that team to the right answer.

This virus thing that’s going around the Wild team caught up with Doobs apparently. Man let’s hope we don’t end up with something like that stupid mumps situation we had 2 years ago. At least so far Staal and Parise both only missed a couple of days, let’s hope Doobs is back as soon.

We’re getting the wins, but there’s plenty of room for the Wild to play even better. The opportunity was there to break Winnipeg wide open, the Wild need to walk through when a team like the Jets leaves the door wide open.

Grouse

what an ugly loss last night and you would have thought the Sabres loss a few weeks ago would have still been fresh in their heads…

Dominate for 2 periods and fall asleep in the 3rd and get the loss…I do admit it was a little comical watching Bruce fume behind the bench…

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Typical, the Wild finally get me interested again only to turn on the TV and see them utterly collapse in the 3rd period. I know, it’s only one game.

But…. can anyone explain to me why Coyle is still on the team????

honestly you can make that same argument of about 1-2 players on EVERY NHL team…

I think the only reasons he’s still on the team is that he’s a young big body player who can skate and his cap hit ($3.2) isn’t bad and every now and again he shows spurts of being the dominant type of player they hope he can be…so they are just treading water hoping one of these times it clicks in his head and he stays at that level vs trading him for basically nothing and he turns it around for the new team…The other thing about Coyle is that he’s never been a liability on the ice as he’s typically one of the better +/- players on the team (He’s currently a +8)

I think the same thing can start to be said about Nino and his cap hit is a more painful $5.2 million per season and he’s a team worst -9…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

what an ugly loss last night and you would have thought the Sabres loss a few weeks ago would have still been fresh in their heads…

Dominate for 2 periods and fall asleep in the 3rd and get the loss…I do admit it was a little comical watching Bruce fume behind the bench…

Very ugly 3rd period indeed… I honestly didn’t see that coming the way they dominated in the 2nd. Hopefully they still have some road magic left in them and they can get a few points these next 5 games.

At the game last night, I said to Mrs. Grouse at the start of the 3rd period, if the Wild give up a goal before the score another, Pheonix wins. There is nothing in hockey as dangerous as a 2 goal lead.

Terrible play by the Wild last night. Doobs looked terrible and the fact that Pheonix only got like 20 shots the whole game prevented him from getting any traction.

Also, was anyone else at the game last night? Did the entire Wild gameday staff phone it in or what? All the usual crowd-involvement gags were missing. Nordy must have been on a drunken bender the night before, he didn’t show up until the 3rd period. No instant replays last night except for once after a goal. Whole atmosphere was dead. Did anyone else notice this?

Grouse

Another great game tonight. Obviously the two game letdown since the Winnipeg game, but this is another good one. Although, Toronto doesn’t play that well defensively.

Can’t play much better than that! Sometimes you can do everything right and still lose, tonight was that night…

I don’t think Reaves should be suspended, the hit wasn’t high and Wilson had to know it was coming as he peeked before making the pass…I think it was more of Reaves huge frame hitting Wilson with speed..

I’m glad Wilson got to be on the other side of a hit like this, maybe it will wake him up because he’s a good player and doesn’t need the cheap stuff to be effective…

There were some crazy hits in that game and Reaves got the best of Wilson every time…

The only thing I don’t like about Reaves is that he’s so arrogant and thinks he’s the toughest guy in the league…he’ll get his someday too…

What’s wrong with Dubnyk?

Inconsistent play is raising it’s ugly head once again for this egnimatic team. Playing half a period or waiting until they are behind has them spriraling out of contention.

They put GM Fenton in a bad spot, you have a team without tradeable talent
that is decreasing in value with each and every game. Which makes it difficult to improve when the only players with any value are your top core players.

It’s time to move young players up and see if they can compete in the NHL.

Trade ’em to Fletch in Philly. He knows them well. Yo Yo might even get to coach them again.

Those avs are really good

Russo had an interesting article about how Dubnyk’s woes started after he was hit in the head in the capitals game.

lindyrig79 wrote:

What’s wrong with Dubnyk?

Lots of hockey insider sites mentioned Boston and the Wild have had several trade talks centered around Coyle, Wild is asking for one of Boston’s 3 stud prospects in their system and focusing on Donato. Boston is apprently seriously considering it, hopefully they are watching tonights game and saw his shorty…

I don’t think we will see Niemi in the 3rd. What a game tonight!
DT

End of 2 and it’s 5-0. Assuming they win, this win belongs to Doobs. They were up 1-0 in the first and Doobs was making some elite saves to keep the habs off the board.

To me, this has been the difference in the recent drought. If they get solid goaltending, they win 3 out of 4 games.

We carry the team Gill. No shocker to me…
DT

biggill wrote:

To me, this has been the difference in the recent drought. If they get solid goaltending, they win 3 out of 4 games.

That was a fun one to watch! I couldn’t agree more with you BG. When our goal tending is on, they will win most of their games. Let’s just hope they can keep it going for a couple weeks and get back towards the top of the division.

IceNEyes1986 wrote:

That was a fun one to watch! I couldn’t agree more with you BG. When our goal tending is on, they will win most of their games. Let’s just hope they can keep it going for a couple weeks and get back towards the top of the division.

Then in all fairness to overrated goalies. you have to put the loss on Niemi giving up 5 goals on 18 shots.

jeff_huberty wrote:

Then in all fairness to overrated goalies. you have to put the loss on Niemi giving up 5 goals on 18 shots.

What ever you wish JH.

I’ll put the blame on Doobs for a few of the losses for sure. I’ve always said that the goalie needs to steal 3-4 games a season in order to be successful. Same goes for the playoffs. By steal I mean win a 1-0 game they have no business winning.

The difference between now and the years past when the Wild would go into huge slumps can be summed up in 1 word: Bruce. He has been able to get through to this Wild team in ways Yeozie could only dream of.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Lots of hockey insider sites mentioned Boston and the Wild have had several trade talks centered around Coyle, Wild is asking for one of Boston’s 3 stud prospects in their system and focusing on Donato. Boston is apprently seriously considering it, hopefully they are watching tonights game and saw his shorty…

The problem is that Boston will know that this is exactly the issue with Coyle–he NEVER plays like that more than 1 game in a row. I agree, he looked great last night.

Which only makes me want his useless buttski gone even more because if he can play like he played last night, then the only reason that he doesn’t do it all the time must be he’s a headcase. Get him gone. We’ve wasted enough time with Coyle, it’d be a huge bonus to get anything for him at this point.

Hey, all you Wild fans that wanted Dumba gone 2-3 years ago because he was mistake prone back in his younger days. How do you like him now, boys?

Good win and laying a beatdown on the Habs should help exercise a few demons. Let’s hope Doob has found his Mojo and normal service will be resumed.

Grouse

I never wanted Dumba gone. He’s got attitude and a heck of a slap shot. Something the Wild had been lacking from a D man in my opinion.

I do want Coyle gone. Get rid of all the headcases.

And I have to admit, I enjoyed seeing Yeo get fired and what a mess St. Louis is right now. I heard they had a brawl between teammates in practice the other day! LOL!!!

I hope the Wild don’t get ahead of themselves. Good win, but I am sure there is a lot of work to do. This team has a history of having a big win and thinking they are in the clear, only to falter again.

I didn’t see the game, so how did Dubnyk look? I think that is the most important thing. He has gone off track at times, but seems to recover well once he get a good game under his belt.

On a side note, have you seen the Dan Carcillo news?

There are videos of longer videos out there. The Canada Junior league has some issues that I hope they have addressed. Kids chasing their dreams don’t deserve this crap. The junior hockey culture definitely has had issues in the past and we have seen it manifest itself in some NHLers.

Pug, Dubnyk looked like the Dubnyk we saw to start the season. He had a couple superb multiple save sequences after the Wild were up 1-0 that kept them scoreless. The Habs had a heckuva push and they could have certainly changed the outcome of that game had a puck gone in at that point, but then the Wild PP struck gold and it was getting away from them.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

Hey, all you Wild fans that wanted Dumba gone 2-3 years ago because he was mistake prone back in his younger days. How do you like him now, boys?

I will admit it and have done so on multiple occasions, but about year 3 I was about done with Dumba. He hadn’t broken out offensively yet and his D awareness was such an issue I wanted to cut bait with him. I didn’t see it coming.
Last year changed that and so far this year he is elevating it even more. I sure hope he can stay healthy.
He is a streaky guy and is really feeling it right now. Good for him.

Well Grouse, I’ve seen the light! I was a longtime Coyle bobo. If he could play to his potential 90% of the time, wow, but it’s not to be. Maybe playing in his hometown of Boston would provide the missing piece, who knows.

I’m holding out hope Coyle plays like a stud these next few games and Boston pulls the trigger…

CaptainMusky wrote:

Dubnyk looked like the Dubnyk we saw to start the season

They play him too much is he already wearing down before the season is half over?

JoeMX1825 wrote:

I’m holding out hope Coyle plays like a stud these next few games and Boston pulls the trigger…

Fenton should be talking with Philly maybe they can recover 1ST-2ND-4TH round picks from the Hansel and Grettle trade.

jeff_huberty wrote:

They play him too much is he already wearing down before the season is half over?

I agree he should play less, but I don’t think that has been the problem with his recent lackluster play. I think it all points to when Wilson crashed the net (or was shoved into) and he hit Dubnyk’s head. THat is when it started faltering.