MN Wild 2019-2020 Official Thread

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Time for Guerin to blow it all up…get as many picks as we can and unload all the salary we can, hope to god we get a top 2 pick in the lottery

Agree. Sooner the better.

Lots of NHL news sites mentioned recently that Ek, Fiala and Donato have been put on the trade block and BillyG is listening for offers…

With the contracts this team has its going to be near impossible to blow it up. Changes can certainly be made, but they are not going to be able to shoot a Tomahawk missile down the center of this roster and make significant changes. Guerin’s best options would be to trade some guys for picks, and then draft REALLY HIGH and Extremely well.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

Also, I have to say that now we have to acknowledge just how truly awful Fecktard Fenton’s trades last year really were. Fenton literally executed 3 of the worst trades in franchise history and in a row. Sorry, but time’s up on the “give them time” mantra, it’s time to call BS on that. Fenton effed this team in a way that is unbelieveable. I would say Donato stall may make a half decent 3 or 4th line guy, but the rest of Fenton’s trades were total giveaways and the league will be laughing at us for years for Fenton’s incompetence.

Anyway you cut it,this team was not effed up by the trades. It was effed up for the past several years.It is effed up by the players still on this roster. They were effed up before the trades and after the trades.

For this season,I am still holding onto the Blues Championship model.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Lots of NHL news sites mentioned recently that Ek, Fiala and Donato have been put on the trade block and BillyG is listening for offers…

For a team who’s average age is one of the oldest in the NHL they want to trade their youth? I can see Fiala he’s just not NHL material but Ek and Donato have a lot of upside along with youth.

This team is so frustrating to watch…there’s just an obvious lack of skill on the ice and this leads to bad decisions that then snowball out of control.

For the rest of this season and possibly next year, every Wild win just hurts this team long term. Its tough to say that about a hometown team, but its the absolute truth.

I think we finally have a GM in place who can fix it, but he’s untested sofar so we’ll see…

for those interested, here’s a great article on how the NHL Cap Recapture penalty works and how it “could” specifically affect the Wild. This article also clears up the Hossa retirement clause the Blackhawks used a few years ago to avoid it…

https://www.hockeywilderness.com/2019/10/31/20937184/minnesota-wild-cap-recapture-penalty-zach-parise-ryan-suter-contracts-roberto-luongo-nhl

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Lots of NHL news sites mentioned recently that Ek, Fiala and Donato have been put on the trade block and BillyG is listening for offers…

What sites are you seeing this on?

KP wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>JoeMX1825 wrote:</div>
Lots of NHL news sites mentioned recently that Ek, Fiala and Donato have been put on the trade block and BillyG is listening for offers…

What sites are you seeing this on?

I’ve seen it referenced multiple times from different sources on Twitter, but dont recall the exact ones. None of them however were Russo to my recollection.

Until Russo reports it, I have a hard time believing they are true. Gurin has said multiple times that he won’t make any moves this early in the season.

KP wrote:

Until Russo reports it, I have a hard time believing they are true. Gurin has said multiple times that he won’t make any moves this early in the season.

He still said he would listen. He isnt interested in just blowing things apart until he could see what they had, but he has seen enough already to get an idea of where the players referenced are at and what he thinks they could project to. Its pretty obvious when 2 of those players have been healthy scratches already this season how they have been performing.
Russo tends to not report on stuff like that very often. Absolutely if he said it, I would believe it, but since Guerin had already said he would listen if someone called, there is really no reason for Russo to make any comment about specific players. He has enough to write about already.

CaptainMusky wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>KP wrote:</div>
Until Russo reports it, I have a hard time believing they are true. Gurin has said multiple times that he won’t make any moves this early in the season.

He still said he would listen. He isnt interested in just blowing things apart until he could see what they had, but he has seen enough already to get an idea of where the players referenced are at and what he thinks they could project to. Its pretty obvious when 2 of those players have been healthy scratches already this season how they have been performing.
Russo tends to not report on stuff like that very often. Absolutely if he said it, I would believe it, but since Guerin had already said he would listen if someone called, there is really no reason for Russo to make any comment about specific players. He has enough to write about already.

At this point Donato is worth a bag of hockey pucks the way he’s played so far this season. Pretty unbelievable after he was the only offensive part of the team after he came here last year.

mahtofire14 wrote:

At this point Donato is worth a bag of hockey pucks the way he’s played so far this season. Pretty unbelievable after he was the only offensive part of the team after he came here last year.

He was only really good the first 12 or so games. He was bad down the stretch and HORRIBLE in Iowa for their playoff push. I expected him to work on his skating a bit this offseason, but he is still not a very good skater.

Another late game collapse. The Wild are getting pretty good at that.

I think the clock is ticking on Coach B.B

What a great legacy for 2 players. In a decade not sure there’ll be much love in the state of hockey for 2 players or their contracts. Fair or unfair, terrible gm decisions or no good role peices. Fact is their time here will be remembered for a terrible playoff record and draining the team with nothing more than, well we got to the playoffs x number of years in a row with nothing to show for it. Most of the playoff series weren’t even that competitive.

Like ZP and RS is (more likely was now) a good defenseman. But their contracts will be harming this team for years to come, with little more than missed opportunities and a list of sport cliche excuses 100 rinks long.

Getting to the playoffs was fun as a fan to watch. But the constant choking wasn’t.

The team is slow.

They put together a good period, but can’t play a complete game. The mindset and attitudes aren’t good. When they were younger and faster they could get away with it. Now it’s painful to watch.

Bruce unfortunately will probably get the ax at some point. For what end, who knows cause this team ain’t going anywhere with this roster.

Trade who for what? Draft, that’s a crsp shoot. Russian, think he’s excited to come to an aging, slow, terrible team with a fairly grim looking future?

Hopefully I’m wrong and they’ll turn it all around, but going to take a lot of good fortune. Something the wild has never really had.

Watching the OT the other night it was super obvious the Blues had a plan for OT and the Wild didn’t…how many years has this been going on and when will it ever get addressed? Why in the world was Staal starting? How can Bruce just keep letting the 3on3 embarrassment happen?

Well the good news is that Fenton already traded our assets away and pretty much every trade was a complete disaster.

Seriously, the damage he caused in such a short amount of time is legendary. Turned what might have been a 2-3 year rebuild into probably 5 years.

Disagree. If you add Granlund, Neiderritter, and Coyle back on this team they are not any better. Zero

The problem and the elephant in the room is Parise and Suter (and Koivu). I fully agree with basseyes on this and something that a number of us have been saying for multiple seasons now. Hindsight is 20/20, and I’ll admit I was excited when they were first signed (a long time ago) but their contracts and their lack of leadership (not to mention performance) are killing this team. Makes Mauer’s contract look like a walk in the park. Very likely to go down as the worst two signings in franchise history and I have read several articles that come to this same conclusion.

philtickelson wrote:

Well the good news is that Fenton already traded our assets away and pretty much every trade was a complete disaster.

Seriously, the damage he caused in such a short amount of time is legendary. Turned what might have been a 2-3 year rebuild into probably 5 years.

You’re absolutely correct, Fenton is now a case study in how quickly somebody hired as a GM who doesn’t know what they are doing can harm a pro sports franchise…what’s so strange is that Minnesota has had this happen before with David Kahn for the Timberwolves…

I think Fenton’s only positive is that this past years draft class is looking pretty good sofar (maybe other than not taking the best goal scorer in Caufield) his 1st draft year was an absolute disaster with Johannson picked in the 1st round…

It will be a painful 3-5 years until these past mistakes work their way out of the system.

lindyrig79 wrote:

Disagree. If you add Granlund, Neiderritter, and Coyle back on this team they are not any better. Zero

The problem and the elephant in the room is Parise and Suter (and Koivu). I fully agree with basseyes on this and something that a number of us have been saying for multiple seasons now. Hindsight is 20/20, and I’ll admit I was excited when they were first signed (a long time ago) but their contracts and their lack of leadership (not to mention performance) are killing this team. Makes Mauer’s contract look like a walk in the park. Very likely to go down as the worst two signings in franchise history and I have read several articles that come to this same conclusion.

I think the general assumption is that most of not all of these 3 players would have been dealt anyways (due to salary, never panning out with the Wild and not likely to resign anyways) it’s the return Fenton negotiated for them that is so bad…I think the Parise & Suter deals had to be done to inject some energy into a franchise that just lost it’s only star (Gaborik) for nothing in return and was forced to overpay Koivu to avoid the same thing. The fanbase wanted to see a major move and lets not forget the type of contract they signed was somewhat the norm at that time and other teams even offered more… The Cap-Recapture penalty went into effect AFTER they signed, so what once looked like a good contract with little to no risk the final few years of the deal turned into an almost deathtrap after the rule went into effect.

The Wild has nobody to blame for it’s struggles other than itself and its GM hiring decisions… Go look at our drafts over the years…absolutely terrible picks…no players that would be considered franchise players other than Gaborik & Burns and we gave up on his potential too early and played him at the wrong position most of his time here…then look at our trades, can you even name a player we traded for that made any type of difference? Maybe Nino and Pomminville, but then look at the heavy cost we paid for Pommer…

This team needs a fundamental change in the way it scouts, evaluates and projects talent…MAYBE Guerin will do that?

I think Guerin is going to do a much better job than his predecessors. He has so many connections throughout the league and I dont think anyone will be able to pull one over on him like was done with Fenton.
Looking at last years trades specifically and comparing the numbers for the players the Wild received in return the results are basically the same regarding this year’s production. Last year it was clear we got hosed because mainly of the Nino production and Coyle through the playoffs, but this year they have similar numbers to what the players they were traded for.
Doesnt change the fact that the Rask trade was disgusting and perhaps should have gotten a bit more out of the Granlund deal, but its not like those guys are lighting it up thus far this year.
They have actually been playing fairly decent for large portions of the games, just meltdowns when it counts and they were jobbed by the officials big time against the Blues.

lindyrig79 wrote:

Disagree. If you add Granlund, Neiderritter, and Coyle back on this team they are not any better. Zero

Oh I didn’t mean that the team would be a contender had we not traded them, I meant that we traded some of the most valuable youngish players on the team and got very little in return to help us build for the future. It was the worst possible scenario I think. The deals were played off as some sort of ‘re-shuffling of talent’, but it hasn’t taken long to show that we got way less talent back in return, and very little draft capital.

Whatever the opposite of a slam-dunk is, that’s what this is. It would have been even worse had we traded Zucker, sounds like a deal was in place for Phil Kessel but Kessel said no thanks.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

I think the general assumption is that most of not all of these 3 players would have been dealt anyways (due to salary, never panning out with the Wild and not likely to resign anyways) it’s the return Fenton negotiated for them that is so bad…

Those players traded had little value, their production was down, and their playoff credibility had little value.

lindyrig79 wrote:

Disagree. If you add Granlund, Neiderritter, and Coyle back on this team they are not any better. Zero

X2
Could not sat it any better.

Despite Coach B.B his resume and reputation, no one on this team is playing the game he is trying to coach.

They should start dumping more of the veterans and move forward with players who are coachable. At $99 mil for two players, you would think you would have had at least a 50-50 shot at team leader.

jeff_huberty wrote:

Those players traded had little value, their production was down, and their playoff credibility had little value.

And neither do the players he traded for. At least he could’ve traded for prospects with a possible upside. You get to dump or avoid bigger contracts and improve your team in the future. He did neither.

Donato was the only guy I thought had any value.

biggill wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>jeff_huberty wrote:</div>
Those players traded had little value, their production was down, and their playoff credibility had little value.

And neither do the players he traded for. At least he could’ve traded for prospects with a possible upside. You get to dump or avoid bigger contracts and improve your team in the future. He did neither.

Donato was the only guy I thought had any value.

I thought Fiala may have some upside also.
Lets face it, in a one for one trade the values need to be equal.Upper end talent would require multiple assets,or the value could be lower cap value for high end short term talent.
The Wild had nothing to offer in the players they were trying to trade. Simply put it was an Apples for Apples trade.
I am not defending Fenton,just pointing out he was dealing with a short stack.

As mentioned earlier, when you look at the stats of all the players involved in those trades this season sofar, it doesn’t look like we’re losing that much and we saved a ton of cap space to resign Spurgeon. I was fine with the Coyle trade return, I thought we could have got a 3rd or 4th round pick + Fiala for Granny, the Rask trade is a big ? for me even though we got some capspace back, He just doesn’t look like a pro hockey player to me.

Nino – 14GP, 2G, 4A, -2
Coyle – 14GP, 2G, 2A, -3
Granny – 15GP, 2G, 2A, 0
Donato – 12GP, 0G, 2A, 0
Fiala – 9GP, 1G, 1A, -3
Rask – 7GP, 1G, 1A, +2

I have more issues with Fenton’s draft pick decisions and the trades he tried and didn’t make than anything else. Johannson draft pick was a nightmare decision for a team that can’t score goals. If the rumors were true that we could have got a 1st round pick for Staal, then Fenton is an absolute idiot, especially when he could have then easily resigned him as a FA a few months later if Staal wanted to stay in MN. Trading Zucker would have been an terrible mistake…

Dont forget the Brad Hunt trade. That one makes up for a Rask swing and a miss IMO.
I agree, if Fenton was offered a 1st Rounder for Staal, you do that 10 out of 10 times. Its a business.

I don’t think there is any denying or arguing that Fenton did a poor job and glad he’s gone. But to say that his short tenure and those trades are the reason this team stinks is simply not true. This team was swirling in the toilet way before Fenton arrived…. he just happened to put the cherry on top. The front office and management has made a mess of this team for years and hopefully that will change but there is very little reason for optimism until we get new team leadership and that starts with ZP and RS.

lindyrig79 wrote:

I don’t think there is any denying or arguing that Fenton did a poor job and glad he’s gone. But to say that his short tenure and those trades are the reason this team stinks is simply not true. This team was swirling in the toilet way before Fenton arrived…. he just happened to put the cherry on top. The front office and management has made a mess of this team for years and hopefully that will change but there is very little reason for optimism until we get new team leadership and that starts with ZP and RS.

Keep in mind that the start of last season the Wild had one of the better records in the NHL the first 1/4 of the season, then Dumba got hurt and the team spiraled downward which led to Fenton making moves… I think the biggest difference this year is our older player appear to have lost a step or two in some cases and it has put more pressure on the younger players to score and they have failed so far. Unless we find a fountain of youth this problem will get progressively worse over time and injuries will start to pile up and we don’t have the farm system yet to replenish the perceived talent.