MN Wild 2019-2020 Official Thread

Another impressive win by the Wild last night on the road no less and Dubnyk in net. Can they keep this up? Do we want them to? Two points out of the last wild card spot and 3 points out of the first. Plus a game in hand on everyone in front of them with the exception of Nashville who has a game in hand on us but we have two games in hand on Arizona who currently holds the first wild card slot. NHL.com did a interview with Billy G. last week on what he thinks of his team and what he might do by the trade deadline. Billy sounded like he was willing to be very patient and not jump into something just for the sake of making a trade. He sounded almost as if he was satisfied with the majority of his players and was willing to see where this goes.

Be interesting going forward for sure.

Ice Cap wrote:

Can they keep this up? Do we want them to? Two points out of the last wild card spot and 3 points out of the first. Plus a game in hand on everyone in front of them

A lot of fans don’t want them to but the people counting the $$$ over in St. Paul want every win they can get.

Wild play well enough to beat Colorado last night but Dubnyk certainly did not. That shortie he let in was pathetic Boudreau should have pulled him just on that goal alone. The second goal was almost equally as bad. Then he steps to the side of the net to play a slow sliding (not rolling) puck and completely wiffs on it! His head is clearly not in it and I understand his family issues but then he should be professional enough to tell the team he needs to step aside for awhile or the rest of the season and let this team see what it can do.

Zucker is in a funk but Fiala once again showed flashes of brilliance. The goal he did score was a head fake, stick handling soft hands, nifty skating thing of beauty. Staal had a awful game. Couldn’t handle passes or when he did have the puck on his stick he’d mishandle or get it knocked off his stick and he looked S-L-O-W!

Vegas up tomorrow night. I’m guessing or at least hoping we see Stalock in net. Should be Stalock and Kaaponen the rest of the way.
With Dubnyk it’s not if he is going to give up that ugly soft goal it’s when and how many.

Dubnyk did not look good, really all 3 of those goals should have been saved. As good as he looked against Dallas, he was pretty bad last night. He did have a few big saves, but the ones he 100% must save, squeak in. It seems he gets beat under the arm stick side a fair amount.
Its like when the shot is taken he sort of flinches a bit making an opening and the puck slides right through. Scouting report must show this and guys just shoot for that spot even if its not open because it seems to open up.
The second goal was a screen job, but I still think he needs to make that stop.
Fiala is the type of dynamic player that we have missed. Man is he strong right now. Too bad there isnt many others going with him.
Ek has had a strong couple games too.

Nothing is going to change on this team, they are who they are, just a .500 hockey team with some big ? on the roster. The only way they get better is by drafting studs and the only way to improve your chances of doing that is to lose and get into the lottery and hopefully select top 3.

I hope they lose the rest of the season….rebuild what you can this offseason and then start something new next year with new personnel…Sure it’s not fun wanting your hometown team to lose, but there’s no other way out of this mess the next 1-3 years…I’ve accepted that…

I hope they trade Zucker, I hope they somehow figure out a way to get rid of Zuccarello. Not sure what value he brings to this team. He is a great guy and everything, but that signing didnt seem to make any sense to me at the time and it makes even less now. He will be tough to move with his NTC, but the Rangers would certainly enjoy having him back, but likely not at that price. Woof, what a bad signing that is going to turn out to be.

Regarding the draft, there are currently 10 teams with fewer pts than the Wild (a couple tied) so that puts them right about smack in the middle of the draft.
The Red Wings are well on their way to the toilet bowl with the worst record and no one else is even close.
It will be hilarious if they completely bottom out and then dont get the #1 overall pick. LOL
Seeler made his debut last night for the Hawks and got into a heavy-weight brawl. Man those two were bludgeoning each other.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Regarding the draft, there are currently 10 teams with fewer pts than the Wild (a couple tied) so that puts them right about smack in the middle of the draft.

Nobody will be as bad as the Wings are this season, but the Wild are only 11 points from being the 3rd worst team in the league and that’s about where you want to be to give yourself a good chance of winning the lottery or staying within the top 5. I hope they sell what they can at the deadline, bring up Mayhew, Mennel and Sturm and give them good minutes the rest of the season to see if they can handle a NHL workload. Then start rebuilding this summer and see what you got starting next season…

As crazy as it is, the Wild are tied with the lowest pt total in the Central, but are only 4pts out of a playoff spot. Go figure…

CaptainMusky wrote:

As crazy as it is, the Wild are tied with the lowest pt total in the Central, but are only 4pts out of a playoff spot. Go figure…

The NHL playoff system. Designed to get as many teams in the playoffs as possible so the owners can hopefully have a break even season due to extra ticket sales. At least that’s what the owners would have us believe.

Next to the number of face offs won stat the we have been in the playoffs X amount of times over the last X amount of seasons is equally meaningless.

I was at the game last night ten rows up from behind Dubnyk. He’s constantly out of position and is never on the right angle anymore. That goal that beat his left skate on the ice he was so far right he couldn’t cover a foot off the post. He made a lot of great saves over the course of the game too, but it seems like he gives up two easy ones each night. It was a shame because the Wild actually skated with the Avs for the majority of the game.

mahtofire14 wrote:

I was at the game last night ten rows up from behind Dubnyk. He’s constantly out of position and is never on the right angle anymore. That goal that beat his left skate on the ice he was so far right he couldn’t cover a foot off the post. He made a lot of great saves over the course of the game too, but it seems like he gives up two easy ones each night. It was a shame because the Wild actually skated with the Avs for the majority of the game.

That’s been the story of his career in a nut shell….

So no comments on the 2 Wild wins, both against playoff picture teams and one leading their division, but now lose to Colorado by a goal and a whole bunch of comments.

And of course, it’s all Dubnyk’s fault because he held them to 3 goals…

But no comments on Staylock letting in 3 against a very broken and terrible Blackhawks team? Let’s see, where’s the TMSF button again. Oh, here it is.

The problem last night wasn’t Dubnyk or any other Wild player, it was a gawdawful hooking call on Spurgeon that gave Colorado yet another power play. Just a terrible call, if THAT was a hook, then there should have been 48 other hooking calls last night.

CaptainMusky wrote:

I hope they somehow figure out a way to get rid of Zuccarello. Not sure what value he brings to this team. He is a great guy and everything, but that signing didn’t seem to make any sense to me at the time and it makes even less now. He will be tough to move with his NTC, but the Rangers would certainly enjoy having him back, but likely not at that price. Woof, what a bad signing that is going to turn out to be.

This is a PERFECT illustration of how bad GMs have KILLED the Wild. One bad acquisition and more specifically the contract terms for that acquisition can haunt a team because of the consequences. A good or even average GM would have never signed Zuccarello to a 5 year deal and certainly would NEVER have given him an NTC, and would never, never, never have done either of the above with an expansion draft looming. But our GM did all 3!

I hear it all the time, the comments on the trades/acquisitions Fenton made and people saying they weren’t that bad and maybe we even came out ahead. Well, maybe yes, maybe no, but with the Zuccarello deal, Fenton canceled out the positive impact of any other trade he made and then some.

With the expansion draft looming, we now have another old player that we will HAVE to protect because of the NTC. So not only did the Fentard hurt us by overpaying, he hurt us with the 5-year contract he gave an already-old player, AND then he absolutely killed this hockey club by saddling the team with a player that will force us to waste a protected slot that should have been used to protect a much younger and more valuable player.

With one terrible acquisition, the Fentard has cost this club the equivalent of 2-3 players, all of which would have been of much greater value than Zuccarello.

Players don’t kill hockey teams. Bad GMs kill hockey teams. The Wild’s problem isn’t Dubnyk, or Suter, or Praise, or any other player. It’s the cumulative effect of having 3 of the worst GMs in hockey and having them one after the other after the other.

This club will only get better when it has been established that we have a vastly better GM than we’ve ever had.

Grouse

Regarding the xpac draft, Guerin should just play it straight and whomever we lose, we lose…no shadow games and we end up getting screwed like the Vegas draft…

Regarding Fenton’s Zuc signing, he was a new GM that had alot of pressure to get somebody good signed in FA, after the first wave of grade A players signed elsewhere he was forced to overpay (in term) to sign Zuc…The blowback would have been worse had he not signed anybody in FA, so he got pressured into a bad deal. Modern Day GM’s are on a very short leash, so they need to win and win right away or they’re gone…this forces bad decisions like this one, but the risk is greater to not make a move…
The Fiala deal is now looking like a huge win for the Wild and Granny has really been bad in Nashville and will be tough to get the contract he was once loking for (although he’s scored recently), Nino for Rask is a wash as we save cap space and his buyout will be alot cheaper than Nino’s would have, Coyle is never going to be worth that new contract he signed, but Donato might not find a top9 roll on this team to survive, the 4th rounder we got turned into Hunter Jones who looks very promising so maybe that trade is a wash as well?

His drafts look to be some of the best the Wild have ever had (outside of the huge mistake taking Johannson (although if you look at the 30+ picks after him there are no steals we lost out on) and possible mistake taking Boldy over Caufield)

I’m not a Fenton defender, but if you look at all of his “hockey” decisions for the Wild, we might come out on the better end of it all…

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

So no comments on the 2 Wild wins, both against playoff picture teams and one leading their division, but now lose to Colorado by a goal and a whole bunch of comments.

I dont log in too much on weekends because I am not getting paid during that timeframe. I do this strictly on company time. LOL
They have played some very good hockey against teams ahead of them which is great. They didnt play bad last night at all, but the soft goals Dubnyk gave up cost them. Having said that he really saved the game for them against Dallas. He just didnt have it last night on a couple he knows he should have had.

Tireless effort-Hard work-dedication-has streaks of greatness-then slips back into Mediocrity-and then another loss.

Where have you gone Kenny J.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

I’m not a Fenton defender, but if you look at all of his “hockey” decisions for the Wild, we might come out on the better end of it all…

I dont think there would be any chance he would do it, but I would take Fenton back as a talent evaluator, but NEVER engaged in any real personnel decisions. He has an eye for talent for sure.
Look at it this way, he spent all those years in Nashville, then comes here. Look what’s happened in Nashville since he left? They are really floundering with a much more talented roster and fired their coach who took them to the Finals two years ago.

Fenton was just signed by the Blue Jackets as a scout…. nice timing

The playah’s gots to play regardless of who are wearing the suits. Dubnyk lost the game last night surely wasn’t Fenton down there or Billy G lettin’ in them softies.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

The problem last night wasn’t Dubnyk or any other Wild player, it was a gawdawful hooking call on Spurgeon that gave Colorado yet another power play. Just a terrible call, if THAT was a hook, then there should have been 48 other hooking calls last night.

So you’re calling us cliche for only commenting after a loss, but then you pull out the OLDEST MN FAN CLICHE in the book with, “we got jobbed by the refs”………?

I don’t think they looked terrible last night. Doobs on that sh goal looked a little trickier than it appeared, looked like it was tipped or skipped off the ice, but he should have had his body Infront of it. The other goal dumba got all turned around, it would have been nice if he cleared the puck and doobs was slow getting his leg out to stop it.

Staal and Zuccarello were pretty much invisible. That cannot happen.

Fiala is starting to show what he’s going to be.

I’d move Dumba if I could. I like him, but man he looks terrible.

Zuccarello has been a big disappointment. I wasn’t expecting a game changer but I thought he’d at least be more of a play maker than he has been.

mplspug wrote:

Staal and Zuccarello were pretty much invisible. That cannot happen.

That is typical MN Wild hockey, very seldom do you ever see consistent play across all four lines, or the defense pairings, also include the Goaltending.
Seldom do you see full effort across the entire team, they are the best 20-40 minute team in hockey.
It does not matter who the GM is when your teams history is lack of effort across a 60 minute game.

Looks like after 2 years of will-they-or-won’t-they, the Wild have finally traded Zucker. This time it’s Pittsburgh, who gives up Galchenyuk and next drafts first-rounder.

And Calen Addison.
DT

I think Zucker should finally get his name on the cup

I’m not a smart enough hockey mind to know if this is a good deal, but it seams as if the first round draft pick is the key addition in this deal. Galchenyuk seems to be having a down year. The prospect looks like he has a lot of offensive upside for a defensemen but all I’m seeing is the word UNDERSIZED……

Galchenyuk is a throw in. Wild won this trade. He’s a UFA after this year and likely could get dealt again before the deadline. Addison is a top 4 D caliber player and right shot. This move paves the way for other moves. He is very offensive minded and will be awesome on the PP. Stature Wise yeah isn’t a beefeater but neither is Spurgeon, Makar or a host of other very effective D men.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Galchenyuk is a throw in. Wild won this trade. He’s a UFA after this year and likely could get dealt again before the deadline. Addison is a top 4 D caliber player and right shot. This move paves the way for other moves. He is very offensive minded and will be awesome on the PP. Stature Wise yeah isn’t a beefeater but neither is Spurgeon, Makar or a host of other very effective D men.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Spurgeon, and he is who came to mind when looking at the reports on Addison. I just thought we were trying to get bigger on D.

The Kirill Kaprizov era has begun.

Galchenyuk may not have Zucker’s speed, but puts up about the same numbers. He’s been playing hurt this year, that’s why the numbers are down. Perhaps the Wild shut him down for the year at some point.

Root for the penguins to make the playoffs. You get a younger similar player, a top D prospect similar to surgeon and 2 #1 picks this year….unless Fletcher pissed away the first round pick this year?

JoeMX1825 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Ice Cap wrote:</div>
Zucker to Penguins, again? Poor Jason, must drive him nuts being the constant bait on the trade hook seeing as how he really wants to stay here.

Trade Speculation

I’m convinced that Zucker is going to the Penguins, it’s likely coming down to Guerin holding out on wanting a certain prospect and picks and the Penguins are being squeezed and don’t want to blink first…. Sending him to the East means we only face him twice a year and putting him with Crosby is a no brainer…

The Penguins still have their 1st round pick, but no real prospects (other than Calen Addison who’s a right-shot defenseman) that wow anybody and I sure hope Galchenyuk isn’t part of the deal unless he’s just a throw in to free up capspace so Zucker fits… Addison and the Penguins 1st might be enough to get Guerin to dance…

I like it, this also sets the market so somebody like Dumba can bring back a haul..

Majority of comments I’ve seen say the Penguins got fleeced!