MN Wild 2019-2020 Official Thread

lindyrig79 wrote:

Ahhh yes…. The Jets are a mess and they still kicked the Wild in the rear end

Yeah, didnt help when Kahkonnen was doing his best Devan Dubnyk impression with 2 goals on 2 shots less than 2 minutes into the game. He settled down after that and finished the first and second periods. Robson played the third, but its hard to know how he looked.
Sturm with the only Wild goal to cut it to 2-1. It was mainly Iowa guys playing from our side, but yes, the Jets are out a lot of their best players though Wheeler played last night.

it was basically our JV squad with just a couple of guys who have NHL experience, but what they did to us, we should have done to the Stars the night before…

Preseason to me is all about watching individual players and seeing how guys have stepped up (or not) over the summer. The scores and W/L have absolutely zero correlation to regular season success.

I only caught the last half of the game last night but from that I don’t see how Rask could ever play over Sturm if not for roster/waivers factors. I thought Sturm was our best forward and Rask was the Rask we remember from last season.

I thought Belpedio looked really good too and could be a possible injury call up if they need to fill a top 4 roll. He had the puck on his stick a lot and I don’t ever see him fitting as a bottom pair defenseman.

from the “highlights” I watched on youtube of the game last night, Rask looked just brutal and was a -3…wtf will we do with him this year? 4th line center making $4 million…(next year he’ll be bought out)

tswoboda wrote:

I thought Belpedio looked really good too and could be a possible injury call up if they need to fill a top 4 roll. He had the puck on his stick a lot and I don’t ever see him fitting as a bottom pair defenseman.

How did you watch it? Do you have NHL Center Ice?

JoeMX1825 wrote:

from the “highlights” I watched on youtube of the game last night, Rask looked just brutal and was a -3…wtf will we do with him this year? 4th line center making $4 million…(next year he’ll be bought out)

This has to be a situation where BG tells Leipold that for the good of the team we pay an AHL player, NHL money. I dont think buying him out right now is a good idea. Give the season time maybe he will come around, if not, then buy him out at the end.

CaptainMusky wrote:

How did you watch it? Do you have NHL Center Ice?

No, I watched the condensed game highlights on youtube this morning….https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Jc65aWOc68

JoeMX1825 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>CaptainMusky wrote:</div>
How did you watch it? Do you have NHL Center Ice?

No, I watched the condensed game highlights on youtube this morning….https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Jc65aWOc68

No, I was replying to @tswoboda who said he only caught the last half of the game. The game was televised on TSN which we dont get in the states unless you have NHL CenterIce OR some other service I want to know about.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

href=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Jc65aWOc68&#8243; rel=”nofollow”>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Jc65aWOc68

After watching that Kahkonnen sure settled down after those 2 early goals and looked pretty good. There wasnt much help on D at all in this game with only Seeler as a regular playing. That play by Greenway to get the puck over the Sturm was pure beastmode. I hope we see a lot more of that this year.

after getting rattled in the first few minutes, I thought both Wild goalies looked really good! Our depth looks good for the future…but goalies are so unpredictable… I’m interested to see what team shows up against Colorado, the Avs will be a top team for many many years to come…they are just loaded with young talent and MacKinnon’s contract is the best bargain in the league…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

after getting rattled in the first few minutes, I thought both Wild goalies looked really good! Our depth looks good for the future…but goalies are so unpredictable… I’m interested to see what team shows up against Colorado, the Avs will be a top team for many many years to come…they are just loaded with young talent and MacKinnon’s contract is the best bargain in the league…

The Avs are going to be scary good. They already had a strong farm system, then with the Duchene trade they made a haul in pics, etc.
Unless they do something stupid they are going to be tough for years to come. They sent Barrie packing too which only loaded them up more.
Regarding our goal-tending depth, it certainly would be nice to have one of the young guys push for NHL ice time to push Stalock. I like the kid, but he isnt the most stable option for a #2 to get a lot of ice time taken off of Dubnyk’s load.
The goalie they drafted will be coming in a couple years too and he is supposed to be very good so I definitely agree there are finally some positives in net, but we need someone to push for ice in the big wild. Hopefully Kahkonnen can do that starting this year. Even if he comes up and plays like 5 games to spell Stalock and have true NHL defensemen in front of him could be huge.
Binnington came out of nowhere and led the Blues to the cup.

Fiala finally got his Visa approval completed and is on his way stateside. Should be here tonight. Boy, I bet Bruce gives him one helluva bag skate! LOL

Watched the highlights on NHL app of the Wild. Granted we ran out a lot of A players and the Abs had their B squad, but from what I could gather from the highlights, there was some promising play.

Dumba looks like he is picking up where he left off and maybe Zuccarllo is a better pick up than I have him credit for.

Nothing impressive about our varsity beating the other teams second string by one goal over 3 periods imo.

Might start to see the remaining RFA’s start to sign now that Point signed…not sure what his agents plan was but it sure looks like he blinked first and the Lightning got a heck of a deal at $6.5 per. Not sure how the remaining RFA’s can argue for more with stat comparables to Point, unless Laine brings up linemates again

Nice Kaprizov story here, it surprises me how we hardly know anything about this kid, not sure why Russo or others never talk to him for interviews?

https://en.khl.ru/news/2019/09/25/456723.html

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Nice Kaprizov story here, it surprises me how we hardly know anything about this kid, not sure why Russo or others never talk to him for interviews?

https://en.khl.ru/news/2019/09/25/456723.html

Interesting read. Never knew he played with Ryan Stoa, MN connection. Russo wrote about Kirill today from an interview with Guerin. Sounds like Guerin will travel to Russia in November to meet his agent. Sounds as though talks are all pointing toward him coming.
The difficult thing will be the transition to the life outside of his native land. I dont believe he speaks much English. That has to be tough.

watched most of the game last night, wow Rask obviously didn’t get the message about this being his last chance at resurrecting his career, he looked terrible out there, slow and constantly out of the play. Reading through Boudreau’s comments it looks like the writing is on the wall and we’ll have a 4th line center making $4 million per season, I’m sure if he could, Bruce would keep him in Iowa…..

The difficult thing will be the transition to the life outside of his native land. I dont believe he speaks much English. That has to be tough.
[/quote]

Yep, that’s typically why alot of young Russians fail over here, they just aren’t comfortable with real life stuff (culture, food, language, etc)… I remember reading last year that he was taking english classes to get more comfortable. Believe it or not there’s a fast track language course that agents make their clients take to get quickly acclimated, especially for the all important Interview process, haven’t you always wondered why all of the Russian players basically say the same things when interviewed and always end it with a perfect “Thank you very much!”?

I could see the Wild trying to pickup a Russian veteran to help him out his first year…or maybe have him live with Parise or Suter his first year…

i’m gonna go read that article..

JoeMX1825 wrote:

I could see the Wild trying to pickup a Russian veteran to help him out his first year…or maybe have him live with Parise or Suter his first year…

i’m gonna go read that article..

Russo asked Guerin that very question. It was an interesting response and I agree with him. They have to find the right guy if there is one available but not just for the sake of having a Token Russian on the team. That is one of the reasons I pushed hard for going after Gusev. He is a legitimate player and had already spent some time here. He will have a full season under his belt by the time Kirill can come over. That would have been great to have. The Wild have drafted one of Kaprisov’s buddies recently, but I dont think he’s anywhere near NHL ready.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

…not sure why Russo or others never talk to him [Kaprisov] for interviews?

It would be interesting to know if Russo has tried. I notice that even the KHL news interview you linked to does not actually interview him. Does the KHL or his team have a “no interviews” rule? Would be interesting to know.

Also, interviewing through an interpreter is very awkward and I can also understand why the interviewee would have the fear of a poor translation being turned into a misquote that gets him into trouble.

Wild looking more organized last night against the Texas Team Rustlers and some of the offseason rust seems to be getting polished away.

This Wild team may or may not be a playoff team, but they certainly have the talent to make life miserable for a lot of underachieving teams like Dallas who are hoping to get something going.

Several sources reporting this week that BG has been working the Deal Phone looking to bring in a top-line centerman on a trade deal. Speculation that some cap challenged teams may be looking to move salary and the Wild’s cap space available has the door open to bring in bigger money than most teams can afford.

Grouse

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>JoeMX1825 wrote:</div>
…not sure why Russo or others never talk to him [Kaprisov] for interviews?

It would be interesting to know if Russo has tried. I notice that even the KHL news interview you linked to does not actually interview him. Does the KHL or his team have a “no interviews” rule? Would be interesting to know.

Also, interviewing through an interpreter is very awkward and I can also understand why the interviewee would have the fear of a poor translation being turned into a misquote that gets him into trouble.

Wild looking more organized last night against the Texas Team Rustlers and some of the offseason rust seems to be getting polished away.

This Wild team may or may not be a playoff team, but they certainly have the talent to make life miserable for a lot of underachieving teams like Dallas who are hoping to get something going.

Several sources reporting this week that BG has been working the Deal Phone looking to bring in a top-line centerman on a trade deal. Speculation that some cap challenged teams may be looking to move salary and the Wild’s cap space available has the door open to bring in bigger money than most teams can afford.

Grouse

Russo is very touchy about getting asked Kaprizov questions per my Athletic.com membership when he does Q&A’s (He actually puts a no Kap questions disclaimer)… it makes no sense, we know nothing about this kid, how could he expect there not be questions from the fanbase?

I do think there must be some sort of agreed upon block to asking for an interview (either from the agent or the KHL team)

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Russo is very touchy about getting asked Kaprizov questions per my Athletic.com membership when he does Q&A’s (He actually puts a no Kap questions disclaimer)… it makes no sense, we know nothing about this kid, how could he expect there not be questions from the fanbase?

My take on that is Russo gets flooded with questions and he usually has nothing in regards to new info on him and the situation so it doesnt pay to rehash anything. Just my take anyways.

suck it

Sorry, that may have been a passive aggressive post after 2.5 fireballs last night.

Penguins gave Defenseman Jack Johnson a heads up that he was likely going to be traded this week, could the Wild have possibly found a trade partner for Rask? Both players are expensive liabilities at this point, but would you rather pay somebody who could actually play on the team as a 3rd pair member vs paying Rask $4 million to play in Iowa?

Johnson has an extra year on contract, but is $750k cheaper per season…just thinking at least you’d get some use out of him before you bought him out…

How were there no offer sheets for Laine for around $8 million per? You would have given up a 1st, 2nd and 3rd round pick for him, but this 21 year old kid will be a perennial 50 goal scorer soon…and you know he would have left the Jets in a heartbeat if he could (of course the Jets could have decided to match)

Just surprising for a player at his age with his scoring ability not to be offered…He then accepts a 2 x $6.75 save face deal to get the season started…

The Wild didn’t have a 3rd rounder to use so that excluded them anyways…

Maybe Laine has some baggage. As I recall he has been extremely streaky and the national broadcasters were questioning his drive/motivation.

I have to wonder if the upcoming Expansion Draft doesnt have teams hesitant to make a splash like that. Maybe not, but they surely would have to protect a player like that and perhaps it might limit them elsewhere?
Not sure.
Wild put Brown on waivers.
Not sure what to do about Rask. Man, sure seems like he didnt take any of the advice given to him in exit interviews by Fenton or Boudreau so it certainly feels like he is just collecting his checks.
I cannot see the value of putting him on the ice at all. Putting him in Iowa may be tough too because who would want to pay $4MM for an AHL player plus you have the issue with veteran players in AHL. Sort of screwed us already because we couldnt keep Stafford around. Not sure the value of having McLeod in AHL. Not sure I like that maneuver, hate the guy personally, but he definitely brings grit.

It’s gonna take an ugly trade both ways to get rid of Rask…The only positive of getting a D-man like Johnson is that we’re thin there and he’s a gritty vet…

in terms of Liane, yes he had some perceived baggage last season (Fortnite addiction) but he still put up 30 goals in what many consider a dreadful season…but he’s only 21 years old, lots of time to mature…