Wild 2015-16

JoeMX1825 wrote:

I’m not going out on a limb here, but this next month will determine if Yeo keeps his job or not… They can’t keep sputtering with the narrow 3-4 year window this team has to compete…

The next coach will be a veteran that knows how to get the most out of players…no more home grown, unknown coaches….

Agree 100%
I know all the guys here know hockey, but its kind of funny/irritating reading many of the comments on Facebook, etc after a loss. Clearly there are a LOT of people who have no clue about hockey let alone winning at the NHL level.
I am going to talk worse case scenario here. Wild tank the rest of the season and don’t make the playoffs AND Montreal comes unglued. We get Therrien.
I can honestly say that I am glad Torts got picked up by Columbus because I would have never liked him as a coach. Maybe I would, I guess benching your leading scorer for chirping on the ice which led to a bench minor is something along the lines of what I was hoping Yeo would do to wake up some of our guys.

I honestly don’t know the coaching ranks right now in the league, is Laviolette still employed by anyone? If the blues tank in the 1st round of the playoffs Hitchcock will be available…Babcock’s contract just set the bar pretty high for any named coaches, I doubt the Wild would pony up the dough for the top tier coaches, who knows, maybe so??

Laviolette is in Nashville now. I think he would have been a good pick up too. I like his style!

Here is a good hockey fight video that was forwarded to me.
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=14608000
DT

I would say if they miss the playoffs, or get bounced in the first round Yeo will be gone. You don’t fire a coach in the middle of the season when you are still in the thick of things. If you fire Yeo now, you are giving up on the season. No playoffs is the difference between the team being profitable and losing money.

I do agree anything short of a second round playoff appearance and his job is in jeopardy if the PP struggles continue.

I guess besides wins and losses I pin the PP on a coach too. Especially when most consider that the reason he was run out of Pittsburgh.

I don’t have high hopes for tonight. The Wild seems to play bad after a long break and they are playing in a time zone 2 hours from what they are used to. The players always talk about how a break will help them reset, but it never dies.

I think the only way the Wild will make a move is when the attendance starts to shrink but unfortunately that won’t happen anytime soon because a majority of the people who go to the games think of them as a social hour and could care less about the product on the ice. 1991 is the last time a Minnesota hockey team has been to the cup. How pathetic!!! California, Florida and Carolina teams have won the cup and the state of hockey has been there twice since 1981. That’s 35 years people. I don’t know how fans can keep supporting a team that shows no promise for the future. My prediction is the Wild will make the playoffs and exit in the first round and then the same team will come back next year, they will decrease Sutter’s ice time by 4 seconds a game to get him ready for they playoff run, the team will be as bad as they are this year and the home games will continue to sell out. Good grief!!!!!!!!

I heard Drouin failed to report to a game and is now suspended without pay. I can see why he wouldn’t want to risk injury, but its a dick move. I don’t want him and have to deal with Walsh, his agent, again like we have before.

mplspug wrote:

I heard Drouin failed to report to a game and is now suspended without pay. I can see why he wouldn’t want to risk injury, but its a dick move. I don’t want him and have to deal with Walsh, his agent, again like we have before.

Agreed. Dick move for sure. Do the stars of a hockey team sit out games before the playoffs? That tells me he thinks he’s better than those other guys on the team. No excuse.

Lucia should be looking for work before long.

Lucia must go!

Or maybe, see ya Lucia!

Avoid Drouin like the plague. He’s a risk, wrapped in a distraction, hidden within an attitude problem. What he and his assclown agent don’t understand is that he has not proved himself to be worth anything near the pain in the ass image he has created for himself. The next installment of this saga will begin shortly when Drouin doesn’t like the team he’s traded to.

Grouse

This might decrease Drouin’s trade value? I think a young, cocky kid might be a good fit for this team. Right now all we have is a bunch of young Joe Mauers who don’t seem to want to step up and just sit back in the shadows waiting for someone else to carry the team. Obviously he has talent.

If he sits a long time it hurts his trade value. I suspect that puts Yzerman in a bad spot.

No finishers in this team. Tied game late and no one takes the team on their back.
That whole Drouin deal is getting more off every day. So they are claiming they were lied to about his length of time expected to be in AHL because it was supposed to be “conditioning” stint? Please.
If the wild could get him for next to nothing OK but at this point I wouldn’t risk anything for him.

Why did I stay up for that? I must be insane, repeating and expecting different results.

They cannot keep the puck in the offensive zone for an extended period of time anymore. They had them in good spots a couple times on icings but could not take advantage.

Yeah I’m DVRing the game tonight.

That wasn’t a game played by a team rallying to get out of their funk….

It seems like the only thing left is making some type of change (trade/firing/demotion) something to rattle the cage!

With respect to Druin’s latest situation, I wouldn’t put alot of this on a 20 year old kid…seems like the agent’s ego is running the show

I just read some player quotes from Russo. These aren’t word for word.

Coyle – “We can’t let this get into our head”. Um from what I am seeing, it already is.

Yeo – “Usually when we come out of one of these funks we go on a run” wishful thinking. Kind of like last year you thought you had the hawks number and they swept you.

Anyone notice the slump kind of started in Tampa? The curse lives on!

mplspug wrote:

Anyone notice the slump kind of started in Tampa? The curse lives on!

Fire PUG! Fire PUG!

seriously, not sure what else can be done with this team other than a major shakeup…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Fire PUG! Fire PUG!

Motion seconded
That’s it! I am changing my “game outfit”. Everything was thrown into the wash this morning. Must have been a bad combination of hotwings, fat tire and coors light. Let’s start fresh!

At this point I have this feeling they tank, miss the playoffs and fire Yeo.

I think you look at what the players are saying and its as if they are in denial. I think they think magically they think they’ll make it in like the last to years. There is a lack of urgency that frankly should have started showing up 2 or 3 games ago.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Fire PUG! Fire PUG!

Hey now! What you lesser hockey minds out there have to realize is that Pug is NOT playing the games. Firing Pug is totally the wrong strategy in this situation.

What we need to do is TRADE Pug. OK, Pug, the deal is done. You’re now an Avalanche fan. Do your best to drag them down so they don’t catch us in the Wildcard race and it’ll be mission accomplished. This is just a “rental” deal, we’ll claim you back at the end of the season after you’ve totally sandbagged them.

Ha! You hockey geniuses didn’t think of that one, did you? It’s ideas like this that show why I’m worth the big money. What can go wrong?

Grouse

Ok, other trade possibilities:

1) Do we even sniff a possible trade for Kessel? His contract is a mess
2) Eric Stall is asking for the moon in terms of next contract, he’s past his prime..
3) What about trying to pry Logan Coulture away from the sharks?
4) explore a RNH trade even though you can’t play him until March? Thinking more long term…

Anybody else?

Hopkins seems like the most appealing trade to me… Oilers could use a top D prospect too..

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Ok, other trade possibilities:
Hopkins seems like the most appealing trade to me… Oilers could use a top D prospect too..

I’m not sure why a Nugent-Hopkins deal hasn’t already happened. This was being talked about back last summer, but then it just went quiet, probably because McDavid’s injury probably put moving Hopkins on the back burner. Wonder if this would be possible again?

I thought of Kessel too, but is he an overall fit?

I hope we see more options emerge as teams move out of contention and are looking to deal UFAs or other players right before the trade deadline. Slim pickins right now.

Although… you never know. A few rumors out there that the Wild may have been shopping Suter as part of multi-player deal or a possible 3 way trade. Stranger things have happened, it’s not necessarily just the young d-men who could be on the block.

Grouse

RNH broke his hand the other night while blocking a shot… so most trade talk stalled afterwards, that’s why I said he couldn’t play until March timeframe, so it’s more of a future move, no help right now…

I’d jump all over a Suter trade as it free’s up 7.x Million to put towards a FA forward… While I think Suter was worth that price and probably still will be the next 1-2 years, after that, the contract becomes an anchor…

Avalanche? I am back to where my career began. Man I miss forsberg. I could rattle off a couple dozen or more other Avs players from the 90s. I don’t know if there was ever a player on those teams where I thought, this guy just isn’t pulling his weight.

I don’t believe you can deal any player who is injured or on IR. It is what crippled the wild getting rid of Backstrom each and every year they have tried. Granted there may not have been much interest, but I thought I read somewhere you cannot trade, cut, buy out etc injured players.

Trading Suter? Hmm, I honestly wonder if there would be a remote chance of that happening. Big money, big term who would be interested? He doesn’t provide much offense, scoring-wise, but to me I think its wishful thinking (for someone who doesn’t like Suter) that we could find a suitor (see what I did there?).

I know you can’t cut/trade a player in the off season who’s hurt (Backtrom screwed us 2 years in a row) but I guess it makes sense that the rule applies to the regular season as well… Maybe that’s why they were saying his trade scenario is done, because he’s scheduled to come back from injury after the trade deadline…

that sucks…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

I know you can’t trade a player in the off season who’s hurt (Backtrom screwed us 2 years in a row) but I guess it makes sense that the rule applies to the regular season as well… Maybe that’s why they were saying his trade scenario is done, because he’s scheduled to come back from injury after the trade deadline…

that sucks…

The issue with Backstrom was that you cannot buy out the contract of a player who’s on IR. Only players who are fit for active roster play can be bought out. Presumably, this is to prevent teams from “dumping salary” by simply buying out injured players thus giving them the ability to increase their cap space in the next year.

I don’t know if players can be TRADED when on the IR. That’s a very interesting question.

Grouse

FREAKING FINALLY. Parise has scored on the PP. No, really. I am completely sober and I’ve just watched the reply 11 times to assure myself that it actually did just happen.

Probably. I think.

Wild 1-0 in the 2nd.

Grouse