Wild 2015-16

Bruno is getting pulled from the bench, so he won’t be involved in the games, but I believe Darby will continue to be the eye in the sky.

Correct. I would have liked to see all new blood. Maybe Bruno was just in a position he couldn’t excel at and this will be better. Curious to see how their roles are defined going forward.
Should be a fun game 7 tonight. I have a hard time cheering for any team from Florida, but I’m pulling for Tampa.
Best matchup with the sharks I think would be the Pens though.

I hate the pens and the Sharks do nothing for me. But I will say after so many disappointing season s with high expectations it would be nice to see the Sharks win it all. Imagine how many they could have won without McLellen as coach.

Actually I am now realizing Deboer is o e of the best coaches out there. Remember when he took the Devil’s to the finals not long ago? That team was not that talented.

Yeah, summer starts early for me, no more hockey.

Drouin played his heart out every game, but I think that turnover that led to the breakaway was the sort of thing that got him on the trade market.

Vasy is a heck of a goaltender.

Nail biter in Pittsburgh tonight. Tough deal for Tampa, but they had their chances and didn’t finish.

Grouse

Kucherov and Johnson were fairly invisible the last two games.

Agreed, man with the firepower that Tampa has and only to muster 17 shots, sounds like a wild game.
The finals will be a good series I think. I’d rather the sharks win. For some reason I just can’t stand the Pens. Probably because the announcers seem to handle their jock every game, gets annoying.
It would be cool to see jumbo joe get a cup.

I got 3 words for why I hate the Pens

Crosby
Letang
Kunitz

I’m even starting to dislike the Pillsbury Dough Boy on skates.

Just when I am ready to quit on the Wild, they suck me back in. Scott Stevens is named above assistant.

He should be a great mentor to our young defensemen. Especially to Dumba and possibly some of the other fringe defensemen who are willing to play physically. Folin for example.

Found this segment too while perusing Steven’s hits. Pretty funny segment on the guy who does the all hockey hair team each year.

mplspug wrote:

I got 3 words for why I hate the Pens

Crosby
Letang
Kunitz

I’m even starting to dislike the Pillsbury Dough Boy on skates.

Well, you’ll have to change this to “I got 3 words for why I hate the 2016 Stanley Cup Champion Pens…” in about 1 more game.

The Pens are kicking the Shark’s @ss right now. I can’t see the Sharks being able to fight off the Pens at this stage. The Sharks spent all their Go Juice just getting there.

I fully agree with some of the criticism of the Pens, BTW. Yes, Crosby IS cheating on faceoffs by timing the puck drop and he’s not getting booted from the circle when he jumps the gun because a) it’s the playoffs and b) he’s Sidney Crosby. But then again, nobody ever seems to be against the “let them play” playoff reffing style until it involves a lightening rod like Crosby…

I’m not a Pens fan, but I have to give them credit. They got their stuff together after a bad start this year AND their beating OV and the Caps was no fluke. They’re on the verge of winning it because they deserve to be.

Grouse

Sid is arguably STILL THEE best player in the World!

I dont understand the hatred towards him but us Sid supoorters grow stronger from it!

Go Pens!

I think the hate came from the first several years of his pro career when he took dives and whined like a baby about just about everything. He is still a whiner, but has cut way back with his embellishments. Unbelievable talent, but still a weenie.

PB2 wrote:

Sid is arguably STILL THEE best player in the World!

I dont understand the hatred towards him but us Sid supoorters grow stronger from it!

Go Pens!

He still whines, cheats and takes cheap shots, but he has toned it down a lot. I can remember the fighting heavy weight Matt Niskanen. I can remember him taking shots at guys. Heck, I remember tripping up Brian Boyle last series during a faceoff while ignoring the puck drop. I also remember him slough footing someone.

Slough

That being said, he also takes a lot of abuse too.

It’s sports and we need heroes and villains. Figure this one out, I love Ovie, probably the cockiest guy on skates, yet I hate Crosby.

The face off deal? Talk about being able to agitate without doing anything. Clouture should worry more about scoring (where’s the NHL playoff goal leader Pavelski?) and less about face offs.

I don’t think that the Pens are even the most talented team in the league, probably not even top 5, but there is no denying that they have been playing the best hockey since near the end of the season until now.

They don’t have break downs. How many times did the Sharks leave a guy wide open last night? How many blocked shots and broken up passes by the Pens?

Scott Stevens hired as Wild assistant coach.

Yeozie signed on officially to head up the Blues starting 2017-2018.

The Pens deserved the cup. It’s hard to say, but they definitely were firing on all cylinders for the whole playoffs.

mplspug wrote:

The Pens deserved the cup. It’s hard to say, but they definitely were firing on all cylinders for the whole playoffs.

Gotta agree and give the Pens credit. They brought it when it mattered most. I give them a lot of credit, IMO they took out the Caps, who are IMO the most talented team in the NHL, so I can honestly say they deserved to win it.

Good luck to Yeo. He’s going to inherit a talented team in St. Louis, so it’s a great opportunity for him. Everyone’s seen it before, a coach gets canned by one team and then wins big with the next. Teams have to do what they have to do when it comes to coaches, the coach is part of the equation and after all was said and done, it was time for the Wild to move on.

Grouse

The buyout window is official open. Will the Wild pull the trigger on a Vanek buyout as has long been discussed?

I hate to see a buyout on one hand, but on the other hand Vanek is coming off a career low as far as goals, he’s in the last year of his contract and unlikely to be resigned, and he’s eating up cap space. Not an encouraging list of reasons NOT to buy him out, unfortunately.

I think this will be Bruce’s first big hand’s on move as far as future direction.

Grouse

It should be fun having Yeo in the same division and taking the helm of a rival team next year.

I don’t pretend to know the by out formula, I just tried figuring it out on some website. So I am monkeybuttizing the results, but I think we’d have a $2.5M cap hit this year and next year if we buy him out? Personally if I were the GM and I couldn’t move him, I’d suck it up and let him play out his final year of the contract.

He was still our 4th best goal scorer with 18 on a team where 25 goals was tops. He probably would have been #2, but he played 8 less games than Coyle and Nino.

I say let him play another year and wash your hands clean. You can use him as a PP specialist and give him 12-15 minutes a game tops. And if he gets on a roll, give him more minutes. He is going to have to accept his new role though and he seemed to take the scratches pretty well last year.

As you guys know I’m a Coyle bobo.

Is he the teams next captain?

So the NHL has decided on Vegas for expansion, they just need to come up with a 500m fee.

Colyw will be 35 when El Permo Capitan Koivu retires.

Another scenario for Vanek is as part player plus a move down in the draft order deal. The Wild have reportedly been shopping for a team looking to move up in the draft, the exchange being the Wild want R2 and R3 picks.

Just read the Vegas expansion news BT. Poor Quebec.

Grouse

Are they just adding one team? So the west will have 15? Doesn’t make much sense, by i like us having only 7 in our division. It ups our odds to make the playoffs.

It doesn’t seem like the NHL is totally sold on Quebec getting a team back. I’m wondering also if the NHL isn’t thinking that there should be some moves before more new teams are created.

To be honest, the whole prospect of Quebec getting a team back p!sses me off a little. Only because they’ll also most likely get the Nordiques name back, once again rubbing salt in the wound that we’re the ONLY city that the NHL allowed our team name to be stolen by the city who also stole our franchise.

Grouse

I think the main issue with expansion in Canada is the current exchange rate of the Canadian dollar. If this was 3 years ago, Quebec would have been announced already, but since the dollar is so devalued they are holding tight to make sure all the proper financing is in place.

Thinking about the North Stars. How many people would go berserk if the Wild announced a name change to the North Stars? I think that would be sweet as heck and that old logo would help rekindle the rivalries of old.
I don’t mind the “Wild”, I just hate that head logo thing. Worst crest in professional sports.

Best Jersey/Logo Ever. I don’t care what anybody says.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Thinking about the North Stars. How many people would go berserk if the Wild announced a name change to the North Stars? I think that would be sweet as heck and that old logo would help rekindle the rivalries of old.
I don’t mind the “Wild”, I just hate that head logo thing. Worst crest in professional sports.

I completely disagree on the wild logo. the design of that logo is creative and looks very cool. But I do agree on how cool it would be to have the north star name and logo back.

KP wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>CaptainMusky wrote:</div>
Thinking about the North Stars. How many people would go berserk if the Wild announced a name change to the North Stars? I think that would be sweet as heck and that old logo would help rekindle the rivalries of old.
I don’t mind the “Wild”, I just hate that head logo thing. Worst crest in professional sports.

I completely disagree on the wild logo. the design of that logo is creative and looks very cool. But I do agree on how cool it would be to have the north star name and logo back.

Unfortunately, it’s never going to happen. The franchise agreement with the league when we got a team back specifically forbid Minnesota from having ANY name that included the word “star” or “stars”. The league would never approve any such name as long as the Texass Team Rustlers are in existance.

Grouse