Article: Toronto Exposed the Wild's Fatal Flaw. Now What?

[Tony Abbott]

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[MrCheatachu]

Quote

With some salary retention, perhaps someone like Adam Boqvist ($2.6 million cap hit through next year) or Jake Bean (pending RFA, $2.33 million cap hit) could make sense.

Even at 50% retained you need to free up $1.15M, which, assuming CBJ is looking to make this trade to clear out their defense log jam (no-go for Addison $825k, Merrill $1.2M or Middleton $2.45 ) which means you got to move out a forward. 

Only forwards w/o NMC clauses are Dewar ($800k),  Duhaime ($1.1), Ek, Boldy & Kaprizov.  You aint moving Ek, Boldy or Kaprizov for a $2.33M pending RFA, and even if you move Duhaime out, it still doesnt fit.

I don't see how even these contracts at 50% retained fit on this current roster...

Edited October 16, 2023 by MrCheatachu

[FredJohnson]

Time for a couple guys to land on "LTIR". 😉

[jabuyer]

One game.

Two hat tricks by Matthews. Like that's going to happen again.

So, maybe this is an an outlier.

Edited October 16, 2023 by jabuyer

[TheGoosesAreLooses]

7 minutes ago, MrCheatachu said:

Even at 50% retained you need to free up $1.15M, which, assuming CBJ is looking to make this trade to clear out their defense log jam (no-go for Addison $825k, Merrill $1.2M or Middleton $2.45 ) which means you got to move out a forward. 

Only forwards w/o NMC clauses are Dewar ($800k),  Duhaime ($1.1), Ek, Boldy & Kaprizov.

I don't see how even these contracts at 50% retained fit on this current roster...

Short answer, they don't. I think we need a GM and coach to wake up and smell the coffee that we are not a contender for the cup this year. I know that is not what anyone wants to hear but it is the truth. 

None of the defensive prospects are ready, for many of them this is their first year in the A. IF our prospects were close to ready I could see sending Merrill down to save 1.15M in cap space to give us room to move up them but I don't think that is viable either. 

For the offensive prospects there is no way up. We handed out NMC's like candy, blocking us from trading anyone but our young players with potential upside. 

I'm coming to realize that Evason and Billy are no Woodcroft/ Holland. They won't throw in these guys to give them a shot before they are sure they are "ready". If you take a look at Woodcroft's record with rookies, it is how he survived under the cap with both Drai and McDeezy on the roster. He has shuttled 4 defensemen in at various times last year including Dineen, Broberg, Niemelainen and Desharnais. Not saying Edmonton is the peak of defensive prowess but they get creative to make it work. Bouchard and Broberg have turned into serviceable defensemen, developing at a higher pace under duress.   

[jabuyer]

16 minutes ago, jabuyer said:

One game.

Two hat tricks by Matthews. Like that's going to happen again.

So, maybe this is an an outlier.

And quite frankly if someone is surprised that:

   Gologoski isn't fast enough anymore (surprised he's still here)

  Addison can't play d

   Merrill is only good at not looking absolutely overmatched but can't do much

Well, I don't know what to say.  

[Imyourhuckleberry]

Sounds like the Wild will likely struggle on the road until Spurgeon is back. There are no quick fixes for the Wild, but hopefully Fleury has a better showing against Montreal than Gus had in Toronto.

[IllicitFive]

18 minutes ago, jabuyer said:

And quite frankly if someone is surprised that:

   Gologoski isn't fast enough anymore (surprised he's still here)

  Addison can't play d

   Merrill is only good at not looking absolutely overmatched but can't do much

Well, I don't know what to say.  

I don't know how much I put blame on Addison, I think he has looked much better this year, much like Rossi. He is only a -1 in a 7 goal game. While he is not a force physically I think he has been doing better. While yes one could argue he was on for 2 goals against and only one for, the 2nd goal against was a great shot one on one with Merril. Middleton looked over matched and I think needs a good stick like Spurge or Brodin to free him up and be physical. Gologoski is not that.

[Dean]

This is Bills team now. His coach, his players and his contracts he signed these guys too. We have no depth on top of average to below average players.  I’d rather see two league minimum guys for freddy  or for goose.flurry and moose would free up some money but we can’t move them or most of team because of ntc or lack of money. There is no accountability on this team. They aren’t worried about losing their job or being traded . I thought bill talked about competing for jobs . Haha there’s no competition for next 4-5 years with his contracts. It sure would be nice to have a gm like Vegas , Toronto, Colorado. Pittsburgh, Tampa, Florida .. GMs that get stuff done ! Not re up a bunch of guys who continually get embarrassed in the playoffs . I have nothing against our players but I’ve seen enough of there playoff hockey. It’s not good . It’s sad to think that this is the same team we will see next year and for a few more years after that. Old vets bringing down the youth movement because they are friends of bill . 
    The wild are already in excuse mode. Before season even started walz was talking about just making playoffs is a real achievement.  Like come on. 23 years of same let’s just get in mentality and call it are Stanley cup. the wild  are already crying about injuries. Every team has them . Maybe if the wild got  bigger guys that can take and give hits you wouldn’t get injured as much.  
      I have no sympathy for the wilds excuses . It was the making of Bill !  I’ve been a paying fan since day one. I’m not paying to see these ahl ers anymore. 

[Will D. Ness]

We should be gearing to bring Lambos up here.

 

[IllicitFive]

3 minutes ago, Dean said:

This is Bills team now. His coach, his players and his contracts he signed these guys too. We have no depth on top of average to below average players.  I’d rather see two league minimum guys for freddy  or for goose.flurry and moose would free up some money but we can’t move them or most of team because of ntc or lack of money. There is no accountability on this team. They aren’t worried about losing their job or being traded . I thought bill talked about competing for jobs . Haha there’s no competition for next 4-5 years with his contracts. It sure would be nice to have a gm like Vegas , Toronto, Colorado. Pittsburgh, Tampa, Florida .. GMs that get stuff done ! Not re up a bunch of guys who continually get embarrassed in the playoffs . I have nothing against our players but I’ve seen enough of there playoff hockey. It’s not good . It’s sad to think that this is the same team we will see next year and for a few more years after that. Old vets bringing down the youth movement because they are friends of bill . 
    The wild are already in excuse mode. Before season even started walz was talking about just making playoffs is a real achievement.  Like come on. 23 years of same let’s just get in mentality and call it are Stanley cup. the wild  are already crying about injuries. Every team has them . Maybe if the wild got  bigger guys that can take and give hits you wouldn’t get injured as much.  
      I have no sympathy for the wilds excuses . It was the making of Bill !  I’ve been a paying fan since day one. I’m not paying to see these ahl ers anymore. 

Would you rather be watching the other ahl ers we have? Is a 15 mil cap hit not a valid excuse? Its still a business in the end and being competitive sells tickets. They needed to field a team, while we all hope those prospects will come in and we will have 5 guys on our own team competing for a calder, that is all it is, hope. While the defense looked bad against the Leafs, this is the same group that helped shut out the Panthers. It may be we will lose the Dewy bros but perhaps Foligno, Hartmann and Freddy are our 4th line in a couple years. That means they have been pushed down the line up for new guys coming in with more skill.  There still needs to be stability because, at least I am willing to bet, not every prospect is going to turn out to be a big time NHL er. Freddy and Mats do have modified NTC, so they are moveable potentially.

While we would all love a cup contender every year have that 15 mil hit makes it extremely difficult.  If you want one of those GM's who you gonna pry away? Or pick up off the street more likely. They are probably not wanting to leave a great situation like they are in.

As for injuries every team does get them, and every team cries about it. You don't think the Avs were upset with their injuries last year? Come on man, thats not unique to this team. Spruge has been, for the most part durable and I wouldn't call Boldy small per se. 

It seems you want to see GM, gone, coaches, gone, anyone over a certain age (30?), gone, and think that would make the franchise great? Just curious who you are going to get to replace all those people that makes the Wild serious cup contenders this year or next.

[M_Nels]

47 minutes ago, TheGoosesAreLooses said:

Short answer, they don't. I think we need a GM and coach to wake up and smell the coffee that we are not a contender for the cup this year. I know that is not what anyone wants to hear but it is the truth. 

None of the defensive prospects are ready, for many of them this is their first year in the A. IF our prospects were close to ready I could see sending Merrill down to save 1.15M in cap space to give us room to move up them but I don't think that is viable either. 

For the offensive prospects there is no way up. We handed out NMC's like candy, blocking us from trading anyone but our young players with potential upside. 

Your 3rd paragraph is what really stings about these contracts/extensions. Freddy, Moose, Hartman, Mojo & Zucc all have NTC/NMC's. Freddy kinda gets lost in the shuffle when grumbling about extensions but the term on his contract raised some eyebrows when it was signed. 

After Mojo falls off after next year there's still 4 forward spots occupied by aging players that have all been recently signed to multi-year extensions. We all knew it was going to be painful to rebuild on the fly but I still don't like the Zucc or Moose extensions one bit. 

[Beast]

The fatal flaw isn’t that Gologoski and Merrill stink.  We’ve know that for for years.  The flaw is they’re still on the team and playing meaningful minutes.

I don’t want to hear about cap space and buy outs.  It doesn’t take $20M of cap space to find a better defenseman.  Stick a road cone out there.

 

[Tom Gribalski]

It is just one game. The Wild are still poised for a big season

[Protec]

Toronto is a good team. Between the last two games and preseason the Wild are 6-2. 

If you're gonna drop a game early, better it be against Toronto where the defense is sloppy and the team can learn from it without losing ground head to head in the Central. Are Middleton, Goligoski, or Merrill great on their own? No, but can they get a grace game to improve on. They're pros so I don't expect them to be happy with being whomped 7-4 either. 

The Wild getting four goals is good enough to win. Allowing 5+ is not the formula for success. Getting out-played by two good Eastern teams should give the Wild a benchmark to measure themselves. Plenty of room to improve. Getting Spurgeon back is gonna help but just like a few days ago when the Wild beat FL and Gus had a shutout fans were flying high, now we're looking to replace defenseman after an ugly loss. We should probably be patient through the first 5-10 games to get a sample size worth drawing conclusions from.

[Protec]

26 minutes ago, Beast said:

The fatal flaw isn’t that Gologoski and Merrill stink.  We’ve know that for for years.  The flaw is they’re still on the team and playing meaningful minutes.

I don’t want to hear about cap space and buy outs.  It doesn’t take $20M of cap space to find a better defenseman.  Stick a road cone out there.

 

Good stuff, funny. True though, both guys are in their last years I would guess. Goligoski looked bad after an extended break last season but he got with it after a few games and was okay. The Wild need to ease the young guys in anyway. I'm sure Lambos, Hunt, Masters, or Spacek could play here or there just fine. Compared to Merrill or Goligoski. 

I'm sure they don't wanna burn a year of ELC either unless really necessary. 

Toronto made it look easy but MN isn't gonna win all 82 anyway. I wanna start complaining harder or not around 7-10 games in.

[Willy the poor boy]

37 minutes ago, Tom Gribalski said:

It is just one game. The Wild are still poised for a big season

The Florida win: Gus is amazing, BG is a genius.

2 days later the Toronto game:

The seasons over let's throw in the towel.

MN. sports fans, Gotta love em.

[TheNoogie]

26 minutes ago, Willy the poor boy said:

The Florida win: Gus is amazing, BG is a genius.

2 days later the Toronto game:

The seasons over let's throw in the towel.

MN. sports fans, Gotta love em.

This is the way

[jgodwin17]

It was one game, stuff like this happens to every team in the league. Every single one. The Wild defense played poorl

[jgodwin17]

It was one game, stuff like this happens to every team in the league. Every single one. The Wild defense played poorly against one of (if not the) best offensive teams in the league.

To play against guys like Matthews, Nylander, Tavares, etc you need defensemen with good stick work. Our defenseman with the best stick work is injured, and our other two with good stick work played well against those players. Addison is defensively amongst the worst defensemen who have ever played in NHL, Merrill is a middling third pairing defenseman, and Goligoski is basically ancient by NHL standards (and was never anything to write home about defensively in the first place). Did you not expect them to get torched when the home coaching staff gets to pick match ups?

Also to all the comments “if the Wild defense was bigger…” it wouldn’t have made a damn difference in this game. Toronto doesn’t have a single guy that plays like a power forward, and none of those goals were scored by outmuscling people. Toronto has an incredibly skilled offensive core….put them against weak depth D men and this is often what will happen.

I feel like people are really over reacting on this one. Let’s see how the team is looking 20 games into the season.

[Pewterschmidt]

Silver linings from the TOR game:

Brockodile Hunter is the real deal.  Bro doesn't even have fuzz on his peaches and he's arguably my favorite D-man already.  Mobile (his edges are Makar-ian), disciplined (opposite of Dumba), Compete level goes to 11.  Case could be made that he's a 1st D-pairing on this team.  Brodin is stay at home, and appears they're coaching up Count Brockula to jump into the play and be a threat in the O-zone.  Love this trade Billy.  Memo to all the Rossi apologists: this is what a prospect who belongs in the NHL looks like.  He plays so well the coaches can't keep him out of the lineup.

Rossi looked like someone who can become a regular NHL'r.  First time i've been able to say that.  That warm breeze that smells like coffee and halitosis is Wild brass exhaling.  Throw in a mint Judd.  Keep it coming Marco.

Foligno.  I'm the charter member of the why $4M/4yr? fan club, but I saw last night his value.  Foligno is the gold standard for big body pylon's (ie Reeves, Maroon, Sundqvist, Deslauris).  Foligno can intimidate physically, hold his own in a fight, keep up with the play, contribute offensively from time to time, and he's a character guy in the room.  Fine I've made my peace with Foligno as long as he stops spiking his helmet after a fight.  Leave that stupid shit for Reeves.

 

[MNCountryLife]

Our D definitely is not there without Spurgeon and Dumba.  Thankfully we will get Spurgeon back at some point.  Middleton needs a solid partner like Spurgeon in order to play to his strengths.  Brodin and Faber look really good.  Merrill is a bit like Middleton.  He needs a partner to play smart because he isn't going to cover your weaknesses.  Addison and Goligoski are not it.  Without Dumba our 3rd pairing became quite weak. Without Spurgeon we now have 2 weak pairings.  Goligoski has really been a disappointment.  The guy has the skill and knowledge.  He just isn't properly conditioned to play anymore.

That being said ... Toronto is a really good team and so are the Panthers. We are still a very competitive team.  Every team has weaknesses and if we can hover around .500 until Spurgeon gets back that would be a win for us.

[mnfaninnc]

Tony-can you confirm or deny whether Goligoski got benched late in the game? It sure looked like it from the eye test as I didn't remember seeing him in the game, but I could have been mistaken.

[mnfaninnc]

15 hours ago, Protec said:

I'm sure they don't wanna burn a year of ELC either unless really necessary. 

I think they're 20 so the ELC is ticking away regardless of where they are playing. Not all of them are ready physically. But Lambos and Hunt are at 200 lbs., so they shouldn't get pushed around.

[mnfaninnc]

13 hours ago, jgodwin17 said:

Also to all the comments “if the Wild defense was bigger…” it wouldn’t have made a damn difference in this game. Toronto doesn’t have a single guy that plays like a power forward, and none of those goals were scored by outmuscling people. Toronto has an incredibly skilled offensive core….put them against weak depth D men and this is often what will happen.

To some extent, this part is accurate. It was more about Toronto forwards skating around the defenders. Yet, in this instance, had we had more height and wingspan, that could have made a difference. 

My position is more weight than height, so I would have had to just chalk this one up as they got the best of us. I think where the issues lie, though, is that Merrill and Goligoski can no longer skate against the dynamic players in this league. It also appeared that Middleton had trouble keeping up with them. Addison was made to look silly a couple of times and he's supposed to be a good skater.