Article: The Wild's Sweden Trip Was Neither Business Nor Pleasure

[Tom Schreier]

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[Greenbean]

Guerin constructed this nightmare of a roster, then says stupid shit like that to fans. I'm so over that pompous d bag. Him and Evason need to go.

[Citizen Strife]

In a results driven league, we're going to call out Guerin for saying, "Yeah, we're here to win?"  Roster construction be damned, winning solves everything, even on a 'vacation.'

[Greenbean]

58 minutes ago, Citizen Strife said:

In a results driven league, we're going to call out Guerin for saying, "Yeah, we're here to win?"  Roster construction be damned, winning solves everything, even on a 'vacation.'

Yeah results driven. So far Billy's results aren't good. Winning in the regular season doesn't mean squat when your team can't get it done in the post season. He bought out Parise and suter then used that as an excuse as to why it's tough "with 1 hand tied behind your back". He is the one that brought the damn rope, then turned around and made us one of the oldest rosters in the league again, plus made the old players immovable. It's about winning, and BG isn't a good enough GM to build a Cup winning team. 

 

[TheGoosesAreLooses]

The decision to play Gaudreau in overtime instead of Rossi lies directly on Dean's shoulders. I get that our stars are not playing as they should, Boldy looked much better this weekend and Kap is clearly not himself but what headlines this mess is we have no space for a retool with the extensions Guerin signed. On the upside, Gus Bus looked much better against the Sens and rightfully should have got the start against Toronto instead of Fluery, especially after getting blown out by Dallas. It was a back to back though and it may have been asking a bit much for a repeat of Saturday a day after. If you were going to ask for a back to back anywhere out of Gus it should have been in his native Sweden, being watched by friends and family. 

 

Sens game we actually looked back to ourselves defensively. I wasn't a big fan of all the missed passes and standing around from our third pairing but they didn't let in anything big so whatever. 

The Toronto game was a bit of a whirlwind. I wish we could have kept the momentum we showed in the first 5 mins going. had we not taken the second off we could have pulled a W in regulation. Gaudreau was on the ice for all 3 goals against and Deano still sent him over the boards for OT. Shot himself in the foot again as he is known to do.

[Dean]

Great article 

[mnfaninnc]

1 hour ago, Greenbean said:

Yeah results driven. So far Billy's results aren't good. Winning in the regular season doesn't mean squat when your team can't get it done in the post season.

For the owner, each season has been successful because they were invited into the playoffs. This has to be taken into account when judging Shooter. That was one of the tasks that was required of him: rebuild on the fly. It has meant we need to be better than anyone else at the draft table, and we have to develop those picks. 

People don't like it, but outside of the top 10 draft selections, typically it takes 5 years of development before they make it. That's around 22 or 23 years old. To Shooter's credit, he hasn't traded out the farm, he's kept his cupboards full, and he's kept his top draft picks. Rossi, like it or not, is ahead of schedule. Faber is ahead of schedule, Boldy is ahead of schedule. 

I have only seen the Ottawa game thus far, but I thought they had a concerted effort to shut down defensively. They gave up too many breakaways, but Goose2 shut them down. There was still too many weak plays by our top 6 forwards, and that needs to change. But, I thought we played well (meaning structured). 

The Toronto game will probably show up tonight for me. Playing Toronto is a real challenge to remain structured. 

Freddy's first game back and they give him an OT shift? That's all on the coaching.  He should have just been getting his stick ready for the shootout. 

[Dean]

I’ve liked , appreciated and respected all the wild players for the past few regular seasons . They were hungry for , opportunity, jobs, and contracts. They over achieved in the regular season with their compete level. Definitely something to be a fan of. The playoffs. IMO they melt down an embarrass themselves.  Still could be a fan of them knowing bill will likely  build off what he has and tweak roster. Instead Bill started the season with those extensions and clauses. The clauses really bother me. If you’re going to give out nmc and ntc s then you should only be giving to players that have the character to motivate themselves.  It’s taken 17 games for them to start showing motivation to compete . It’s no mystery why they’ve started slow  . There is no accountability. Bill has taken a hungry team that’s fun to be a fan of and changed the culture to entitled excuse makers.  By locking down all these roster spots with extensions there is no hope for change or improvement . I liked those players when they were hungry. Now I can’t stand them for there laziness and the fact they will be on this roster the next 5 years. I’m not paying to go watch Fred g ( 7 games 0 pts -4) f2 nd line center Boldy and hold bolds back for 5 years . Hart and moose you can find other players to do same job for less with better motivation. Fred imo shouldn’t be on team. 
    Bill has taken a team I was a fan of since day one and made it impossible to be a fan of. I don’t identify with lazy.  Unmotivated , excuse makers that just talk but can’t walk the walk . The wild media make it so annoying trying to sell these guys as successful for showing a little compete.  Watching wild games has become pathetic knowing it’s not going to change for 5 years 
    Let’s be honest. Craig want’s taxpayers to totally renovate the excel  for 20 more years of grifting. So they think doubling down on these guys will make fans happy and get him his tax money. It’s not about winning it’s about grifting . 
why don’t the owners invest the money expansion teams pay to  use for future renovations . Just a thought . 
   Bill has driven a lifelong fan away from the wild. ! 

[raithis]

1 hour ago, Greenbean said:

Yeah results driven. So far Billy's results aren't good. Winning in the regular season doesn't mean squat when your team can't get it done in the post season. He bought out Parise and suter then used that as an excuse as to why it's tough "with 1 hand tied behind your back". He is the one that brought the damn rope, then turned around and made us one of the oldest rosters in the league again, plus made the old players immovable. It's about winning, and BG isn't a good enough GM to build a Cup winning team. 

 

My memory could be wrong, but he was kind of forced to buy that rope.  Aside from the whole locker room culture change, the Seattle expansion draft would have probably cost us Eriksson Ek had we kept Parise and Suter on the roster.  Buying them out before then enabled us to keep other players because we weren't forced to use those slots on two more players with clauses and would have likely left Ek as someone we couldn't cover.  Almost all of those contracts were handed out by people other than Guerin.  In the end, it still cost us Soucy.

I certainly don't give Guerin much slack when it comes to what moves he can make, but considering that the cupboards were fairly bare when he came in, an expansion draft was coming up, and Leipold wants game revenue more than he wants a good hockey team, he already had that arm pulled back anyway.  The buyouts might of tied it behind him, but he didn't have use of the arm to begin with.

Some of the choices since then I'm not terribly a fan of, but I'm willing to get to the other side of the buyouts.  I wasn't expecting contending prior to that anyway.  It's frustrating, and I'm more and more wanting Evason to be run out of the building because some of his choices just make things worse, but the situation Guerin came into wasn't going to resolve itself quickly because Fletcher and Fenton had already put us in a bad spot.  If in the year following the buyouts (at least the large 14-15M chunk), we are still a middling team that can't win a playoff series, then Guerin should be gone.

 

[MNCountryLife]

I felt like there were some positive in this trip.  The PK looked better.  The only PP goal by Ottawa and Toronto was a quick one by Toronto where Matthews beat Faber to the net... a rare mistake for Faber against one of the best in the league... Easily forgivable.  Otherwise I thought the PK was actually acceptable. Results?  We were in both games.  That is a win for this club right now.  Still a lot of work to do but it is a step in the right direction.

Merrill played well.  Not because he scored..  Because he held the d-side blue line well.. and he made solid up-ice passes and didn't let his guy get net side and he cleared the net front extremely well.  A lot of Merrill haters out there and I've been in that category as well... but I have to take my hat off to him for the Toronto game.  Like him or not... he played well.  I hope he can keep it up.  

Downside? Yes, there is definitely a downside.  Johansson was awful.  He was a step late and consistently got beat to 50/50 pucks.  He was an orange cone on the ice....especially in the D-zone.  Gliding around in the D-zone and failing to react to pucks keeps your team hemmed in for long periods of time.  His effort was horrible.  He can sit in the press box with that effort.  I have nothing good to say about his play.

[raithis]

28 minutes ago, Dean said:

The clauses really bother me. If you’re going to give out nmc and ntc s then you should only be giving to players that have the character to motivate themselves.  It’s taken 17 games for them to start showing motivation to compete . It’s no mystery why they’ve started slow.

They start off slow every year regardless of contract status.  This year a little more so though I agree.  Iostly lie that at Evason's feet.  I don't like the clauses either, but I feel like they don't really buy what Evason is selling.

[Protec]

2 hours ago, Dean said:

Great article 

Like the title, right on.

[Protec]

33 minutes ago, MNCountryLife said:

Johansson was awful.  He was a step late and consistently got beat to 50/50 pucks.  He was an orange cone on the ice....especially in the D-zone.  Gliding around in the D-zone and failing to react to pucks keeps your team hemmed in for long periods of time.  His effort was horrible.  He can sit in the press box with that effort.  I have nothing good to say about his play

He was bad here the first time. His appearance at the end of last year was good and we reluctantly accepted his new deal based on that. 

He's gone full Rask and just kept on going. Rask used to get thrown into the lineup for a goal before he'd suck the next two games. 

Euro guys just so rarely take over games. Goalies excluded. Mojo is becoming non-factor, Fred hasn't been able to bring much. Boldy looks like a 3M guy who likes to golf a lot and #97 has potentially become sad from carrying all the water too long. 

[Up North Guy]

2 hours ago, mnfaninnc said:

For the owner, each season has been successful because they were invited into the playoffs. This has to be taken into account when judging Shooter. That was one of the tasks that was required of him: rebuild on the fly. It has meant we need to be better than anyone else at the draft table, and we have to develop those picks. 

People don't like it, but outside of the top 10 draft selections, typically it takes 5 years of development before they make it. That's around 22 or 23 years old. To Shooter's credit, he hasn't traded out the farm, he's kept his cupboards full, and he's kept his top draft picks. Rossi, like it or not, is ahead of schedule. Faber is ahead of schedule, Boldy is ahead of schedule. 

I have only seen the Ottawa game thus far, but I thought they had a concerted effort to shut down defensively. They gave up too many breakaways, but Goose2 shut them down. There was still too many weak plays by our top 6 forwards, and that needs to change. But, I thought we played well (meaning structured). 

The Toronto game will probably show up tonight for me. Playing Toronto is a real challenge to remain structured. 

Freddy's first game back and they give him an OT shift? That's all on the coaching.  He should have just been getting his stick ready for the shootout. 

From what I have seen published the Wild actually lose money during the regular season but the playoffs create pure profit. Leopold is very rich but if memory serves me it is his wife's money. The Wild is "his" business so in get the logic.

Freddy playing was a joke. Freddy playing in OT was a ludicrous joke. In Russo's  words he was "very rusty". I thought he was just plain bad. Deano's decisions are not helping the team win. He claims that Rossi is their best forward right now so DE sits him in OT and plays Freddy. Sound logic there.

[MNCountryLife]

15 minutes ago, Up North Guy said:

Wild actually lose money during the regular season but the playoffs create pure profit

I would be very curious to know how the team is presenting those numbers.  They showed a 40M net profit in 21/22 year.  How much is the owner paying himself?  Is he deferring income for improvements or other things.  There are loads of ways to present the P&L and Balance Sheet.  The arena is consistently packed so I doubt very much that the team is losing money unless Leipold want to reflect it that way for tax purposes.

[M_Nels]

3 hours ago, Dean said:

Bill has driven a lifelong fan away from the wild. ! 

Whose bandwagon you hopping on? 

[Protec]

The Wild are simply in a sideways year. At least at this point. The cap is going up and 5M is coming off the books where MN has replacement players today.

I'm not too upset but we can all agree we expected to see the Wild ahead of WPG, STL, NSH, ARI, and CHI. So far it's been loser territory and we sorta thought the Wild would maintain a decent trajectory based on minimal changes. 

Maybe now that Sweden is done and there's no distraction for a bit, the Wild can figure it out? In the Central they can still be pretty okay cause they haven't lost tons of points there. It's gonna take some winning a few in a row if they're gonna catch up. More parity this year I think. Not as impressed with Evason as when they had their best years the last few. I'm okay with him having some rope or another crack at the playoffs as a personal gut feeling that he's a well-intentioned, hard-working coach. As an "all about eff'n winning" GM, I think you gotta have a short-list of coaches.

I don't love all Guerin's moves but I don't think he has trouble reading the team. I don't think he'll make any kind of flashy or spontaneous move. Partly because he can't, but also because if it's a sideways year for whatever reason you don't throw in the towel. The Wild will just have to regroup and tweak the roster or coaching even further. I don't think Guerin is gonna get fired cause OCL went for the buyouts and I would guess Guerin has a deal that takes him beyond the penalties to achieve better.

 

[Dean]

I don’t know nels. Been watching lots of teams. I feel in love with hockey being a flyers fan before we got wild . Lindros!  Fletcher ruined them and my passion for them. Kinda like he did to wild. Keith Jones and Danny B seem to be going about things the right way now . Torts has a team full of players for sale to highest bidder , playing good hockey . So idk. I like character an it’s easy to like overachievers . 
    I get there are lots of optimistic fans of wild who like team and Billy. I respect their opinion and can see their point of view.  I’ve had to be an optimist for going on 3 decades to keep coming back to wild year after year.  Been there done that. Over it.  IMO when people say Billy is better than Fenton /fletcher it’s a nothing burger. . That’s a low bar you expect to be cleared. Not give a pat on back for.  Not wasting your high draft picks on rentals when you have glaring holes all over team seems like common sense to me.  Drafting well is something Billy seems to have done good at. We will see though. That’s all good. The extensions and clauses is where I think you can’t call Billy a good gm until that pans out. Go to cap friendly and see what good teams give out for clauses. Billy is like Oprah. You get a car, you get a car and you get a car. Then the contract negotiations.  Bill doesn’t negotiate. He gives them everything and more of the bat . Watch yzerman or Tampa or any other quality team negotiate. It makes me really question Billy.  The hole build on fly with 20 th overalls that take 5 years to get to nhl doesn’t seem like a winning recipe but who knows. 
    What I can’t and don’t like now is the lack of compete or accountability. I’d rather watch Flyers overachieving than wild or department making excuses why all the guys with nmc s can’t show up to work. In the military you do your f ing job no excuses. The wild need more of that.  

[Tony Abbott]

4 hours ago, Protec said:

He was bad here the first time. His appearance at the end of last year was good and we reluctantly accepted his new deal based on that. 

He's gone full Rask and just kept on going. Rask used to get thrown into the lineup for a goal before he'd suck the next two games. 

Euro guys just so rarely take over games. Goalies excluded. Mojo is becoming non-factor, Fred hasn't been able to bring much. Boldy looks like a 3M guy who likes to golf a lot and #97 has potentially become sad from carrying all the water too long. 

If only the Wild would stop drafting Euros like Matt Boldy.

[Dean]

Looking at what Billy is doing. To me looks exactly like what fletcher did. Fletcher got two vets at top of their positions. Like kappy and Boldy.  He then tried to surround them with the young guns. Remember that pr. . Haula, nino , coyle , and  Zucker maybe Brodin or dumba was considered one of young guns. Bill has Rossi  ohgren. The two Russians and walls. As his young guns. Probably 3-5 years before they’re on roster producing. He then spent high draft picks in rentals to fill out team. Probably what bill does in 5 years . They both give out dumb contracts. Fletcher did identify good young players. Most of them went on to win cups for  other teams.  Bill seems ok at identifying players.  Fletcher couldn’t find good coaches . IMO  either can bill. There’s not much difference between the two.  So it’s the same organization doing the same thing but calling it different or the new way to build. Nope. It the same thing they did a decade ago. Just pr ing the sh__  out of it like it’s new.  

[raithis]

2 hours ago, Dean said:

Looking at what Billy is doing. To me looks exactly like what fletcher did. Fletcher got two vets at top of their positions. Like kappy and Boldy.  He then tried to surround them with the young guns. Remember that pr. . Haula, nino , coyle , and  Zucker maybe Brodin or dumba was considered one of young guns. Bill has Rossi  ohgren. The two Russians and walls. As his young guns. Probably 3-5 years before they’re on roster producing. He then spent high draft picks in rentals to fill out team. Probably what bill does in 5 years . They both give out dumb contracts. Fletcher did identify good young players. Most of them went on to win cups for  other teams.  Bill seems ok at identifying players.  Fletcher couldn’t find good coaches . IMO  either can bill. There’s not much difference between the two.  So it’s the same organization doing the same thing but calling it different or the new way to build. Nope. It the same thing they did a decade ago. Just pr ing the sh__  out of it like it’s new.  

Fletcher sold out the future.  Guerin seems to be doing the opposite of Fletcher in that regard.  He seems to be waiting for the future to grow.  The prospects aren't ready yet.  Yeah, it's frustrating, but if we had more prospects in our system right now that would be ready to be in the NHL, we wouldn't have to wait.  That's from Fletcher mortgaging our future for trade deadline acquisitions that both didn't help enough, and weren't going to stick around.

In 5 years, all the veterans on this team will be gone and players like Eriksson Ek and Kaprizov would be the vets.  All our prospects that make it would be in their primes and we will likely have more prospects in the system.  If Guerin trades a couple picks during that span to fill in the gaps, so what?  It doesn't make him like Fletcher.

Like it or not, this is basically a rebuild.  We may have fooled ourselves that the past two seasons mean we are capable of a few adjustments  being able to get us further in the playoffs, but everything has shown us the opposite.  The silver lining is that we have what is regarded as one of the best prospect pools in the league now.  Once they are ready and a couple make the NHL, things will start looking a lot different.  It's just hard to be patient in the meantime.

[AKwildkraken]

I'm more upset at not being able to see the games in Sweden as they weren't available on ESPN+.  So thanks for keeping me informed with how they played from a fan's point of view.  Although, it sounds like some aren't fans as to what's going on lately, which I understand.  

I don't think the contract situation is as terrible as some think.  If Foligno, Ek, and Maroon play on a line and dominate as the greef line did at times, I could easily live with Foligno's contract.  Might be a big if though.  

Gudreau's is a bit long and double of what 4th line contract should be, but at 2.1 million it's salvageable. Problem is we don't have any extra room, but we all know this.  

My biggest concern is Johansson.  He hasn't looked good to me.  I agree that he looks lackluster most of the time.  Maybe he will end up in the press box soon.  

Sounds like the d-men played better, so I'm not going to call it a dumpster fire yet.  

 

[Skomonkey]

I agree, it would have been nice for the players to enjoy coming home and playing in front of family. However, they are professionals and their recent play didn’t warrant making this into a pleasure trip. 
 

The Wild still have not played a 60 minute game this year. They start slow or have a terrible second period. I think their overall health is less than reported. We’ve had too many big names out and others playing poorly. I hope Krill is injured because it would partly explain his poor play. But if that’s the case, we saw how the team did well with him out last season. If injuries are a factor, I’d rather see him sit then continue to play poorly. Right now he’s a liability. 
 

I still feel our biggest problem is face offs. We are 60/40 almost every game. When you lose so many offensive and defensive face offs, you can’t keep pressuring in the offensive zone and you are always scrambling on the defensive side. I don’t tract stats, but would be interesting to see how many goals we give up after losing a face off in the defensive zone. BG should have spent his money on a center or 3. 

[Protec]

26 minutes ago, Skomonkey said:

I still feel our biggest problem is face offs. We are 60/40 almost every game. When you lose so many offensive and defensive face offs, you can’t keep pressuring in the offensive zone and you are always scrambling on the defensive side. I don’t tract stats, but would be interesting to see how many goals we give up after losing a face off in the defensive zone. BG should have spent his money on a center or 3

It's the things like this and the special teams that can easily be criticized and attributed to the GM.

The players and coaches knew this stuff too. What have they done to be better? 

The young guys haven't made the big steps. The Mojos, Alex, and Freds just haven't been there at all. 

The truth is they're not that great and only when they play team hockey can they win. Their details and confidence are both MIA...

[Protec]

4 hours ago, Tony Abbott said:

If only the Wild would stop drafting Euros like Matt Boldy.

That's actually the perfect description for Boldy. He's like a back East Euro guy. Golf'n all Summer instead of getting into the batting cage and trying to toughen-up.