Article: Jesper Wallstedt Recalled By Wild

[Thomas Williams]

View full article

[Citizen Strife]

We didn't know what we were going to get with Gustavsson, and he turned into the Gus Bus.  The weird thing is, we have all this hype for Wallstedt, but I think it is smart to let his play dictate things.  This guy has Kaprizov level hype coming in, but it could be a Faber thing where he just vaults into stardom or Rossi where it takes a while.

The best thing to do would be to gauge which team he'd play better against, or more importantly, which team the banged up defense would be better prepared for.  If either Philly or Arizona plays an up-tempo, track meet style, Merrill and Goligoski are going to get beat to pucks super fast, and Wallstedt will get peppered fast.  Faber's just a human, and can "only" play 30 minutes after all...

The team has been "ok," staying in games and only giving up 2-3 goals most nights.  Keep to their game, and I think he'll do fine in what limited chances he gets to start.

[Burnt Toast]

I’ve been waiting patiently to see JW’s debut in the NHL. Anything could happen for sure. After watching JW’s development these last 2 years whatever does happen won’t rattle this kid. 

[Imyourhuckleberry]

HockeyWilderness not acknowledging the win in Columbus?

While the Wild are currently 13th of 16 teams in Western standings points, they are only a few points behind 9th place, and Nashville's spot at the bottom of the playoffs is far from secure--with 4 games in hand, I'm putting Edmonton in front of them given that they have won 7 straight. I'd be fine with the Wild missing the playoffs, but that 8th spot should be available if they get healthy.

Hopefully Wallstedt can help them secure some points over the next week. The Iowa Wild are just 1-9-2 in games he hasn't started this year, but have a winning record of 11-9 when he's been between the pipes. Might be good for him to get some time hanging out with Fleury and Gustavsson too.

[mnfaninnc]

I'm excited for The Wall. CS has a good point though, let's just see how The Wall does and be excited for him. As for the best opponent, I don't think you can go in that direction, though. 

My guess is he may get in tonight. Fleury has poor success against the Stars, and will likely get shelled again. However, Dallas has lost something around 4 in a row. Oettinger has been out, I sure hope he's about 5 days away!

Also, The Wall has been playing in men's leagues for awhile, but he is only 21. The bad news is that most goalies do not make their mark until 25. The good news is The Wall is a prodigy, and has been shelled all season with a very leaky Baby Wild defense. This will be nothing new to him this season, he's used to a lot of work. 

I'm also hoping for Hunt to be back in the lineup. One thing we learned last season in the playoffs: Goligoski and Merrill cannot keep up with the Dallas speed. I think this is the time to bring up Hunt full time and send Merrill packing to the A. If another team picks him up on waivers, so be it. 

A quick looksie around the prospects reveals:

1. Heidt has fallen below the 2ppg level, 71 in 38
2. Haight is now in the 40s with points
3. Yurov picks up another assist and is up to 33 in 43
4. Firstov has gone cold
5. Our WJC guys were still traveling back to their teams
6. Stramel scored again
7. Our young D corps in the A is still struggling in transition
8. Milne and Hentges are still out for the season so far
9. The Wall is back, but has not been spectacular the past 2 games

[Imyourhuckleberry]

1 hour ago, mnfaninnc said:

Stramel scored again

6 points in 16 games now, so essentially on pace to match last season's 12 points in 33 games. After missing some games to begin the season, he will need to pick up the pace slightly in order to reach a dozen points this season.

He's not quite in the top 9 among forwards for U of WI scoring, but is included in the top dozen.

[mnfaninnc]

11 minutes ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

He's not quite in the top 9 among forwards for U of WI scoring, but is included in the top dozen.

Top dozen, nice snark. Essentially that's the starting 4 lines.

[mnfaninnc]

I did a little snooping around the 2024 prospects for the draft yesterday. It is interesting that a few of the top players are Russians. It was also interesting that it is Celebrini at the top and very little consensus after that. Pretty much the top 16 is a crap shoot. 

I also must correct myself:  I stated that Ottawa lost it's 2024 1st rounder in another thread. That isn't necessarily true. According to Capfriendly, after each year's draft lottery, Ottawa has the choice to use that pick as the penalty from '24-26. If they finish in the top 3 this year, I'd expect them to defer to other years. In fact, it's the '26 draft I think they'll probably use. Why? I expect they will be fighting for a playoff spot by then. 

There are some defensemen available in this draft, a solid mix of LHS and RHS. The big 6'7" Russian player looks like the guy I'm rooting for. There's a Belarusian player at Michigan State who is intriguing, and a guy playing for the Calgary Hitmen that looks interesting. Dickenson, a LHS defender for London is generally stated to be the top defender, but he's not a lock. There are also a few smaller D sprinkled in there. For my money, though, we need a monster, and that's the 6'7" Russian. Now, how do you get him out of Russia?

The other guy is a 6'3" 210 lb. center named Lindstrom. One scout said he plays "Tkachukian" in his game. Immediately, I liked this guy! He'd be like a bigger, meaner, more skilled Ek. And he is ranked anywhere from 3 to 11 depending on the scout. 

If the Wild lose the home and home to Dallas without much of a fight, I think we can pretty much call it a season. These are 2 really important games. The Winnipeg home and home was really a determination of whether or not we could sneak into 3rd. Both of those losses pretty much took us out of that possibility. 2 losses here will likely take us out of the 8 seed regardless of guys coming back healthy. So, why not look at the future? The present seems to be nothing.

[MrCheatachu]

34 minutes ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

6 points in 16 games now, so essentially on pace to match last season's 12 points in 33 games. After missing some games to begin the season, he will need to pick up the pace slightly in order to reach a dozen points this season.

He's not quite in the top 9 among forwards for U of WI scoring, but is included in the top dozen.

Now wait a second, Stramel's currently riding a streak of 5 games without losing a faceoff, and over the last 10 games he's only lost a single faceoff!

Now that's what you expect from a first round center!!!

[Imyourhuckleberry]

30 minutes ago, MrCheatachu said:

Now wait a second, Stramel's currently riding a streak of 5 games without losing a faceoff, and over the last 10 games he's only lost a single faceoff!

Can you share how many faceoffs he's been involved with in those 10 games?

I'm not finding that level of statistical analysis on the Badgers' site. Although I did find a team percentage at 53.0%, I did not find individual faceoff data. I also don't watch and suspect this may have something to do with whispers of him on the wing.

[MrCheatachu]

30 minutes ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

Can you share how many faceoffs he's been involved with in those 10 games?

He's taken as many faceoffs in the last 5 games as he took at this year's WJC, which is exactly the same number of faceoffs that I took in the WJC this year too...

He's been involved with 3 faceoffs in the past 10 games, 2 win and 1 loss.  All three of those were in the Penn State game on 12/8 where he picked up 50% of his points with his 3 apples.

From the player page, I clicked the 'stats' tab below his picture: https://uwbadgers.com/sports/mens-ice-hockey/roster/charlie-stramel/12259  sure looks like they moved him to wing in mid-November...

I should also mention that me and him also are tied for the number of Hits this season too.

Edited January 8 by MrCheatachu

[Willy the poor boy]

Put another brick in this Wall!!

 

[mnfaninnc]

Wow, what a stinker of a game. I didn't think the Wild played that poorly, but their PP was horrible!

I liked seeing Daemon Hunt next to Bogosian. Hunt still has growing pains and the game seems to be a bit fast for him, but he needs the experience and at least he could keep up with Dallas' speed. Giving him PP2 duties, though, was probably a bit too much for him to handle. I do not see Hunt as a PP QB. That last PP, where he backed off from the soft pass, Hunt's got to go get that one.

I thought this was Faber's worst game I've seen him play. I saw 2 big mistakes and some little ones he recovered from. He might be hitting the wall like Boldy did his rookie year. We need to get to the All Star break with Faber so he can re-energize himself. 

I was hoping someone could explain to me why the Wild is allergic to gaining the blueline, and attacking the middle of the ice. Perimeter, perimeter, perimeter, that's all I see. Get it deep and throw it back up top and throw it back into the corner again. I do not understand why this strategy would work? The same thing happened during the Calgary game. One would think that John Hynes would identify this tendency and emphasize against it. 

If you are shorthanded of skilled players, one would think the home plate area is where you want shots from. When we have control, it's boards, boards, boards. It should be crash the net, crash the net, crash the net. 

Why is Raska the only guy willing to hit Suter? Why when Rossi gets crushed into the boards does not one teammate push back? I think we've got a few more problems than we thought we had!

I thought Merrill played a decently steady game. However, it was pretty evident that he cannot keep up against this team. He knows his limitations and played within his abilities, yet, it's really not good enough. It doesn't appear as if much help is on the way though, at least not yet. 

So, with what we've got, can you keep Faber out on the PP for 2 minutes? Should we go 5 forwards on PP2? Do we give Midsy a crack at it? Or maybe Mermis? Hunt was not the right answer. 

It was nice to see Foligno back in the lineup, though I thought this game he really was pretty invisible. I think he's still hurt and just trying to gut it out because the team needs bodies. 

[FredJohnson]

22 hours ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

While the Wild are currently 13th of 16 teams in Western standings points, they are only a few points behind 9th place, 

And Dallas came to town...

 

[raithis]

3 hours ago, FredJohnson said:

And Dallas came to town...

 

It's hardly over.  Yes, the Wild need points, but no team is going to win every game in the first place.  Failing to get points against teams that you aren't going to catch even if you win 90% of the rest of your games is fine.  It's just that if they don't win some of those, then they have to win more of the rest to outpace the teams they could catch.  Games against Nashville, St Louis, Arizona, Edmonton, Calgary, Seattle, etc are more important than Dallas, Colorado, Winnipeg, Vegas, etc.

That all said, will they make the playoffs?  I'm not too optimistic.  They can compete when fully healthy, but being thin on scoring depth (and depth in general), injuries hit us harder than most teams.