Article: Why the Wild traded for Will Butcher

[Thomas Williams]

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[Citizen Strife]

You sure they didn't sign him just because of the cool name?

[B1GKappa97]

45 minutes ago, Citizen Strife said:

You sure they didn't sign him just because of the cool name?

Def cuz the name

[MrCheatachu]

Huh, I assumed they traded for him because Billy only knows how to call the Penguins.

[Imyourhuckleberry]

Wild got a step closer to a top 16 pick with that 3rd period last night.

Adding Butcher for the kids in Iowa might help juice the scoring down there. He played 5 straight NHL seasons after college, posting 39 NHL regular season assists back in 17-18, and 3 more in 5 playoff games, so maybe the youth can learn a few things from him along the way as well.

[mnfaninnc]

To me, this is a sign of the end coming for Jon Merrill on our roster. It looks like an insurance policy in case he is traded/waivers.

Last night was brutal. Spending 2 periods gaining and holding a lead only to watch it wash away in 38 seconds. On the 1st goal, to me, it seemed like Mermis was playing too far to the right and opened up the lane for Carrier to get a great look at the goal. He hit one of the spots that has great success, high stick side. Goose2 had little chance outside of luck that it hits the shaft. Mermis has been good, better than Goligoski and Merrill. Yet, he has had some defensive gaffes lately.

2nd goal is a deflected shot which Goose2 couldn't pick up and 3rd goal is a deflection off a block by Faber. Again, Goose2's only hope on those is that the puck hits him, he really has no time to react.

And, now we're down to 1 game before the long break. Another 4 point swing. We are now looking at drafting 9th and falling further out of the playoff picture. We are 6 points out of 7th & 8th now. 

It was nice to see Boldy get a goal, I don't know what it is about him, perhaps it's just youth, but he sure seems to fumble a lot of pucks. LaPanta's call of "Boldy fans on the shot" seems like it could simply be bottled he calls it so much. To me, Boldy simply needs to be harder on pucks and play more big boy hockey. It would also open up more for his finesse game if they have to respect his drive to the net. 

And, in other news, Yurov with another 3 point night. He's up to 42 points now. What was Kaprizov's number at that age?

[MrCheatachu]

36 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

It was nice to see Boldy get a goal, I don't know what it is about him, perhaps it's just youth, but he sure seems to fumble a lot of pucks. LaPanta's call of "Boldy fans on the shot" seems like it could simply be bottled he calls it so much. To me, Boldy simply needs to be harder on pucks and play more big boy hockey. It would also open up more for his finesse game if they have to respect his drive to the net. 

 

Twice on the power play (including his goal) Bolds made a hard drive to the net instead of dancing around the outside and doing another drop pass, to set up a drop pass, for a pretty drop pass right into a drop pass.

It was nice to see someone take the initiative to make a hard move to the center, attack the net and get rewarded.

[Pewterschmidt]

1 hour ago, MrCheatachu said:

Huh, I assumed they traded for him because Billy only knows how to call the Penguins.

Billy’s jitterbug phone only has Penquins front office programmed

[Will D. Ness]

37 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

Last night was brutal. Spending 2 periods gaining and holding a lead only to watch it wash away in 38 seconds. On the 1st goal, to me, it seemed like Mermis was playing too far to the right and opened up the lane for Carrier to get a great look at the goal. He hit one of the spots that has great success, high stick side. Goose2 had little chance outside of luck that it hits the shaft. Mermis has been good, better than Goligoski and Merrill. Yet, he has had some defensive gaffes lately.

It's hard to put it all on Mermis there.  Middleton also was out of position too and there was a severe lack of urgency from the forwards to get back as well.  I don't think it was that long of a shift either.  Lots of blame to go around on that one.

[Pewterschmidt]

5 minutes ago, Will D. Ness said:

It's hard to put it all on Mermis

I’d put Mermis on the short list of ‘pleasant surprises’ this season.  Also listed: Roszy , Fabzy, Midzy, not trading future considerations at TDL for this season’s playoff push, end of list

[bisopher]

Not to excuse the play of Mermis, Middleton, or any of the other D, but if I'm not mistaken, the first two Nashville goals came while Bogosian was serving his 10 minute misconduct from late in the 2nd.  So, we were playing five D and likely mixing pairings through that stretch.

[Will D. Ness]

6 minutes ago, bisopher said:

Not to excuse the play of Mermis, Middleton, or any of the other D, but if I'm not mistaken, the first two Nashville goals came while Bogosian was serving his 10 minute misconduct from late in the 2nd.  So, we were playing five D and likely mixing pairings through that stretch.

Yup.  Costly decision by Bogo but somebody needed to do it.  Refs didn't call high elbow and instead they called an instigator.  Go figure WTF these refs are trying to accomplish there.  

[raithis]

11 minutes ago, Will D. Ness said:

Yup.  Costly decision by Bogo but somebody needed to do it.  Refs didn't call high elbow and instead they called an instigator.  Go figure WTF these refs are trying to accomplish there.  

They also called a penalty on Kaprizov when a Nashville player was holding Kaprizov's stick in his glove.  The ref was literally like 10ft away.

I understand they aren't going to get every call right or catch every infraction in a game, but sometimes I think they are in dire need of an eye exam.

[mnfaninnc]

4 hours ago, Will D. Ness said:

It's hard to put it all on Mermis there.  Middleton also was out of position too and there was a severe lack of urgency from the forwards to get back as well.  I don't think it was that long of a shift either.  Lots of blame to go around on that one.

Looked to me that the forwards were line changing. Middleton and Mermis switch sides from time to time and perhaps that's what got Mermis confused. To me it looked like Middleton had the right side on the play and Mermis needed to slide left. He was in position as if he was the only one back. 

Yes, I guess it could be a communication problem with the D at that time, or it could be that Middleton was going to change and then had to stay in due to the rush? I would have to chalk it up to Mermis not reading the play correctly which may or may not have been his fault entirely. The play kind of came out of nowhere.

[mnfaninnc]

3 hours ago, bisopher said:

Not to excuse the play of Mermis, Middleton, or any of the other D, but if I'm not mistaken, the first two Nashville goals came while Bogosian was serving his 10 minute misconduct from late in the 2nd.  So, we were playing five D and likely mixing pairings through that stretch.

This is absolutely correct. However, it seemed like Goligoski was getting short shifted and Hynes was keeping the normal pairs together the best he could until Bogosian came back. I believe it was Faber-Brodin who were victimized for the 2nd goal. They may have even scored the 3rd goal before Bogosian's return.

This also brings up another point: If Kaprizov got elbowed in the face, how come no Nashville skill player, at least, got reverse checked?

[mnfaninnc]

3 hours ago, Will D. Ness said:

Yup.  Costly decision by Bogo but somebody needed to do it.  Refs didn't call high elbow and instead they called an instigator.  Go figure WTF these refs are trying to accomplish there.  

They also called the elbow, it just got evened out with the instigator penalty. Taking out the 2 big defenders and making Mermis-Goligoski play as a pair was not a bad strategy. Maybe we should try doing that with our 4th line?

[joebou15]

Pretty sure Simon Johansson played with Iowa last year.