Article: The Wild Finally Have A No. 1 Center and Don’t Know What To Do With Him

[Tom Schreier]

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[Citizen Strife]

The Wild have a #1C in Ek and know exactly what to do with him.  

Rossi has potential, but Ek has proven his worth playing with that top line and PP minutes.  Having Rossi as a second option isn't a bad thing, but 30 goals and 55 points is just plain better output than 18-20 goals and 35 points.

Rossi is one of the best and most engaged players on whatever line he's on.  It's not his fault Ek is just better right now.

 

 

Edited March 4 by Citizen Strife

[TheGoosesAreLooses]

Locked into mediocrity for the foreseeable future but gawd damn do we have cost certainty!

[Will D. Ness]

I wish the writers would stop bringing up Addison in a protagonist manner regarding missed opportunity.  Just mentioning his name devalues the point regarding Rossi.

Anyways, Rossi has been playing great and definitely should not be regulated to centering two AHL guys.  He needs to be playing with better talent but we just don't have it.

Is Beckman better talent?  I haven't been impressed in the past.  I was higher on Sammy Walker who came up and dropped a dud.  

Nojo is basically kryptonite and could be the very thing that has hindered Rossi and the success of the 2nd line.

[Patrick]

It is maddening as a fan when the coach and GM can't see what is obvious for almost everyone else. This team isn't going anywhere this year. Why not bench the underperforming veterans and let the kids play? Put Beckman and Rossi together on the 2nd line and see what happens.  Maybe try Dewar or Duhaime with them? Gaudreau, Lettieri, Lucchini don't have any future value. Hartman and Johansson are debatable.  Rossi has potential and Beckman has never been given an opportunity.  It's the perfect scenario to see what they can do. 

[Burnt Toast]

Honestly I’m ready to see Wild management stop the “We can win this year” narrative. The Wild’s record against playoff teams is horrendous. Use the rest of this year to get Rossi some help and PLEASE get some secondary scoring going. We’ve got 19 games to give young players a real opportunity. Realistically we only have a couple so it shouldn’t be that difficult. We have found out what doesn’t work this year. It’s time to move forward with what might work next season.

[Up North Guy]

Trade deadline is coming fast. Maybe the Deweys get moved. The team is adding Dino. Maybe a second line of Rossi, Dino and Zucci could be that productive line the team needs to offset the first line.

[Pewterschmidt]

Calling Rossi a 1C is just wrong.  He’s made great strides from last year to this year.  He needs to make another stair step next season.  He needs to drive his line as center, not simply pot goals.  I have concerns about his size, but no concerns on his motor.  MARCO!!!

[mnfaninnc]

I really can't agree with Tom's take on this at all. Rossi was drafted to be a #1C, but those guys don't get placed there overnight. Rossi would have been a disaster if they'd put him there last season. Simply put, the myocarditis took a lot more out of him than anyone can imagine.

There is only 1 reason why Rossi is productive like this this season. It's because of his summer work to strengthen/gain weight. He needs another one to reach his potential. He needs upper an lower body strength. Everyone can see him getting run over now. He's got to maintain that strength and weight to get there. 

Now, that's just to be a quality top 6 center. He's going to need 1-2 larger players on his flank. Beckman is taller, but not larger, and he needs to also bulk up. The puck is in both of these player's corners and it's up to them to put in this work! Has anyone seen the central division? They're big players! To compete, we must match their strength!

I do agree that Johansson has been disappointing, and for a guy his size, he sure gets knocked down a lot. Hartman might be a decent wing, but isn't large himself. Perhaps Foligno could help, but his stick work has been declining (and of course he's injured). 

Dino, himself is a little smaller, but I'm a little optimistic that he will be larger than we think when he gets here. He probably plays a little bigger than he is too. The thing is a Zuccarello-Rossi-Dino line is just too small!

When guys get drafted at 17, they often grow into their bodies and can gain height. We've seen this with Grayovac one summer where he grew 6", and Petrovsky and Dino have each put on 2". But they are usually around 23 when they are truly physically ready. 

I have no problems with them moving Rossi up and down the center lineup. He's a rookie, he should be moved to get experience in many different situations. I don't think he's been misused at all, and he had to go down to the A last year, it was so obvious he was too weak to compete up here.

Iowa guys have not taken the body building, strength/weight thing seriously, and this is an organizational issue. My hope was that McLean was going to fix this, but it doesn't look like he has. When the Russians come over, my hope is that they did take it seriously and when the Iowa guys see them, they'll know what they should have been doing. 

I'd love to see Firstov finish his playoffs and walk into the building at around 205 and look thick. That will send a message!

[Dean]

Good article. Great work by everyone that puts hockey wilderness together. Thank you! I really appreciate the smart, fact filled , interesting, thoughtful and thought provoking writing . There really is no other good read anymore about the wild. Everything else is recaps of press releases, ai generated none sense, or national media that has no clue what there talking about. I read the other day we could trade duhaime because we had two fighters In hartman and Freddy g. . That’s how lazy nhl media is these days. I like athletic but hockey wilderness articles are better imo  . Thanks for all you do.  

[Imyourhuckleberry]

Eriksson Ek is highly valuable and the best center the Wild have, but I'm not sure he even deserves the 1C designation so much as the best C on the Wild designation, but that's been the case with him for a while now.

The idea of a 1C always strikes me as a playmaker who can not only handle themselves in front of the net to clean up rebounds, but someone who is routinely setting up high danger chances, and those players on the Wild who do that generally are their wings. Calling anyone else a 1C on the Wild seems like a major stretch.

[Tony Abbott]

6 hours ago, Pewterschmidt said:

Calling Rossi a 1C is just wrong.  He’s made great strides from last year to this year.  He needs to make another stair step next season.  He needs to drive his line as center, not simply pot goals.  I have concerns about his size, but no concerns on his motor.  MARCO!!!

His relative to teammate numbers suggest that he is driving his line? Pick any metric and he's likely near the team lead in both driving offense and defense.

[B1GKappa97]

11 hours ago, Tony Abbott said:

His relative to teammate numbers suggest that he is driving his line? Pick any metric and he's likely near the team lead in both driving offense and defense.

Agreed. I was gonna point out that he was even stuck on a line with Gaudreau and Foligno to start the year and was still putting up some points. Which is how he managed to even get any minutes with the top-line in the first place. 

No matter where he's played, he's been productive. 

[Imyourhuckleberry]

3 hours ago, B1GKappa97 said:

Agreed. I was gonna point out that he was even stuck on a line with Gaudreau and Foligno to start the year and was still putting up some points. Which is how he managed to even get any minutes with the top-line in the first place. 

No matter where he's played, he's been productive. 

He was more productive under Evason.

Rossi has 12 points in his last 31 games.

NoJo has 13 points in his last 31 games.

Everyone who plays with Kaprizov is going to get more points, which Rossi did some in the first half of the season, but it seems clear that Kaprizov is driving points. On the other hand, Foligno and Gaudreau, when healthy, were working pretty well with Rossi early.

Rossi certainly doesn't seem to be ahead of JEE. Is Rossi more 1C than Hartman right now? Maybe with another offseason working as hard as he did last summer.

[mnfaninnc]

1 hour ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

1. Rossi certainly doesn't seem to be ahead of JEE. Is Rossi more 1C than Hartman right now? Maybe with another offseason working as hard as he did last summer.

I would argue he is. Hartman is still a better draw man, but as far as playing center, I think Rossi does a better job of overall ice management. Of course, I've got no problems with Hartman taking draws at the faceoff and Rossi then playing center the rest of the way. 

Rossi's offseason should consist of:

1. strength/weight gain
2. edge work/skating lessons
3. heavy draw work with Koivu (who should be developing a plan for him)

If he can improve on those 3 things like he did last summer, he will probably be a .75 ppg player next season. That will be good improvement and in a full season be right around 60 points. 

[B1GKappa97]

2 hours ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

Rossi certainly doesn't seem to be ahead of JEE. Is Rossi more 1C than Hartman right now? Maybe with another offseason working as hard as he did last summer.

I think he is very similar to where Hartman is, yes, with a little more high-end skill. He's not gonna overtake Ek anytime soon, but I think he's better than Hartman. 

[Need4speed99]

On 3/4/2024 at 12:04 PM, Burnt Toast said:

Honestly I’m ready to see Wild management stop the “We can win this year” narrative. The Wild’s record against playoff teams is horrendous. Use the rest of this year to get Rossi some help and PLEASE get some secondary scoring going. We’ve got 19 games to give young players a real opportunity. Realistically we only have a couple so it shouldn’t be that difficult. We have found out what doesn’t work this year. It’s time to move forward with what might work next season.

I can't agree more. Nice to see fans getting fed up with the way management is doing things.

If anyone paid attention to patterns they would see billy g is doing exactly what previous regimes and this team is STILL Mediocre. 

Change it up, bring in the youth. Let skill guys play with skill guys. 

[raithis]

This article is just fanning the flames for the people who can't accept that it takes time for prospects to develop.

A short 3 forward line isn't going to cut it.  I'm totally in mnfaninnc's camp when it comes to the need for building strength and training that a lot of these guys need to do in the off-season.  It's going to take time and they'll have to commit to it.

Rossi will have people to play with.  Right now we just don't have enough top end scoring talent to surround him with.  Players like Beckman and Walker are basically the equivalent of Lettieri and Lucchini, only L&L seem to have more fight in them.  I've not seen a single reason to keep either Beckman or Walker up when they've been up in the past, and they probably aren't seeing ice time now because they don't show that they have anything more than what we know.

It will take Yurov coming over and succeeding to give us a full, legitimate second line, and until then, people will need to be patient.

We are already in a rebuild even if Guerin is loath to publicly call it that.  He likely can't or it hurts Leipold's bottom line.  See it for what it is.  Rebuilds don't immediately have all the pieces to plug in.  It takes time to flesh out lines and fill those gaps.  Rebuilds don't take a year.  They take around 5 years, and that's if your pieces work out.  It's also assuming your players are committed to the goal and stick around to see things come to fruition.  In another season or two, if players like Yurov, Khusnutdinov, Ohgren, and Wallstedt work out, and we keep players like Kaprizov around, then we should see the other side of this.

Fanning the flames and being impatient aren't going to make it happen faster.

[Mateo3xm]

On 3/4/2024 at 12:56 PM, mnfaninnc said:

I really can't agree with Tom's take on this at all. Rossi was drafted to be a #1C, but those guys don't get placed there overnight. Rossi would have been a disaster if they'd put him there last season. Simply put, the myocarditis took a lot more out of him than anyone can imagine.

There is only 1 reason why Rossi is productive like this this season. It's because of his summer work to strengthen/gain weight. He needs another one to reach his potential. He needs upper an lower body strength. Everyone can see him getting run over now. He's got to maintain that strength and weight to get there. 

Now, that's just to be a quality top 6 center. He's going to need 1-2 larger players on his flank. Beckman is taller, but not larger, and he needs to also bulk up. The puck is in both of these player's corners and it's up to them to put in this work! Has anyone seen the central division? They're big players! To compete, we must match their strength!

I do agree that Johansson has been disappointing, and for a guy his size, he sure gets knocked down a lot. Hartman might be a decent wing, but isn't large himself. Perhaps Foligno could help, but his stick work has been declining (and of course he's injured). 

Dino, himself is a little smaller, but I'm a little optimistic that he will be larger than we think when he gets here. He probably plays a little bigger than he is too. The thing is a Zuccarello-Rossi-Dino line is just too small!

When guys get drafted at 17, they often grow into their bodies and can gain height. We've seen this with Grayovac one summer where he grew 6", and Petrovsky and Dino have each put on 2". But they are usually around 23 when they are truly physically ready. 

I have no problems with them moving Rossi up and down the center lineup. He's a rookie, he should be moved to get experience in many different situations. I don't think he's been misused at all, and he had to go down to the A last year, it was so obvious he was too weak to compete up here.

Iowa guys have not taken the body building, strength/weight thing seriously, and this is an organizational issue. My hope was that McLean was going to fix this, but it doesn't look like he has. When the Russians come over, my hope is that they did take it seriously and when the Iowa guys see them, they'll know what they should have been doing. 

I'd love to see Firstov finish his playoffs and walk into the building at around 205 and look thick. That will send a message!

I don’t think we ever see Firstov in a Mn Wild sweater. That has been said by Russo and others a long time ago.

i hope he seeing Yurov and The piss rocket over here and changes his mind though.

Edited March 9 by Mateo3xm