Article: Wild Trade Connor Dewar to Toronto

[Tony Abbott]

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[Dean]

Ronl Hextall as gm tried competitive rebuild for two different teams. Philly and The penguins. He was brought into both organizations to build on fly and refill prospect pool.  He was fired from both jobs for lackluster results. In Philly the fans got restless because he was acquiring late picks and not competitive. They were going nowhere. Comcast then bought flyers and they wanted money over results like Craig. So they brought in Fletcher  who pissed away draft capital and signed  horrible contracts in his compete on fly rebuild . Then they got smart to the fans knowledge of hockey and went the tried and true route by bringing in Keith jones  and Danny brier to tear down and rebuild. Funny there in playoffs under good leadership. Unlike us. 
  Pittsburgh had spent all there draft capital year after year to stock up for playoffs. They brought Ron into refill prospect pool and compete for cup . He brought in aging vets on bad contracts while adding late round picks .  Sounds like Billy. Pittsburgh figured out this won’t work especially wasting the Crosby years. Kinda like us wasting kappy . So they changed course to gunslinging by bringing in Dubas . The problem is he’s got nothing to sling because Hextalls late picks are worthless like phillys late picks. Kinda like us. We develop 3rd rounders to trade for 5 ths years later. So now dubas is going to tear it down and rebuild. Ala Guentzel. 
    Bill is Ron Hextall! Two top notch organizations tried this stupid rebuild on fly . Both organizations wised up to the fans and are in process of rebuilding. We fall for the same bs every year. It’s going to get better by doing nothing different . It’s been proven it doesn’t work ! Developing 3 rounders to trade for 5 ths is dumb. Vegas deals in proven players and has draft picks. We deal in fantasy land. Vegas in its short time has had a player in every position better than anyone the wild ever had. They got a franchise center in no time. Us 25 years and waiting. F-ing ridiculousl! 

[Protec]

45 minutes ago, Dean said:

Ronl Hextall as gm tried competitive rebuild for two different teams. Philly and The penguins. He was brought into both organizations to build on fly and refill prospect pool.  He was fired from both jobs for lackluster results. In Philly the fans got restless because he was acquiring late picks and not competitive. They were going nowhere. Comcast then bought flyers and they wanted money over results like Craig. So they brought in Fletcher  who pissed away draft capital and signed  horrible contracts in his compete on fly rebuild . Then they got smart to the fans knowledge of hockey and went the tried and true route by bringing in Keith jones  and Danny brier to tear down and rebuild. Funny there in playoffs under good leadership. Unlike us. 
  Pittsburgh had spent all there draft capital year after year to stock up for playoffs. They brought Ron into refill prospect pool and compete for cup . He brought in aging vets on bad contracts while adding late round picks .  Sounds like Billy. Pittsburgh figured out this won’t work especially wasting the Crosby years. Kinda like us wasting kappy . So they changed course to gunslinging by bringing in Dubas . The problem is he’s got nothing to sling because Hextalls late picks are worthless like phillys late picks. Kinda like us. We develop 3rd rounders to trade for 5 ths years later. So now dubas is going to tear it down and rebuild. Ala Guentzel. 
    Bill is Ron Hextall! Two top notch organizations tried this stupid rebuild on fly . Both organizations wised up to the fans and are in process of rebuilding. We fall for the same bs every year. It’s going to get better by doing nothing different . It’s been proven it doesn’t work ! Developing 3 rounders to trade for 5 ths is dumb. Vegas deals in proven players and has draft picks. We deal in fantasy land. Vegas in its short time has had a player in every position better than anyone the wild ever had. They got a franchise center in no time. Us 25 years and waiting. F-ing ridiculousl! 

Yeah okay. The Wild are nothing like Philly or Pittsburgh right now. Nor did they get the red carpet into the NHL like Vegas. My opinion, your analogy stinks. 

If you're not gonna re-sign players, you move them for a pick. Greenway got a 2nd last year for example. That makes up for the return on Dewar if you think a 4th isn't fair value. 

Tofolli just went for a 2nd and 3rd and he's way more of a threat on offense than Greenway. 

The Guerin haters are just as bad or worse than the grandstanders. 

I would love to hear a coherent time-line and realistic series of actions that would have been so much better. There never is anything close. All complainers ever do is shit on this & that and say the Wild should have done something better by now. It comes across as plain foolishness and GDS.(Guerin derangement syndrome.)

The Wild have almost a 600% winning percentage since Guerin took over with only one playoff miss this season after taking over a train-wreck from Fenton. The Wild haven't had a losing record even then but have had cap problems and especially draft failures dating back to Fletcher. Duhaime & Dewar are products of the previous regimes. That all can't be classified as tremendous failure cause they haven't won a Cup. 

Not saying there's zero Guerin criticisms but those stumping for him to be fired optimize fantasy keyboard-GMing.

[Protec]

As a matter of fact XGMCF helped Vegas go to a Cup final and win one more than he helped the Wild...

[Need4speed99]

I'm just waiting for the billy fanboys to show up. They love to nitpick your articles and pat billy on the back.

What I can't understand, WHY?! we are following all the bad trends of fringe teams and that's what the wild have been for 15 years now... 

They need to tell ownership we need to rebuild not just keep trying to make the playoffs. And billy REALLY needs to get off this vet kick and let the kids play. Every year he finds a vet he brought it, falls in love and gives him a contract. Now Bogosian isn't high priced but we KNOW his ceiling and he takes up another precious roster spot. They say these kids aren't ready, how long do they have to sit in Iowa to know?! 

This team is not going to make the playoffs and IF by some crazy circumstance they do, bounced in the 1st round. They ARE NOT contenders greedy ownership and incompetent management NEEDS to realize that. Bring in the kids now and let them play, figure what they can do with the vets and for F'S SAKE stop signing aging vets.

[mnfaninnc]

6 minutes ago, Protec said:

Yeah okay. The Wild are nothing like Philly or Pittsburgh right now. Nor did they get the red carpet into the NHL like Vegas. My opinion, your analogy stinks. 

Dean's simply run out of patience. He wants a winner pretty bad, sees what other franchises do, and throws himself into a tizzy. And, while it's hard to read his comments, I can certainly see his point of view. 

Yet, what isn't seen is the drafting, developing of these drafted players, and the time frame it takes to build them up. Anyone drafting in the late teens/early 20s knows that these guys will typically take 5 years to develop. And that's without any setbacks like Rossi had. 

Sometimes you hit on one that won't take so long, like maybe Yurov, but the actual age that they start coming into the N is 23. Some come early and aren't quite as good. When Kaprizov came, he was already built like a tank. 

Tanking is not necessarily the best way to get things done, and there are no guarantees that it will work. Just ask AZ, or Buffalo how there's is going? You can't just pick a bunch of 1st rounders either, you've got to hit on other rounds, the above mentioned likely don't. Then, most teams play these guys in the N too soon, and you get guys who move on to other organizations and produce much better.

In 2019, many were clamoring for a rebuild. I posed the question if the fanbase had the patience to really go through it. Call it a reload, rebuild, retool, whatever, it was going to take 5 years for the players to START rolling through. We've gotten that 1st year this year. 

We like what Rossi has done, but he's not a #1C yet. He's still learning his way. Faber has been a revelation, but he still has improving to do. Hunt has shown some nice play, and some play that needs work. Dino, I hope is like a little fireball. But that is year 1. 

Year 2 might have The Wall come in. But out of that draft class, that's about all who is ready. Could Yurov make an impact from the Year 3 class? Well, the smoke signals have been sent and 3 roster spots are up for grabs for the forwards. 

You can't bring these guys in all at once, they need to be staggered. But, hitting on those 3 draft classes with 3 or more players would be a major boon for the team. Those are the types of hits that win championships. It's not just the top 5 picks that do it. Properly developed players in bunches will be solid and give us a lot of depth. 

I just enjoy watching them grow right now. Expectations have been low, as they should be, mainly because most of this team is still placeholders, not the guys who will run with the positions for years to come. Vegas is the exception, but these teams weren't built overnight. Pittsburgh got real lucky when they had b2b drafts because of the lockout. We may have gotten lucky with the Covid years, or we might have gotten hosed. Too early to know.

[Protec]

Epitomize* not optimize. Brain-fart autocorrect. 

So weird how some folks just have to hate things. Guerin being one. 

Like I said, still waiting for the better guy with a better plan who woulda got better results explanation from the perennial complainers.

[Citizen Strife]

I'd also like to hear the answer to keeping Kaprizov, Boldy, Fiala (when he was here), Ek on the team while keeping the potential $20-40m boat anchors around.

Sorry, but the team is not so bad that the world is ending.  Oh no, Dewar and Duhaime hit their ceiling, and had to be let go.  If Khusnutdinov, Ohgren, and Yurov are anything close to advertised, the former will be a forgotten memory.  Yes, not every contract will end up great, but excuse me if signing a PPG player Zuccarello to a PAYCUT seems like a no-brainer bargain right now.  

But yes, tell me how the all-mighty Sabres or Senators are doing rebuilding...not much better.  There is no exact science to this sort of thing.  

I'll stay positive and try not to be smug if I end up right.  One or two bad contracts of miniscule amounts for current or future 4th liners or 1-2 year stopgap players hardly seem like mountains to die on.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 9 by Citizen Strife

[raithis]

1 hour ago, mnfaninnc said:

Dean's simply run out of patience. He wants a winner pretty bad, sees what other franchises do, and throws himself into a tizzy. And, while it's hard to read his comments, I can certainly see his point of view. 

Yet, what isn't seen is the drafting, developing of these drafted players, and the time frame it takes to build them up. Anyone drafting in the late teens/early 20s knows that these guys will typically take 5 years to develop. And that's without any setbacks like Rossi had. 

Sometimes you hit on one that won't take so long, like maybe Yurov, but the actual age that they start coming into the N is 23. Some come early and aren't quite as good. When Kaprizov came, he was already built like a tank. 

Tanking is not necessarily the best way to get things done, and there are no guarantees that it will work. Just ask AZ, or Buffalo how there's is going? You can't just pick a bunch of 1st rounders either, you've got to hit on other rounds, the above mentioned likely don't. Then, most teams play these guys in the N too soon, and you get guys who move on to other organizations and produce much better.

In 2019, many were clamoring for a rebuild. I posed the question if the fanbase had the patience to really go through it. Call it a reload, rebuild, retool, whatever, it was going to take 5 years for the players to START rolling through. We've gotten that 1st year this year. 

We like what Rossi has done, but he's not a #1C yet. He's still learning his way. Faber has been a revelation, but he still has improving to do. Hunt has shown some nice play, and some play that needs work. Dino, I hope is like a little fireball. But that is year 1. 

Year 2 might have The Wall come in. But out of that draft class, that's about all who is ready. Could Yurov make an impact from the Year 3 class? Well, the smoke signals have been sent and 3 roster spots are up for grabs for the forwards. 

You can't bring these guys in all at once, they need to be staggered. But, hitting on those 3 draft classes with 3 or more players would be a major boon for the team. Those are the types of hits that win championships. It's not just the top 5 picks that do it. Properly developed players in bunches will be solid and give us a lot of depth. 

I just enjoy watching them grow right now. Expectations have been low, as they should be, mainly because most of this team is still placeholders, not the guys who will run with the positions for years to come. Vegas is the exception, but these teams weren't built overnight. Pittsburgh got real lucky when they had b2b drafts because of the lockout. We may have gotten lucky with the Covid years, or we might have gotten hosed. Too early to know.

I kind of said something similar in the Maroon post.  You just articulated it better.  I appreciate Dean's passion and desire for the Wild to be an actual contender, but it's going to take time.

Chicago will likely build itself back up, but their fans are going to have to go through a number of years as a perennial lottery team.  Colorado got to where they are through years of being one of the worst teams in the league.  If people can't even wait for draft picks to develop, there is no way they will want to go through being a bottom-feeding team for so long.

Because of that, this is how we have to build the team up and be solid for years.  Pittsburgh is well on its way to being irrelevant for years because they have been sacrificing their future for a long time and it's catching up with them.  We've already been through that kind of roster management, but we're still 1-2 years from peaking out the hole Fletcher and Fenton dug for us.  Not that they didn't do some good too, but the trajectory is overall positive if people back away and look at where we are going rather than focusing only on the immediate return.

[mnfaninnc]

So, with the 3 roster spots opened up, who thinks Yurov will decide to come over next season?

Metallurg is tied 2-2  in their series, and is up 3-0 at this writing in game 5.

Torpedo is down 3-1 in their series and plays an elimination game at 9 am this morning (EST).

Out of the 3 trades that we made, I find it a little telling that Firstov was not traded. Does that mean he is still in good standing with the team? I think it might. His season could end today, could he be headed back here for us to take a look at him, perhaps on the NHL level? I'd think that would be a good idea. 

As I've said prior, he is on loan to the K, under contract here and a visa shouldn't be a problem. It should just be a flight and getting equipment checked in. 

[Protec]

This season's silver lining is a potential draft pick in the top 10-12 and there's open opportunities for the hungriest, firey-est, meanest, most skilled, gritsters, and goal-scorers from the AHL or prospect pool. Johansson can be 13th forward like Rask for all I care. 

[Imyourhuckleberry]

I don't think the Dewar trade return was enough for me to feel great about the deal. The assets the Wild received may not see NHL ice.

Dewar was a solid player for the Wild and I'd rather have him stick around, but hopefully he finds success in Toronto. Sounds like they need help on the PK and he should have a similar role for them as he had on the Wild.

[Pewterschmidt]

2 hours ago, Protec said:

opportunities for the hungriest, firey-est, meanest, most skilled, gritsters, and goal-scorers from the AHL

We're looking at you Mikey Milne.

[MacGyver]

We got another guy whose last name ends with an O and a V for Dewar. That alone is enough to make this deal. I think the Wild may be on to something finally. Billy is a damn genius!😁

[Quebec1648]

The Wild owner will not entertain a rebuild, so Guerin is forced to try and build a contender without the option of having a big sell-off or tanking. The no movement clauses given to aging veterans are bad and entirely Guerin`s fault, but the owner is to blame for franchise mediocrity.