Article: How Can the Wild Make the Most Of Their Nine Remaining Games?

[Tony Abbott]

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[viper3119]

Let those kids play!

[FredJohnson]

How Can the Wild Make the Most Of Their Nine Remaining Games?
Lose!

[Citizen Strife]

Maybe after the last game, they could pull their goaltender at inopportune times for no benefit and let the other team score...

I was all for them trying all season, but losing to Vegas like that was just the We're Closed" sign.

Wallstedt seems like the easiest person to bring up.

 

Edited April 1 by Citizen Strife

[Protec]

Some good ideas here. Yeah, I'd like to see the young players get expanded roles down the stretch. 

More Marat. More Beckman & Shaw. If Lambos and Hunt can get games, great. Johansson the defenseman perhaps, maybe Firstov or Walker. At this point I'm just interested in seeing a different look. Hartman will get a couple games, no Filogna. Let's just bench NoJo and Fred too. Let rip with late season auditions.

[B1GKappa97]

Just lose them all!! Quit this OT BS that keeps giving us points and dropping us down the draft order. 

Its quite clear we're not making the playoffs now, let's focus beyond '23-'24's season please! 

[Protec]

In that case, more NoJo please... 

[Imyourhuckleberry]

18 minutes ago, Protec said:

In that case, more NoJo please... 

I really think that he should be skating over 20 minutes per night for the Wild. Let the man showcase his skill!

[mnfaninnc]

29 minutes ago, Protec said:

Let's just bench NoJo and Fred too. Let rip with late season auditions.

I think you could put Freddy on IR, it's pretty apparent he hasn't recovered from the blindside hit early in the year. Let him get his head clear, and shoulder recovered. As for Johansson, surely he has some ailment as he continues to get bounced around. I do think he wants 30 points, though.

I have to agree with Tony in bringing up the kids. I think you could probably take it easy on Brodin and put Merrill in his happy place (the Prossbox). This would open up 2 spots for Lambos and Hunt. I'd like to see both play. 

I'd also like to see Ohgren play, however, his ELC, I believe, is sliding even though he's 20 because he played in Sweden. Capfriendly lists him as a slide candidate and not a member of the 50 players yet. I think bringing him over might jeopardize that and I think him on a full 3 year ELC will be helpful. At this point, why burn an ELC year when there's only 9 games left. 

While we're elevating Dino in the lineup, why not elevate Beckman too? If Dino's going up at center, someone's coming down. Perhaps Beckman goes up to line 3 and gets a decent center? Maybe you could run a Zuccarello-Rossi-Beckman line?

There's a lot of things that Heinzy can tinker with, and for him, he needs to get a jump on camp and next season, so this tinkering is useful. I also have some doubts as to whether or not Heinzy is coaching this team next season. I do think Mike Sullivan is coming soon, and that the Pens will let him go at the end of the season. I think that is Guerin's coach. I don't think Heinzy gets fired, I think he gets promoted to the FO. Could Heinzy be secretly taking accounting classes over the summer and a course in cap management? Might he be the next cap guru? Wouldn't that be something!

It's just a gut feeling, but I think Sully has been Guerin's choice all along. He and Heinzy are friends, so I think there is something the 3 of them can do about this. We will see what this summer brings. It could be that Sully gets a chance at the FO first and will watch the guys closely in Iowa and up here, and then the switch happens in '25. I think Heinzy has done a good job of turning the season around even though he couldn't get it done when the team needed the wins going pretty much 0-for. Was it a coaching problem or was it a roster problem? I'd probably conclude the latter. 

[mnfaninnc]

Another nice benefit of calling up Hunt and Lambos is it gives them a little extra game check money. Hunt has definitely earned that, I'm not sure about Lambos, but any kid would love to get a little bonus like that. Loyalty is a 2-way street, showing that just a bit helps.

[viper3119]

2 hours ago, B1GKappa97 said:

dropping us down the draft order. 

can't drop much lower as we're currently drafting 15 and the only place left to drop if we miss the playoffs is 16th.

[FredJohnson]

Give Carson Lambos NHL Minutes
I was ridiculed for suggesting this.

[FredJohnson]

I want these lines:

KK-JEE-Boldy

Zucc--Nutdi-Beckman

Shaw-Rossi-Lucchini/Lettieri

Nojo-FreddieGotFingered-whatever

[Dis-allowed display name]

1 hour ago, viper3119 said:

can't drop much lower as we're currently drafting 15 and the only place left to drop if we miss the playoffs is 16th.

We should have hung it up early.  I know nobody likes to tank.  But I would rather have a better set of picks, sold the guys we sold, and put young guys into meaningful minutes rather than roll Freddie, and Johansson out every night.

 

Just like the Vikings, at one point you knew the season was OVER.  You know you need more talent.  Accept it and try to get out of mediocrity with better talent instead of winning meaningless games, hoping it will make your fanbase happy.  Embrace the suck, play the long game to get better.

[UncleWalt]

I would love to see Lambos the rest of the year. 

[Protec]

44 minutes ago, Dis-allowed display name said:

We should have hung it up early.  I know nobody likes to tank.  But I would rather have a better set of picks, sold the guys we sold, and put young guys into meaningful minutes rather than roll Freddie, and Johansson out every night.

 

Just like the Vikings, at one point you knew the season was OVER.  You know you need more talent.  Accept it and try to get out of mediocrity with better talent instead of winning meaningless games, hoping it will make your fanbase happy.  Embrace the suck, play the long game to get better.

That time is now. We predicted bad results against STL and top teams but the Wild had chances to beat STL, LA, and VGK. The fact they lost all those important games seals the deal. It was not crazy to think MN could win a couple? Quiting before those losses wouldn't seem right either, ruling out playoff hopes 100%.

It's not the worst place to be. The Wild don't need a full rebuild or a #1 overall right now. Pluse there's no way the Wild can be that bad with Ek, MAF, and #97. 

They just need to take the best North American player that will be a solid NHL top six forward or NHL defenseman sooner than other prospects.

[Dean]

Anyone else doing Freddy job! I bet if you give anyone else Fred’s minutes they’ll do better. Fred on PK is an absolute joke when you have k nat , Shaw , letteri   Rossi , luccini  .  Fred puts no pressure on the pp with his lack of speed. Size or fight . The Dewey’s were dangerous on pk because of speed. Fred just doesn’t do anything to put pressure on other team no matter the role he’s in. He wastes 15 min of ice time a game doing nothing . After 71 games you’d think the coaches would get it .  Fred isn’t good. He had a few decent seasons but the majority of his professional career he couldn’t get out of A . 
   Can’t wait for another season of Freddy gliding around doing nothing while everyone else gets blamed for his lack of production. Billy hockey! 

[WheelSnipeCelly]

Exciting! It sounds like Öhrgen is joining the Iowa Wild for the rest of the season (via Russo's Twitter):

"Hearing #mnwild first-round pick Liam Ohgren has arrived in North America and is heading to Iowa to play the rest of the season. This should also get him prepped for the world championships, I assume"

Iowa only has 8 games remaining, and are currently ranked 29th of 32 teams — so I assume are out of the Playoff Race. Pretty rough season for them. Hoping that they can figure out their AHL coaching staff to ensure prospects are getting the best chances they can to make it up to the NHL.

I imagine most of Iowa's team is set for next season with so many younger players coming back. They currently have the 6th youngest team in the AHL. Hoping players like Firstov and Öhrgen can make an immediate impact for them!

[mnfaninnc]

30 minutes ago, Protec said:

They just need to take the best North American player that will be a solid NHL top six forward or NHL defenseman sooner than other prospects.

This sounds like crystal ball kind of stuff!

[mnfaninnc]

14 minutes ago, WheelSnipeCelly said:

Pretty rough season for them. Hoping that they can figure out their AHL coaching staff to ensure prospects are getting the best chances they can to make it up to the NHL.

The big Wild took Dwyer from them too. To my knowledge, there's no defense coach that's there. One would think they'd need a respected voice there to help the young defenders. But, when you make changes in the middle of the season, this kind of stuff happens. Perhaps they can get one with this year's firings (though I have my doubts that McLean will be kept). 

The biggest problem that the Baby Wild had were the Big Wild. They stole all their upper echelon players. I can see the tough year, but the plans were to have Mermis lead the defensive corps and Lucchini/Lettieri lead the offensive corps. Even when Shawzy made an impact, he only had 9 games. 

That means some guys were playing up in the lineup that probably weren't penciled in there. I hope this doesn't burn a year of Ohgren's deal. 

[Dango]

I think we play Colorado, Vegas,,Winnipeg and LA  with full intent to win those games because they have playoff implications for the integrity of the league unless they no longer do when we do play them ,  the other 5 -6 games play the kids .

[Dango]

They were also talking about this on the local radio sports talk show  , Sign Madano to a 1 game contract so he can reach 1500 regular season games  retired with 1499 ,  that could possibly be fun game to watch . VS Seattle  

[Lovehockey]

Agree with everyone suggestions. Just curious to see what BG thinks. Would it be like “as long as we have a chance we are fighting “? Admit again don’t like him as a GM

[Dean]

Looking at the prospects. If  that remaining overseas Russian doesn’t hit as a franchise changing player than Billy’s tenure was a total waste . Wallstedt might be a good goalie just like fleury is. That’s not going to improve the team. It’ll solidify goaltending but it doesn’t fix d core issues or not having any secondary scoring. K -nat looks good but there lots of nhl guys like him. Doesn’t move the needle , plus he’ll need more physicality in his wingers than the wild have . Ohgren will probably be more like a coyle or ek. Took them almost to there30 s to become good reliable playoff players. So my guess is in 5 years hes a good 3 rd line guy . Still doesn’t win a playoff round. The so called d core we drafted isn’t anything special. Probably bottom 4 d at best.  Not going to get you a playoff win.  Heidt might be come a decent winger but doesn’t solve the center issue unless he has some physicality, which I doubt. . These prospects have been over hyped.  The wild are getting a new round of mushy middle prospects that do nothing to win a playoff round in near future. How many more years of hurry up and wait for prospects are the fans going to take? Especially when your starting to see the prospects aren’t close to what was being sold.  
    Billy’s timeline of these middle of road prospects doesn’t line up with kappys age or the holes we need to fill now. He’s just wasting kappy years !!!

[Burnt Toast]

If the Wild coaching staff plan on keeping the 1st line intact next year I’d like to see them try different line combinations to find some secondary scoring. I really don’t care where it comes from. Just try everything. They can’t wait until thanksgiving to establish a decent and consistent second line.