Article: Guerin Hopes Wild Will 'Bounce Back'

[Thomas Williams]

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[Pewterschmidt]

""My expectations are to get back into the playoffs and win the Stanley Cup. ... I think there are some teams that are in a rebuild or whatever, but we are not," he said. "

I read this on another site.  This might be my Guerin Derangement Syndrome but this strikes me as another example of Guerin making misguided (idiotic) statements into hot mic's.  But P-zempic can't you be positive?  I do understand that part of a GM's job description is to sell hope (and tickets) so I'll cut him some slack based on that, but this same group of middling journeymen (excl Ek, Boldy, 97) has looked outclassed the past three years in the first round and now they're all 3 yrs older and Guerin is talking about a Cup run.  Is he: 1) insulting our intelligence 2) delusional 3) doing his job as a GM to sell hope but not capable of being nuanced enough to speak the correct word salad into the mic so as not to sound like he's taken too many cross checks to the back of the head 4) all of the above

[Imyourhuckleberry]

2 hours ago, Pewterschmidt said:

""My expectations are to get back into the playoffs and win the Stanley Cup. ... I think there are some teams that are in a rebuild or whatever, but we are not," he said. "

I think that was a multi-year statement in his mind even if that was in response to the upcoming year(I don't have full context).

I don't think anyone in the organization truly thinks there's likelihood of them winning the cup at the end of this season, but reaching the playoffs would go a long way, and it might be possible to go into the playoffs with Buium and Yurov added, and maybe a goalie(Gus or Wallstedt?) gets hot to get out of the 1st round...

[Citizen Strife]

Guerin is smart enough to see it's going to be hard to win a Stanley Cup now, a year from now, etc.  The fact he's had to work with some weird confines Leipold has asked of him, while keeping up some semblance of an outlook to the future, is commendable.

He knows he's going to be judged by how 2025 and 2026 go.  The other shoe to drop is Kaprizov.  If Kaprizov goes for nothing, he's Riseborough 2.0.  

I'm willing to see if the team can make do with the changes they've made under duress and injury problems.  I'm sorry if the saviors of the team didn't come in fast enough for other's liking.  Some of it was by choice, some of it wasn't.  I'll just be happy knowing Parise retiring didn't cost the Wild even more than it already did.  

The Wild have to be pretty fucking bad to be worse than last year, and they were STILL somewhat close to a playoff spot.  You're telling me 3-5 rookies fighting their asses off to prove they are better than Mojo and Gaudreau, the latter, Spurgeon, and Foligno wanting to justify injuries as freak accidents, and Gus fighting for actual relevance and a future payday aren't going to want to compete?

I'm not going to bullshit you and say the Wild are going to improve.  What I can say is they would have to employ 5-10 Letteris, Addisons, Beckmans, etc. to be "eh" like last year.  You also cannot predict what weird voodoo shit other teams deal with.  Stamkos could get run into a wall, and poof goes Nashville's vaunted acquisition and shit tons of expense for a season.  Maybe not a wall even.  Maybe Logan Stanley falls on someone again.  I heard he's good at doing that.  You just never know.

Edited August 29 by Citizen Strife

[Will D. Ness]

2 hours ago, Citizen Strife said:

I'm not going to bullshit you and say the Wild are going to improve. 

I'll say it with confidence.

The Wild are going to improve.  Actually, they are going to improve quite a bit.

Still a lot of maybes and questions with many parts of the team, but the writing is on the wall with guys like Boldy, Rossi and Faber.  They are going to bring it.  

[Citizen Strife]

I don't know where all this confidence and hopium is coming from, but it feels nice.  It was what I was after anyway when I started being Mr. Positive.*

*realistic optimist

Edited August 29 by Citizen Strife

[Will D. Ness]

2 hours ago, Citizen Strife said:

I don't know where all this confidence and hopium is coming from, but it feels nice.  It was what I was after anyway when I started being Mr. Positive.*

*realistic optimist

We got a good team, dude.  The talent is young.  The dead cap is almost gone.  It's going to be hard for BG to fuck it up even though he is trying to.

[Imyourhuckleberry]

Horrific news for Columbus and the Gaudreau family/friends. Cannot imagine the anguish and sadness they are going through.

[SpaceCowboy]

I agree, it is nice to have some optimism. It is ok to be hopeful and project the unproven prospects as having a bright future while also being realistic and realizing that they may not perform how we want. As things are, I agree that the Wild have set themselves up with the tools to be quite a bit more competitive in the coming years. That should be enough reason to continue to root and watch them and see how things turn out. 

Also very sad to hear of the passing of Johnny Gaudreau and his brother

[TheGoosesAreLooses]

I'm optimistic we will see improvement out of young talent. Possibly enough to pull us into playoffs but to do that, we need to hold off the regression that will come from Mojo(effort), Foligno(age), Zucc(age), Fluery(age), Spurgeon(injury and age) and Bogosian(age and coming off his best season ever @33).

I'm expecting steps forward from Boldy, Rossi, Faber, Chisholm, Dinov and Ohgren and I think they could be big steps forward. To me, the progression on the forward side from Dinov, Rossi and Ohgren will be huge for secondary scoring. 

I hope Hynes is more progressive with lines than Deano. Takes swings on younger guys further up the lineup and progresses them along as they mature instead of plugging in Nojo and Freddy as a stopgap up and down the lineup. 

I would rather see Nojo and Freddy ride the pine all the way to the AHL this year and am hoping the rookies help them to it.

[raithis]

I think the main thing is that we don't get but so hard by the injury bug again this year.  If we stay moderately healthy and injuries aren't happening as often (like last year) to our better players when they do occur, I think the team is easily capable of making it to the playoffs.

I'd love to see them win a couple rounds and really turn some heads, but that's likely not realistic this year.

Being hopeful about the team's health, I'm going to say that we not only make the playoffs, but that we go 6 games in the first round.

If we are mostly healthy and players like Rossi, Boldy, Faber, Ohgren can take that next step and are all a little better than last year, I'll even say we manage to somehow win a round, though I feel like it will take a lot out of us and we get knocked out in 5 the following series.

Things aren't as bad as some people make them out to be.  Same with the regression.  Age is certainly affecting some players slightly, but I think all that looked worse than it was given the amount of injuries we had and who had them.  Previously injured players were noticeably ineffective and you could tell they were still on the mend, maybe playing before they really should because the team was so depleted, i.e. Foligno, Gaudreau...

The two players I'm most excited to see more in the lineup are Ohgren and Trenin.  Ohgren reminds me of a bit of Latendresse with better defensive awareness.  I'd like to see him really attack the net.  We really need more of that.  Trenin I think adds a lot of flexibility and stability to the bottom 6.  Despite not being a flashy player, he was always noticeable to me when we played against him.  I really think he was a good pick-up.  I think both will make a bit of a mark this season and make the Wild a better team.

[Mateo3xm]

On 8/29/2024 at 11:06 AM, Pewterschmidt said:

""My expectations are to get back into the playoffs and win the Stanley Cup. ... I think there are some teams that are in a rebuild or whatever, but we are not," he said. "

I read this on another site.  This might be my Guerin Derangement Syndrome but this strikes me as another example of Guerin making misguided (idiotic) statements into hot mic's.  But P-zempic can't you be positive?  I do understand that part of a GM's job description is to sell hope (and tickets) so I'll cut him some slack based on that, but this same group of middling journeymen (excl Ek, Boldy, 97) has looked outclassed the past three years in the first round and now they're all 3 yrs older and Guerin is talking about a Cup run.  Is he: 1) insulting our intelligence 2) delusional 3) doing his job as a GM to sell hope but not capable of being nuanced enough to speak the correct word salad into the mic so as not to sound like he's taken too many cross checks to the back of the head 4) all of the above

I could not agree more.

[Mateo3xm]

On 8/29/2024 at 4:12 PM, Will D. Ness said:

I'll say it with confidence.

The Wild are going to improve.  Actually, they are going to improve quite a bit.

Still a lot of maybes and questions with many parts of the team, but the writing is on the wall with guys like Boldy, Rossi and Faber.  They are going to bring it.  

Quite a bit? Put that into context would you? Does that mean you think they’ll actually get past the first round of the playoffs? With DAL, WIN, COL and a much improved NSH in our division? I don’t see it happening.

Last year we were the 4th oldest team in the league. A lot of our players are on the wrong side of 30yrs old.

[Will D. Ness]

1 hour ago, Mateo3xm said:

Quite a bit? Put that into context would you? Does that mean you think they’ll actually get past the first round of the playoffs? With DAL, WIN, COL and a much improved NSH in our division? I don’t see it happening.

Last year we were the 4th oldest team in the league. A lot of our players are on the wrong side of 30yrs old.

Unless our goaltending just completely blows, I think we will beat out Winnipeg and be in contention for 3rd with Nashville.

Win the 1st round?  I wouldn't bet on it either.

[Willy the poor boy]

I'm not optimistic they'll make the playoffs. Big strides made by some of the teams in the division. I look for Boldy to improve, Rossi to improve. My biggest concern is coaching. I don't have confidence in Hynes. I really think by midseason to later in the season they'll quit playing for him. JMO...

[Sam]

1 hour ago, Willy the poor boy said:

I'm not optimistic they'll make the playoffs. Big strides made by some of the teams in the division. I look for Boldy to improve, Rossi to improve. My biggest concern is coaching. I don't have confidence in Hynes. I really think by midseason to later in the season they'll quit playing for him. JMO...

C’mon Willy “The Poor Attitude Boy.” We almost made the playoffs this year and our goaltending was sub-par. I mean yea Nashville made some improvements to their roster but we just might do it. 

[MacGyver]

Yes the Wild should improve it would be hard not to actually. But the Wild are not in a vacuum. Other teams in the division are improving as well. Seems people don't consider that when talking about the Wild. My guess is they will get off to a hot start and build some points and then taper off. They will have to be playing playoff style hockey sooner than most to try to secure a spot in the dance. If they get in they will be gassed already and get bounced in the first.   They will most likely be battling St. Louis for the last spot. I would not overlook Chicago making some noise in the division. Bedard has a year under his belt and they are quietly building that team around him. 

About the time the Wild are getting competitive again Chicago will have arrived as well. It's going to be tough sledding in the Central for awhile.