Article: The Wild Must Risk Everything For Kaprizov

[Pewterschmidt]

2 hours ago, OldDutchChip said:

....... perhaps money-wise it makes sense to gamble on Rossi and be patient?

I have no objection to the Wild not signing Rossi a year early.  Good grief, two years ago he wasn't even an NHL'r.

Bro-ssi did all the right things (stayed in US and drank MNFAN's bone marrow, skipped sisters wedding, skipped Team Austria per Guerin's wishes, etc) and all Guerin has done is (publicly) disrespect Rossi.  To what end Guerin?  What was your plan if Rossi becomes a legit middle six center this season.  Hell maybe he's already proven that.  

I'm going to call my shot: Rossi refuses to re-sign here based on Guerin idiotic handling of the situation.  One might say (as ODC did above) that we needed the Rossi AAV $'s for 97 and that may be true, but it's a blatant dereliction of duty and asset mismanagement (Asset management is #1 responsibility listed in the GM for Dumbies handbook) by Guerin to not give Rossi (9th overall pick by Guerin regime) more respect.  At a minimum, Guerin hold your cards closer to the chest you dumb fucker.

#GDS

[MacGyver]

Something about Rossi has rubbed Guerin the wrong way. May not have anything to do with hockey. Guerin is emotional as most hot heads like him are and that's how he looks and reacts to most things from an emotional rather than a reasoned reaction. As a player that works, not so much as a GM of a professional hockey club. 

You need people skills. How to treat individuals to get the most out of them. How to make them want to do the best for you because they like and respect you. Rossi showed Guerin he was willing to do whatever it took to improve himself, to not only make the team but to do quite well and to earn Guerin's respect and to reap the rewards of his efforts. Guerin showed him his ass for his efforts. 

Reports were Guerin had a deal in place for Laine. My guess is Rossi was figured in as part of the deal. Laine said thanks but no thanks to coming to the Wild. We were on his no go list. I wonder how many of the mid to upper echelon players have the Wild on their no go list and why. 

[Tom Gribalski]

he is really our only hope

[WildRam]

Can't read too much into Laine not wanting to come here. A big part of Laine not having interest in the Wild could be as simple as how much Winnipeg and the Wild hate each other. Hockey players are not like football players, if NFL players had a hockey player mindset no Packers player would ever put on a Vikings jersey after playing in Green Bay. 

[mnfaninnc]

On 9/9/2024 at 10:32 PM, OldDutchChip said:

we sell the farm and go in, tampa style.

Except for, I don't think this is what Tampa did. Tampa sold futures (picks) not so much the prospects. But first, they took the guys they wanted on lower contracts like ELCs and paid their important vets.

We're not there yet, we've got too many placeholders that have not yet been passed by youth. We can start talking about Tampa when we get our full arsenal of young guys into the N. There's still too many players on this team that won't be there for the deep runs. They may be teaching the limited young guys how to be a professional, but their expiration date is fast approaching. 

Kaprizov signed a 5 year deal the 1st time. Perhaps that was based upon 2 things: 1) the agent felt like the cap would be increasing pretty dramatically and it would be a good time to re-evaluate Kaprizov's cap worth, and 2) Kaprizov would get a chance to see the players coming into the organization and make a determination then if he wanted to stay.

I think he'll resign. I also think our eyes will pop out at the figure. However, he's earned his figure so far. I think he will like the players coming in and he certainly knows what it takes to win. I also think he likes it in MN, and that may be part of a deciding factor. 

Back to Tampa, they had some players who were really important on cheap, cheap, cheap deals. Now that these guys have gotten paid, Tampa no longer has that dominant team, and they have to try and find players who they can get for cheap. We are coming into a season similar to that, where our best players are ELC players. While it may be best to sign them longterm like we did Faber, reality is that we'll have to use a lot of bridge deals throughout that window, before we become a sort of contender instead of a strong contender. I think Tampa is in that sort of contender area right now where they need a little luck to make that deep push again, but they are still a hard knock out. 

When to expect our guys to be like that? 1st step is a 1st round upset!

[mnfaninnc]

15 hours ago, MacGyver said:

Rossi showed Guerin he was willing to do whatever it took to improve himself, to not only make the team but to do quite well and to earn Guerin's respect and to reap the rewards of his efforts.

I agree with this from Rossi. I don't agree on the take from Guerin. From Guerin's perspective, he has every right to tell Rossi "do it again" before he gets too excited.  Why? Because Rossi was a rookie on chapter 2 last season. It would be risky for Guerin to sign Rossi longterm with just 1 good season under his belt in 3 potential seasons.

If I were the GM, I would definitely want to see how Rossi comes into camp this season, and how much more strengthening work he has done. If it is acceptable, I will want another 40ish games of track record before I'm offering a longterm deal. I want to see the dog in Rossi. Is it a chihuahua, or is it a bulldog? 

Why is Rossi different from Faber? Faber made good on his 1st chapter rookie season and has the measurements to go forward. Rossi is shorter, and his weight is only there for 1 year. The risk is that Rossi might not put on more strength weight, but might regress back down. Most don't want to think about that, but the fact is some athletes are not as hungry once they get their deal (see Johansson). 

I think if everything checks out for Rossi, around the same time Boldy got his extension done, Rossi will get his done too. And then, he'll have to buy an expensive dinner for the team!

[OldDutchChip]

10 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

Except for, I don't think this is what Tampa did. Tampa sold futures (picks) not so much the prospects. But first, they took the guys they wanted on lower contracts like ELCs and paid their important vets.

We're not there yet, we've got too many placeholders that have not yet been passed by youth. We can start talking about Tampa when we get our full arsenal of young guys into the N. There's still too many players on this team that won't be there for the deep runs. They may be teaching the limited young guys how to be a professional, but their expiration date is fast approaching. 

Kaprizov signed a 5 year deal the 1st time. Perhaps that was based upon 2 things: 1) the agent felt like the cap would be increasing pretty dramatically and it would be a good time to re-evaluate Kaprizov's cap worth, and 2) Kaprizov would get a chance to see the players coming into the organization and make a determination then if he wanted to stay.

I think he'll resign. I also think our eyes will pop out at the figure. However, he's earned his figure so far. I think he will like the players coming in and he certainly knows what it takes to win. I also think he likes it in MN, and that may be part of a deciding factor. 

Back to Tampa, they had some players who were really important on cheap, cheap, cheap deals. Now that these guys have gotten paid, Tampa no longer has that dominant team, and they have to try and find players who they can get for cheap. We are coming into a season similar to that, where our best players are ELC players. While it may be best to sign them longterm like we did Faber, reality is that we'll have to use a lot of bridge deals throughout that window, before we become a sort of contender instead of a strong contender. I think Tampa is in that sort of contender area right now where they need a little luck to make that deep push again, but they are still a hard knock out. 

When to expect our guys to be like that? 1st step is a 1st round upset!

Kaprizov contract length was due to him not wanting to commit to us long term. he wanted to control his destiny, if Wild were ok with 3 years - he would have signed 3 years instead of 5 and would be on another team already (given our level of success) But that's speculation - who knows. I just didn't get a sense of him trying to milk a few millions more from us over the course of his career. Term was more important than monetary value. Financially he is already set, so he needed and still needs to see how to align his future career with his lifestyle. 

I guess with my point on Tampa i was thinking of a team that is not afraid to take chances and uproot the status quo for a better tomorrow. Youth, vets, or prospects is fair game to maximize the return. It worked. Or at least that's what i think  happened, its been a while since they won 😉

 

[mnfaninnc]

5 minutes ago, OldDutchChip said:

I just didn't get a sense of him trying to milk a few millions more from us over the course of his career. Term was more important than monetary value.

This is why players have agents. I think not going 8 years was his agent's advice to him, thinking he could get one more long payday when cap cuffs come off. It was a good bet by the agent who probably also bet on the player being even more productive than $9m/yr. 

The 2nd part is the agent would allow Kaprizov to monitor how the team was being built and could determine if he thought they were going anywhere.

A 3rd part could have been how well the community received him. There weren't many Russian players on the team at the time of the signing, and there may have been apprehension about a Russian player in MN longterm. Would he be loved? Yes he would. 

All of this got done under the guise of Covid so no one really knew how the reactions would be, and then with the Ukraine/Russia war, there was another opportunity to test the fans reactions. 

All told, Kaprizov has a really good agent.

[OldDutchChip]

3 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

This is why players have agents. I think not going 8 years was his agent's advice to him, thinking he could get one more long payday when cap cuffs come off. It was a good bet by the agent who probably also bet on the player being even more productive than $9m/yr. 

The 2nd part is the agent would allow Kaprizov to monitor how the team was being built and could determine if he thought they were going anywhere.

A 3rd part could have been how well the community received him. There weren't many Russian players on the team at the time of the signing, and there may have been apprehension about a Russian player in MN longterm. Would he be loved? Yes he would. 

All of this got done under the guise of Covid so no one really knew how the reactions would be, and then with the Ukraine/Russia war, there was another opportunity to test the fans reactions. 

All told, Kaprizov has a really good agent.

if above is true, then there is a decent chance Kap stays. BUT i don't think it is. his stance was always short term, and he settled on middle ground. Again, I do not believe he lets money dictate his career path. no way. so i think he plays out the next to years with his buddy Zuccy, thanks the fans and moves on. 

[Pewterschmidt]

1 hour ago, mnfaninnc said:

The 2nd part is the agent would allow Kaprizov to monitor how the team was being built and could determine if he thought they were going anywhere.

A 3rd part could have been how well the community received him. There weren't many Russian players on the team at the time of the signing, and there may have been apprehension about a Russian player in MN longterm.

I agree 100% with the 2nd part. 

I do not think a pro athlete at 97's level gives two shits about the community.  He's focused on winning a cup and knows he's in his prime years now.  If the Wild look like the pieces are coming together by end of this season, he'll stay.  If he doesn't believe he'll go.  97 isn't some bubble nhl'r who's angling for an MN market announcing/AHL coach/hockey podcast gig after his career.  Bro is going to go back to Mother Russia and go full Boats&Hoes with the Oligarchs.  He's not going to shill for Cantebury Park and become a KFAN regular.

[Pewterschmidt]

10 minutes ago, Pewterschmidt said:

I do not think a pro athlete at 97's level gives two shits about the community.

Why do you feel that way P-Dazzle?

Because he's been here how many years now and I don't think i've ever heard him speak.  MN is a stop on his journey and we're lucky to have him.  Anyone expecting a team friendly deal or any grace from 97 because he's embracing the state is deluded.  He's not looking to get a fat contract and then sell Cadillac's for Walser into his twilight years.  Bro-prisov is a killer and will only be satisfied if he feels like he's on a path to win a Stanley Cup.   

[Sam]

13 minutes ago, Pewterschmidt said:

Why do you feel that way P-Dazzle? 

👍👍 on the nicknames. Although I thought P-Diesel was a little better…

[MacGyver]

4 hours ago, mnfaninnc said:

I agree with this from Rossi. I don't agree on the take from Guerin. From Guerin's perspective, he has every right to tell Rossi "do it again" before he gets too excited.  Why? Because Rossi was a rookie on chapter 2 last season. It would be risky for Guerin to sign Rossi longterm with just 1 good season under his belt in 3 potential seasons.

What I meant by Guerin showing his ass to Rossi was by publicly putting him on the trading block shortly after the season ended after Rossi showed him the sacrifices he's willing to make and the leap forward he took. Nothing to do with waiting for him to show more before resigning him. I think if Guerin had his way Rossi would not even be here now. 

Given Rossi's quote earlier in this thread he certainly sounded agitated by all the talk surrounding his trade possibilities.  So if he trends even further upwards he may not want to be here and refuse to sign. I'm sure he feels some hostility towards Guerin after all this and I can't blame him.  All Guerin developed in Rossi now is mistrust and suspicion. The Wild may lose a budding superstar as well as proven superstar in the next two seasons and it will be on Guerin.  I have no idea how popular Rossi is or is not around his teammates but I do know this, all the other players observe how the other is treated by the organization and take note. Nothing happens in a vacuum on a team. 

[mnfaninnc]

18 hours ago, MacGyver said:

What I meant by Guerin showing his ass to Rossi was by publicly putting him on the trading block shortly after the season ended after Rossi showed him the sacrifices he's willing to make and the leap forward he took.

Does it not say something that Rossi is still here? I'm sure there are other teams around who would have been glad to pick up a player like Rossi. Did they all just give Guerin low ball offers? Or, was his intention never to trade Rossi and he just wanted to talk to some GMs about other possibilities? 

Guerin has a proven track record of not negotiating trades or contracts publicly. It's all done in the cone of silence, and he gets very irritated when the other party breaks that silence. I find it odd that he would go public with this one.

You might say for argument, but he through Fiala under the bus a couple of years ago. I believe the trade to LA was a done deal already at that time, that this is where Fiala wanted to go, and all but the paperwork was done on that.

I wouldn't put it past Guerin to even tell Rossi he was going public with this and not to worry, it wasn't him he was trying to trade. Just work on getting bigger and faster and repeat last year, and I'll take care of you later. I have no evidence of this, just an imaginative mind.

[Pewterschmidt]

14 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

Does it not say something that Rossi is still here? I'm sure there are other teams around who would have been glad to pick up a player like Rossi. Did they all just give Guerin low ball offers? Or, was his intention never to trade Rossi and he just wanted to talk to some GMs about other possibilities? 

Guerin has a proven track record of not negotiating trades or contracts publicly. It's all done in the cone of silence, and he gets very irritated when the other party breaks that silence. I find it odd that he would go public with this one.

You might say for argument, but he through Fiala under the bus a couple of years ago. I believe the trade to LA was a done deal already at that time, that this is where Fiala wanted to go, and all but the paperwork was done on that.

I wouldn't put it past Guerin to even tell Rossi he was going public with this and not to worry, it wasn't him he was trying to trade. Just work on getting bigger and faster and repeat last year, and I'll take care of you later. I have no evidence of this, just an imaginative mind.

MNFAN, it might be the steroids and raw liver diet but you give Guerin more benefit of the doubt than I do.  

If Laine hadn't kybosh'd the trade I think Rossi would be in CBJ right now.  

[Will D. Ness]

14 minutes ago, Pewterschmidt said:

MNFAN, it might be the steroids and raw liver diet but you give Guerin more benefit of the doubt than I do.  

If Laine hadn't kybosh'd the trade I think Rossi would be in CBJ right now.  

Considering that Montreal received an asset to take the risk on Laine and his contract, I don't get this narrative that we would have to give up an asset as valuable as Rossi.

[mnfaninnc]

3 minutes ago, Pewterschmidt said:

If Laine hadn't kybosh'd the trade I think Rossi would be in CBJ right now.  

I do not believe Rossi was in that deal, and if he was it was a gross overpayment. I think it was a 2nd in 2025 + Johansson and Gaudreau and a couple of 2nd tier prospects (think 7-13 on Pronman's list).

The 2 NHLers were cap casualties to make us compliant, but likely useful players for CBJ. Of course they would have retained 50%, but that's why they get the 2nd round pick instead of giving it up.

I wouldn't have liked the deal with Rossi in it. However, had Jiricek been involved I might have listened. Using the ODC method, Rossi has known NHL stats, Jiricek does not. If I gamble on something, I tend to gamble on youth, and an RHS large defender is something we don't really have in the organization. If I were expecting Yurov to take Rossi's spot, I could see giving up Rossi to obtain a piece we do not currently have.

[MacGyver]

Why dangle Rossi if all he wanted to do was talk to other Gm's about possibilities? Pick up the phone call your GM buddies and say you got anybody you want to move? No need whatsoever to dangle Rossi. Makes no sense. Rossi's comments showed he was clearly annoyed by all the trade talk so the idea that Guerin  went to him before that and said don't worry I'm not going to trade you but I'm dangling you out there just to see who bites? Yes that's quite imaginative. 

Plus the Laine trade talks about the Wild were very public well beforehand so Guerin didn't hide anything very well. Mnfan I think you like Guerin as much as I dislike him and we both have our points. Truth as usual lies in the middle somewhere. 

[TheGoosesAreLooses]

On 9/11/2024 at 8:57 AM, mnfaninnc said:

If I were the GM, I would definitely want to see how Rossi comes into camp this season, and how much more strengthening work he has done. If it is acceptable, I will want another 40ish games of track record before I'm offering a longterm deal. I want to see the dog in Rossi. Is it a chihuahua, or is it a bulldog? 

So a player with a bigger body size doesn't need to prove himself multiple seasons?

The point made in what you were quoting is Guerin asked him to step up, he did and then Guerin still seems lukewarm on him at best. Meanwhile Guerin foams at the mouth to hand out extensions to vets (or so it would seem). It is likely in this offseason we could have got Rossi for Trenin money in a bridge deal. If Rossi scores 30 this year and puts up 50pts he's looking at more and more money. 

Rossi's dedication in the season/offseason and his accountability on the ice while still driving offence placed with sub par linemates says everything I need to know about him. He goes to the tough area consistently regardless of his size and wins battles. He was able to score 19 even strength goals while maintaining the 4th best Corsi and the 6th best Fenwick on the team.  His +/- was 1 better than Zucc and 11 better the Mojo despite playing on the same line most of the year. He was also 6th on the team in takeaways while being 10th on the team in giveaways and our second best player in terms of GA/60 shorthanded, making him a leading candidate to champion our PK. Meanwhile Mojo and Zucc are 1st and 3rd in giving away goals shorthanded. 

Bottom line is Rossi may be a smaller package but based on his first full season is going to be a 2 way stud if he continues to progress. He has the attitude that every coach dreams of in a player, he just doesn't fit Guerin's mold. I agree with MacGyver. Guerin is way too emotional to be a GM and i don't doubt players look at that when making decisions in free agency. Laine is not the first, and i doubt he will be the last, that doesn't want anything to do with our organization. This may not be Guerin's fault completely but I feel like his demeanor and modus operandi are definitely part of that.

[Pewterschmidt]

38 minutes ago, Will D. Ness said:

Considering that Montreal received an asset to take the risk on Laine and his contract, I don't get this narrative that we would have to give up an asset as valuable as Rossi.

MTL took Laine's entire AAV.  MTL retained none of it.

Wild would have needed MTL to retain AAV for us to stay under cap.  I'm assuming none of our blue chippers (Boldy, Ek, etc) were involved and I don't believe 43 year old coming off season ending surgery ($7M+ AAV) has any market value to MTL. 

So we offered a bunch of spare parts: GUS $3M+, Fred $2M, Nojo $2M AND Rossi $Peanuts.  Rossi is the only real trade value to CBJ.  (i guess we did have the AAV to give, so then Guerin must have had to offer future picks too).   Thank god Laine saved Guerin from himself on this one.  This trade would have looked Fletcherian in hingsight.

#Hanzal

Edited September 12 by Pewterschmidt

[mnfaninnc]

39 minutes ago, MacGyver said:

Plus the Laine trade talks about the Wild were very public well beforehand so Guerin didn't hide anything very well. Mnfan I think you like Guerin as much as I dislike him and we both have our points.

I don't think that Laine trade talk was very public, but I'm out of market so perhaps it was locally. I'm not sure if I like Guerin, or just think he's doing a better job than Fletcher and Fenton. Fenton was simply a headscratcher, but I also supported Fletcher until he choked at the expansion draft. I called for his head after that.

[mnfaninnc]

27 minutes ago, TheGoosesAreLooses said:

So a player with a bigger body size doesn't need to prove himself multiple seasons?

The larger body type proves he was still building during the summer. As I said earlier, then another 40 games or so with everything going smoothly gets him the extension much like Boldy got. I would expect to hear something around late January early February. 

29 minutes ago, TheGoosesAreLooses said:

He was also 6th on the team in takeaways while being 10th on the team in giveaways and our second best player in terms of GA/60 shorthanded, making him a leading candidate to champion our PK.

I really like this suggestion!!!!

[mnfaninnc]

18 minutes ago, Pewterschmidt said:

GUS $3M+, Fred $2M, Nojo $2M AND Rossi $Peanuts.

This would have been such a blatant overpay. I don't think Goose and Rossi were involved, I think the 2nd was for retaining 50% and they would have gotten 2 prospects to us (I think I said Peart and Bankier). With all the other offers, nobody was giving as much as you're talking about up top. There was very little interest in him as a player and his market value had tanked. 

What I had heard on national sites was a 2nd + a 2nd tier prospect and they retained. Having to give up the 2nd and the player had to really hurt! It's not like they needed the cap for the next 2 years anyways? 

So, if this turn down became public, and I don't know who announced it, I think I heard Yardbarker, what do you do when you play this guy? Does Foligno take a run at him and try to send him through the boards? Does Bogosian crosscheck his back in the corners repeatedly? Is this simply forgotten? 

[Pewterschmidt]

20 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

I think the 2nd was for retaining 50% and they would have gotten 2 prospects to us (I think I said Peart and Bankier)

shedding Laine + $4M AAV for two career AHL'rs?  We'll agree to disagree.

[Pewterschmidt]

21 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

So, if this turn down became public, and I don't know who announced it,

Guerin's statement