Article: Wait, Why Are Experts Calling the Wild A Top-5 Team?

[Tony Abbott]

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[Citizen Strife]

Just keep games like yesterday and aberration...

[Citizen Strife]

an aberration*

[Dis-allowed display name]

Top 5, so far.........

Show of hands if you watch on FanDuel (Bally's) and are going to jump out a window if you have to listen to the Tullamore Dew jingle one more time.

[Imyourhuckleberry]

No more starts for Gus in Philadelphia, especially on October 26th.

2 games there, 6 goals allowed in both, and both played on October 26th.

-----------------------

At least Foligno chipped in some goals to jump ahead of Johansson.

Four forwards still behind Gus in goal scoring this year.

Hopefully the Wild can get a point or two in Pittsburgh.

[mnfaninnc]

21 minutes ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

No more starts for Gus in Philadelphia, especially on October 26th.

2 games there, 6 goals allowed in both, and both played on October 26th.

On this, my takeaway from yesterday's game was this one gets pinned on Heinzy. For the most part, I am a supporter of Hynes, and his system seems to be much better with the players we've got. 

However, when do you pull a goaltender? For this, a coach needs to have a feel. It doesn't take having played the position, outside of pond hockey I have not. But, after 2 goals on 3 shots, an outsider could see that Goose was not comfortable yesterday afternoon.

He had the 1st period intermission to get Fleury stretched out, but instead rode Goose another period. Again, in the 2nd, Goose did not look comfortable. And this was hard to feel with just 8 shots. However, he wasn't set right, he was bobbling pucks (something he started to do in Florida), and again should have been replaced. 

There was 1 more intermission to get Fleury stretched out. But again, he just let Goose play. 

Bias alert: in baseball, football, hockey, I am a quick pull guy. In this case, I was completely right. But I also have to question why wouldn't you pull him? Is it because Fleury is starting in Pittsburgh and is 40 and you didn't want to risk him being injured? 40 year old goalies need a little extra stretch time and warm up time. I can see that. But, if you've got that type of goalie, you need him to be able to relieve, sometimes at a moment's notice. This was one of those times.

Hynes, however, just stood there chewing gum after all 6 scores. Were they all Goose's fault? No, they were not. But in this particular game for the 2nd and 3rd periods, I believe Fleury gave the team the better opportunity to win. Why? Because Goose didn't look right from the beginning. I don't know if he doesn't like the ice paint, the way the boards or glass look, or if the blue in his crease is a different color. But something was wrong. For starters, Fleury, the Pittsburgh veteran, has played plenty of games in this arena where it is a little more than a regular game. He's seen that ice a lot.

Note to Heinzy: Learn from this mistake. It will likely go both ways, but know for sure that sometimes you pick the wrong goalie to start and it needs to be corrected before games go sideways. Credit the skaters for bailing Goose out, he's done it plenty for them this season. But, this was just not his afternoon. Recognize it and adjust. 

2nd note: I don't even know who the backup was and if The Wall is back up with the club. A good way to keep Fleury fresh is to The Wall or Goose backing up so that their young ligaments can get stretched out quickly. If The Wall was backing up, I would have gone to him early.

[Burnt Toast]

The Wild are playing with intensity, energy and pace. The whole team looks engaged. That’s something in their control, mostly. Because of that difference I see from last year’s team I think they will remain a playoff caliber team. How far can that alone take them? I see potential for younger players developing outweighing older player regression as a key component to their future success. 

[Up North Guy]

12 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

On this, my takeaway from yesterday's game was this one gets pinned on Heinzy. For the most part, I am a supporter of Hynes, and his system seems to be much better with the players we've got. 

However, when do you pull a goaltender? For this, a coach needs to have a feel. It doesn't take having played the position, outside of pond hockey I have not. But, after 2 goals on 3 shots, an outsider could see that Goose was not comfortable yesterday afternoon.

He had the 1st period intermission to get Fleury stretched out, but instead rode Goose another period. Again, in the 2nd, Goose did not look comfortable. And this was hard to feel with just 8 shots. However, he wasn't set right, he was bobbling pucks (something he started to do in Florida), and again should have been replaced. 

There was 1 more intermission to get Fleury stretched out. But again, he just let Goose play. 

Bias alert: in baseball, football, hockey, I am a quick pull guy. In this case, I was completely right. But I also have to question why wouldn't you pull him? Is it because Fleury is starting in Pittsburgh and is 40 and you didn't want to risk him being injured? 40 year old goalies need a little extra stretch time and warm up time. I can see that. But, if you've got that type of goalie, you need him to be able to relieve, sometimes at a moment's notice. This was one of those times.

Hynes, however, just stood there chewing gum after all 6 scores. Were they all Goose's fault? No, they were not. But in this particular game for the 2nd and 3rd periods, I believe Fleury gave the team the better opportunity to win. Why? Because Goose didn't look right from the beginning. I don't know if he doesn't like the ice paint, the way the boards or glass look, or if the blue in his crease is a different color. But something was wrong. For starters, Fleury, the Pittsburgh veteran, has played plenty of games in this arena where it is a little more than a regular game. He's seen that ice a lot.

Note to Heinzy: Learn from this mistake. It will likely go both ways, but know for sure that sometimes you pick the wrong goalie to start and it needs to be corrected before games go sideways. Credit the skaters for bailing Goose out, he's done it plenty for them this season. But, this was just not his afternoon. Recognize it and adjust. 

2nd note: I don't even know who the backup was and if The Wall is back up with the club. A good way to keep Fleury fresh is to The Wall or Goose backing up so that their young ligaments can get stretched out quickly. If The Wall was backing up, I would have gone to him early.

Just spitballing here: On not pulling Gus, is it possible that Hynes recognizes that MAF only has so many games in him? MAF is scheduled to start in Pittsburgh and isn't confident he can do two in a row, even with days off in between? It was pretty clear that Gus did not have it yesterday but the team was scoring and maybe it was a calculated gamble to leave Gus in. I have no idea whether this even makes sense but what if? I have always thought bringing Flower back was a bad idea, but if he can give the team quality starts in the 1/3 of the schedule that he will play, fine. 

[Citizen Strife]

Did some rough number crunching from stuff from NHLstats for a couple other Wild centric things, so I figured I'd post these here too.

2024-2025 Numbers Game v1 (8 Games Played)

Record: 5-1-2; (12 pts, 3rd in Central, T-4th in Western Conference, T-6th in NHL)

Goals For: 3.63 Per Game (T-8th in NHL)
Goals Against: 2.50 Per Game (5th in the NHL)
PP: 30.6% (5th in NHL)
PK: 73.3% (26th in NHL)

Gustavsson: 4-1-1, 2.17 GAA (T-11th in Goalies), .922 SV% (15th in Goalies)
Fleury: 1-0-1, 2.89 GAA (24th in Goalies), .900 SV% (T-28th in Goalies)

Kaprizov: 4G, 11A, 15P (T-2nd in NHL), +6
Boldy: 4G, 7A, 11P (T-13th in NHL), -0
Zuccarello: 4G, 4A, 8P (T-50th in NHL), +5
Rossi: 3G, 4A, 7P (T-73rd in NHL), +4
Eriksson Ek: 4G, 2A, 6P (T-113th in NHL), +3
+/-
Highest: Middleton/Kaprizov (+6/T-26th in NHL), Zuccarello (+5), Rossi/Faber (+4)
Lowest: Spurgeon (-1), Khusnutdinov (-2), Hartman/Lauko/Ohgren (-3)

Edited October 27 by Citizen Strife

[mnfaninnc]

7 hours ago, Up North Guy said:

On not pulling Gus, is it possible that Hynes recognizes that MAF only has so many games in him? MAF is scheduled to start in Pittsburgh and isn't confident he can do two in a row, even with days off in between?

This was exactly my secondary point. We've got to have a relief guy ready to go. There were 2 intermissions to stretch out Fleury yet they did not. I find this troubling.

[1Brotherbill]

8 hours ago, mnfaninnc said:

However, when do you pull a goaltender? For this, a coach needs to have a feel. It doesn't take having played the position, outside of pond hockey I have not. But, after 2 goals on 3 shots, an outsider could see that Goose was not comfortable yesterday afternoon.

Gus didn't have it and a lot of other players didn't have it as well.  Phliadelphia is garbage they should have won that game without much effort.

As far a pulling Gus.  I don't know it would have been a better option to put Fluery in.  He hates playing afternoon games and has said it multiple times.   Even though his record in afternoon games is pretty good.  So pulling Gus and putting Flurery in would have been worse. 

Having Wallstedt as the backup or the third goalie is not really an option that would be good for his development.   He needs to see pucks and a lot of them.  Sitting in the press box doesn't give him that option.  Playing one game in seven doesn't give him that option.

Now if we went back in time and didn't have Fluery on the roster we could have Wallstedt and Gus being the two goalie monster.  But we have to wait one more year for that to happen.  

[Protec]

Dallas, Nashville, and Winnipeg all won yesterday.

I would say, MN has to find their identity every game. Getting behind early or getting roughed-up and frustrated is not gonna help them. 

Some weaknesses have bubbled to the surface. Teams will figure out how to plan for good teams. 

MN is a good team but let's see the consistency for more than 7-8 games. Go beat Pittsburgh and get a new win-streak going. Then get a tough Central  win before anyone should start making big claims. Gus went from .950 to sieve overnight. The Wild went from fantastic in FL to pummeled in Pennsylvania. The Wild have been good overall so a couple bad games is alright. Just so long as the ratio stays around 1 in every 4 or 5. 

[Skomonkey]

10 hours ago, mnfaninnc said:

On this, my takeaway from yesterday's game was this one gets pinned on Heinzy. For the most part, I am a supporter of Hynes, and his system seems to be much better with the players we've got. 

However, when do you pull a goaltender? For this, a coach needs to have a feel. It doesn't take having played the position, outside of pond hockey I have not. But, after 2 goals on 3 shots, an outsider could see that Goose was not comfortable yesterday afternoon.

He had the 1st period intermission to get Fleury stretched out, but instead rode Goose another period. Again, in the 2nd, Goose did not look comfortable. And this was hard to feel with just 8 shots. However, he wasn't set right, he was bobbling pucks (something he started to do in Florida), and again should have been replaced. 

There was 1 more intermission to get Fleury stretched out. But again, he just let Goose play. 

Bias alert: in baseball, football, hockey, I am a quick pull guy. In this case, I was completely right. But I also have to question why wouldn't you pull him? Is it because Fleury is starting in Pittsburgh and is 40 and you didn't want to risk him being injured? 40 year old goalies need a little extra stretch time and warm up time. I can see that. But, if you've got that type of goalie, you need him to be able to relieve, sometimes at a moment's notice. This was one of those times.

Hynes, however, just stood there chewing gum after all 6 scores. Were they all Goose's fault? No, they were not. But in this particular game for the 2nd and 3rd periods, I believe Fleury gave the team the better opportunity to win. Why? Because Goose didn't look right from the beginning. I don't know if he doesn't like the ice paint, the way the boards or glass look, or if the blue in his crease is a different color. But something was wrong. For starters, Fleury, the Pittsburgh veteran, has played plenty of games in this arena where it is a little more than a regular game. He's seen that ice a lot.

Note to Heinzy: Learn from this mistake. It will likely go both ways, but know for sure that sometimes you pick the wrong goalie to start and it needs to be corrected before games go sideways. Credit the skaters for bailing Goose out, he's done it plenty for them this season. But, this was just not his afternoon. Recognize it and adjust. 

2nd note: I don't even know who the backup was and if The Wall is back up with the club. A good way to keep Fleury fresh is to The Wall or Goose backing up so that their young ligaments can get stretched out quickly. If The Wall was backing up, I would have gone to him early.

Well said. I too thought Gus looked lost and couldn’t control rebounds. If he had, you can easily take 4 goals off the board. The first wrist shot, not sure where he thought he was in the net but way off his angles. 
 

we need to have a short leash on his next couple starts. He didn’t look like he had his head in the game. I think someone switched out his smelling salts for a drug. 

[Fezig]

17 hours ago, mnfaninnc said:

On this, my takeaway from yesterday's game was this one gets pinned on Heinzy. For the most part, I am a supporter of Hynes, and his system seems to be much better with the players we've got. 

However, when do you pull a goaltender? For this, a coach needs to have a feel. It doesn't take having played the position, outside of pond hockey I have not. But, after 2 goals on 3 shots, an outsider could see that Goose was not comfortable yesterday afternoon.

He had the 1st period intermission to get Fleury stretched out, but instead rode Goose another period. Again, in the 2nd, Goose did not look comfortable. And this was hard to feel with just 8 shots. However, he wasn't set right, he was bobbling pucks (something he started to do in Florida), and again should have been replaced. 

There was 1 more intermission to get Fleury stretched out. But again, he just let Goose play. 

Bias alert: in baseball, football, hockey, I am a quick pull guy. In this case, I was completely right. But I also have to question why wouldn't you pull him? Is it because Fleury is starting in Pittsburgh and is 40 and you didn't want to risk him being injured? 40 year old goalies need a little extra stretch time and warm up time. I can see that. But, if you've got that type of goalie, you need him to be able to relieve, sometimes at a moment's notice. This was one of those times.

Hynes, however, just stood there chewing gum after all 6 scores. Were they all Goose's fault? No, they were not. But in this particular game for the 2nd and 3rd periods, I believe Fleury gave the team the better opportunity to win. Why? Because Goose didn't look right from the beginning. I don't know if he doesn't like the ice paint, the way the boards or glass look, or if the blue in his crease is a different color. But something was wrong. For starters, Fleury, the Pittsburgh veteran, has played plenty of games in this arena where it is a little more than a regular game. He's seen that ice a lot.

Note to Heinzy: Learn from this mistake. It will likely go both ways, but know for sure that sometimes you pick the wrong goalie to start and it needs to be corrected before games go sideways. Credit the skaters for bailing Goose out, he's done it plenty for them this season. But, this was just not his afternoon. Recognize it and adjust. 

2nd note: I don't even know who the backup was and if The Wall is back up with the club. A good way to keep Fleury fresh is to The Wall or Goose backing up so that their young ligaments can get stretched out quickly. If The Wall was backing up, I would have gone to him early.

Quick to pull a guy? Rocco, is that you?

[mnfaninnc]

12 hours ago, 1Brotherbill said:

As far a pulling Gus.  I don't know it would have been a better option to put Fluery in.  He hates playing afternoon games and has said it multiple times.   Even though his record in afternoon games is pretty good.  So pulling Gus and putting Flurery in would have been worse. 

Ok, let's assume that Goose got hurt, Fleury goes in, then, right? 

When looking at the track record of Evason who rarely pulled a goalie due to performance, and the shorter Wild track record of Hynes who does the same, I simply disagree with their methods. 

Sometimes athletes have it, sometimes they don't. It was obvious in this case that Goose didn't have it. Perhaps Fleury did? Your comment that Fleury hates afternoon games is contradicted by his performance being pretty good in them. Does Goose's record in this particular arena come into play? He's been poor twice now. 

I realize that the season is a marathon, and sometimes you have to sacrifice goalies, just like sometimes a starter in baseball has to eat innings even though he's given up 7 in 3 innings. But, this was not that time. Here, with an extra day off, Fleury had plenty of time to get ready. We saw in St. Louis when we went 11/7 that Kaprizov and Boldy got double shifted the whole game. They had 3 days off to recover. What's the difference? about 10 years for Kaprizov. If Fleury cannot jump in when he's needed because he's too old, then we have a problem. These were 2 gettable points. And either intermission could have been used.

Interestingly, the comment that several players on the team weren't playing well I do not accept. The Wild held the Phlyers under 10 SOGs for 2 periods. They were playing structured even while playing from behind. The Phlyers had packed in their defense for 1.5 periods and were frustrating many of the players by blocking passing lanes and shots. This game was fully within reach with decent goaltending. I'm not saying Goose is trash, I'm simply stating he didn't have it Saturday afternoon. His game was lost luggage at the airport. And we needed a backup who could hold down the fort.

Now, perhaps Hynes never asked. I really think this is what happened. With 5 minutes left in the 1st period, you could see that Goose was struggling even with just 3 SOGs. Simply tell Fleury, go stretch out and send him out for the 2nd period. I don't think Hynes, and know Evason did not have the feel that it was time to switch, and this was the main issue in my original comment. Hynes needs to grow in this area. Goalies hate it when they are pulled due to performance. Typically, the next time out they are lights out.

[mnfaninnc]

11 hours ago, Skomonkey said:

we need to have a short leash on his next couple starts. He didn’t look like he had his head in the game.

The funny thing is that you could see this coming from his start in FL. He was bobbling pucks there too, but got bailed out. Results typically lag, so, he didn't get it right from FL. If Spurgy is back in Pittsburgh, then we can send Hunt down and bring The Wall back up. I think it's time for him to get a start anyway.

[FredJohnson]

Experts Calling the Wild A Top-5 Team

 

[FredJohnson]

On 10/27/2024 at 12:04 PM, mnfaninnc said:

On this, my takeaway from yesterday's game was this one gets pinned on Heinzy. For the most part, I am a supporter of Hynes, and his system seems to be much better with the players we've got. 

However, when do you pull a goaltender? For this, a coach needs to have a feel. It doesn't take having played the position, outside of pond hockey I have not. But, after 2 goals on 3 shots, an outsider could see that Goose was not comfortable yesterday afternoon.

He had the 1st period intermission to get Fleury stretched out, but instead rode Goose another period. Again, in the 2nd, Goose did not look comfortable. And this was hard to feel with just 8 shots. However, he wasn't set right, he was bobbling pucks (something he started to do in Florida), and again should have been replaced. 

There was 1 more intermission to get Fleury stretched out. But again, he just let Goose play. 

Bias alert: in baseball, football, hockey, I am a quick pull guy. In this case, I was completely right. But I also have to question why wouldn't you pull him? Is it because Fleury is starting in Pittsburgh and is 40 and you didn't want to risk him being injured? 40 year old goalies need a little extra stretch time and warm up time. I can see that. But, if you've got that type of goalie, you need him to be able to relieve, sometimes at a moment's notice. This was one of those times.

Hynes, however, just stood there chewing gum after all 6 scores. Were they all Goose's fault? No, they were not. But in this particular game for the 2nd and 3rd periods, I believe Fleury gave the team the better opportunity to win. Why? Because Goose didn't look right from the beginning. I don't know if he doesn't like the ice paint, the way the boards or glass look, or if the blue in his crease is a different color. But something was wrong. For starters, Fleury, the Pittsburgh veteran, has played plenty of games in this arena where it is a little more than a regular game. He's seen that ice a lot.

Note to Heinzy: Learn from this mistake. It will likely go both ways, but know for sure that sometimes you pick the wrong goalie to start and it needs to be corrected before games go sideways. Credit the skaters for bailing Goose out, he's done it plenty for them this season. But, this was just not his afternoon. Recognize it and adjust. 

2nd note: I don't even know who the backup was and if The Wall is back up with the club. A good way to keep Fleury fresh is to The Wall or Goose backing up so that their young ligaments can get stretched out quickly. If The Wall was backing up, I would have gone to him early.

Real genuine honest question for anyone that's actually played or coached hockey (I have done neither):

Why aren't goalies pulled more often just to have the backup come in to give the other team a different wrinkle to have to consider? (I know the backup is generally a step down talent-wise.) Is it a confidence thing for goalies? Is it that once a goalie warms up then plays he can't physically warm up again (like baseball pitchers) because they cannot risk injury of warming up again? Does it pose too much of a shift in how the defense has to play for a different goalie?

I'll hang up and listen.

Edited October 28 by FredJohnson

[FredJohnson]

4 hours ago, mnfaninnc said:

let's assume that Goose got hurt,

Goligosky retired.

 

[FredJohnson]

Just now, FredJohnson said:

Goligosky retired.

 

 

[mnfaninnc]

Fred, I can tell you I think it should happen more often, and I don't think it's a warm up issue unless you're 40. There have been some coaches that wait until intermission to stretch out their backup just so they're warm. 

I disagree with that wholeheartedly. If you've got 2 of them and one isn't on his game, which happens for random reasons, you've got to go to the backup and hope he's on. 

Yes, it is a different look. Yes there may be a difference in talent, but that has gotten much closer as teams prefer to go with two goalies sharing the net instead of a starter like Brodeur was. 

This was one reason why I was hoping we'd trade for Askarov. I thought both he and The Wall would be a great tandem for several years. I like having a righty-lefty combo for just what you suggested, a different look. 

But, it's not just goalies, I'd pull starting QBs when it didn't look like they were on their game and I'd have no problem with going to the bullpen early, yet, sometimes you stay with the starter like the Twins should have done with Ober late in the season when they choked away one of his brilliant starts. It's a feel for what they have, what they've got left, and if it's their day or not. 

I've coached but not hockey. The decisions are similar. You can just tell when someone's a little off and sometimes it's as simple as a head cold coming on, or they didn't sleep well the night before. 

As for Goose, I dropped the 2 when Goligoski retired and have been calling him that prior to all the Gus Bus stuff. Sorry, I can't get into that as well as MoJo or NoJo, and I really don't like Wally. 

[Pewterschmidt]

8 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

This was one reason why I was hoping we'd trade for Askarov. I thought both he and The Wall would be a great tandem for several years.

That’d be like drafting team defense in round 1 of fantasy draft. Then following that by drafting a backup defense in round 2 

[mnfaninnc]

19 minutes ago, Pewterschmidt said:

That’d be like drafting team defense in round 1 of fantasy draft. Then following that by drafting a backup defense in round 2 

defense wins championships!!!

[Beast]

The team that showed up in Philadelphia wasn’t even close to a playoff team, let alone a top 5 team in the NHL.

The jury is still out.  Catching a team like Florida off of playoff a hangover early in the year is nice, but a potential explanation.  They’ve also played some teams that maybe aren’t as good as anticipated (Seattle, St. Louis, etc.).  This is the same roster that’s had stretches of good hockey in the past, but has ultimately flopped.  Play like this consistently through December and I’ll start entertaining this team as a potential contender.  Way too much hockey left.

[manbearpig]

20 hours ago, FredJohnson said:

 

Shit I'd rather see these commercials on fanduel app than stupid ass tullemore dew ads