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Article: Mikey Milne Could Be the Wild's Newest Piranha


Looked like Hynes decided 1 point was enough. You never, ever, play Johansson in OT. He has speed, but lacks the ability to do anything special with it. I think opposing teams score around 50% of the shifts he plays in OT.

I'm not even saying he made a major mistake on the shift, but nobody was paying him any attention because he's a non-threat; they converged on the puck and took it the other way. I don't know how you look at the Wild bench and think that Johansson is the best option against the best players on the other team. Khusnutdinov would be a far better choice, in my eyes, and that's after the much more conventional Zuccarello, Hartman, Rossi, or Boldy...

JEE and Kaprizov already had their shift or they would clearly be ahead as well.

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Honestly, I'm not sure Ohgren wouldn't be a better option for OT than Johansson. Of course, I only say that because Ohgren had a hat trick for the Iowa Wild last night, but he will develop into a solid 2-way player, which is something the Minnesota Wild will never have in NoJo.

Edited by Imyourhuckleberry
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Sorry, but Ohgren doesn't even have speed right now.  Unless playing a week in Iowa shakes him to the point where he suddenly grows 3-4 inches, gets 2-3 mph faster, and shoots the puck like a Bedard or something, I'd rather see what Milne has first.

Why even call him up as a warm body to sit in a chair?

Edited by Citizen Strife
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17 minutes ago, Citizen Strife said:

I'd rather see what Milne has first.

Why even call him up as a warm body to sit in a chair?

I believe they like to have someone available at F and D while on road trips in case someone else wakes up not feeling good, and Milne had been playing the best of the Iowa Wild players.

Travis Boyd is leading the Iowa Wild in points, has scored at a double-digit goal pace each of the last 3 NHL seasons, and has a slightly smaller contract, so if they did just want someone to sit in the press box, he seems like just as good of an option. Then again, I think Boyd probably needs to clear waivers to go back and Milne would not since he's still in the final year of his ELC, so I imagine that's the reason.

They reward the young player deemed to be playing the best with a few days of NHL warm up skating & getting a bigger check, then likely send him back to the minors.

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17 hours ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

Most of the Wild have been playing strong games, but not Johansson. He's hit the ice a few times and turnover after turnover from him. How long will Hynes be able to tolerate it?

Agreed.  He was bad against Chicago.  I would think it would be frustrating to Boldy and Ek.

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22 minutes ago, MNCountryLife said:

He was bad against Chicago.  I would think it would be frustrating to Boldy and Ek.

And yet, Hynes, beyond all reason, decided he had earned some OT minutes where teams generally only play their top 6 forwards. Honestly, would Foligno or Lauko be a worse option there?

In my opinion, the worst 2 options Hynes could have gone with out of 12 forwards were Johansson and Trenin, but he found it within him to put one of them on the ice. I don't want to be complaining about him, but if he isn't scoring(which he rarely does), NoJo is such a weak link for his line.

Have to find it interesting that you don't gain anything in the +/- statistic when scoring on the power play, but JEE and Boldy are both at +5 this season while Johansson is down at zero.

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49 minutes ago, Pewterschmidt said:

Buyout T-Bag and insert Copper Top.  (no sarcasm applied here)

If Milne starts exceeding 1 point per game in the AHL, as Trenin did in 2019-2020(20 goals & 15 assists in 32 games), maybe they would consider it.

Trenin was more productive than 22 year old future NHLers like Thomas Novak and Rem pitlick for that team, as well as one Frederick Gaudreau.

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21 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

I was surprised they didn't play Milne in the Chicago game. The whole team looked really tired and could have used an infusion of energy.

Agreed. I was really hoping to see what he had as well since I never managed to watch the Iowa games.

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