Article: Are the Wild Putting Too Much Mileage On Kaprizov?

[UK_Soldier]

Nice penalty draw Grizzle...but that could have gone the other way. 

[Sam]

Hartman with the bait and… and take

[Pewterschmidt]

9 minutes ago, Citizen Strife said:

Hey look.  It's the passenger doing all the work on the PP and scoring too.  Guess I'll forgive him for that penalty.  Wonder if other people will too...

I went into the comments knowing that CS would have this post waiting for me.

Only about 40 more games of this to look forward to.

[UK_Soldier]

Walz had seemed to at least fix his tic a little bit for a while...but I don't know that I've just heard "Canadiens" in the absence of Montreal this evening. So glad he keeps telling me, because I can never remember where they're from. 

[Citizen Strife]

Note: Tony doesn't have me on his payroll.  Maybe it's karma for me hating the "Bogosian Dead Cat Bounce" thing.  Guess we had to agree on something.

But hey.  I'm sick of hearing you guys talk about trade value, so to each their own.  We have a lot to look forward to.

Edited November 15 by Citizen Strife

[OldDutchChip]

Lauko stud

[Citizen Strife]

Kap is just crazy in EN situations.  That's like what 3...4 or those now?

[UK_Soldier]

KK97. Well-deserved. GG Boys. Hope Zucc and Ek are ok. 

[OldDutchChip]

[Sam]

Kap is so fun to watch, it’s almost like he sees things in slow motion in order to react so fast.

[OldDutchChip]

Boldy reminds me of my man mogilny

very very good stuff

keep at it

[Imyourhuckleberry]

1 hour ago, Citizen Strife said:

I'm sick of hearing you guys talk about trade value, so to each their own.  We have a lot to look forward to.

I had called Johansson a passenger on his line, so I was confused by some of the earlier comments. I'm not sure Rossi belongs as a #1 C, but he clearly has value in the top 3 lines. He has like 14 points in 16 games, which is pretty solid.

Now, NoJo's 4 points in 15 games playing primarily with JEE and Boldy is far less solid. He was setup by/for a nice pass to assist the Boldy goal tonight. In many ways, a pretty simple tap across to the other side of the goal, but that was well executed and probably his best assist of the season.

[Citizen Strife]

2024-2025 Numbers Game v2 (16 Games Played)

Record: 11-2-3; (25 pts, 2nd in Central, 2nd in Western Conference, 3rd in NHL)

Goals For: 3.50 Per Game (9th in NHL)

Goals Against: 2.38 Per Game (3rd in the NHL)

PP: 21.6% (T-10th in NHL)

PK: 76.9% (24th in NHL)

Gustavsson: 8-2-2, 2.08 GAA (7th in Goalies), .924 SV% (11th in Goalies)*

Fleury: 3-0-1, 2.89 GAA (T-26th in Goalies), .904 SV% (T-30th in Goalies)*

*Goalie Rankings could be skewed due to differences in games played. For instance, when weighed against goalies with 6 or more starts, Gus is ranked 2nd in GAA and 4th in SV%

Kaprizov: 10G, 20A, 30P (2nd in NHL), +16 (1st in NHL)

Boldy: 10G, 7A, 17P (T-32nd in NHL), +7

Zuccarello: 6G, 8A, 14P (T-58th in NHL), +6

Rossi: 5G, 9A, 14P (T-58th in NHL), +5

Gaudreau/Middleton/Faber all tied at 9P (T-162nd in NHL)

+/-

Highest: Kaprizov (+16/1st in NHL), Middleton (+15/2nd in NHL), Faber (+9)

Lowest: Merril (-1), Khusnutdinov/Ohgren (-2), Hartman/Lauko (-3)

[Protec]

So far so good. 

NoJo had a nice assist. Oh gee, wow!😆

Give him credit, he broke out of his non-factor shell. It's the eye test for me. The stuff he does, is sometimes just stupid. The NHL is too fast for him now. Making one play every 5-6 games is not L2 NHL stuff. I've tried not to rip on him, but for me he's behind Suter and ahead of Rask for most aggravating Wild player in recent memory. 

[Imyourhuckleberry]

18 minutes ago, Protec said:

Give him credit, he broke out of his non-factor shell. It's the eye test for me. The stuff he does, is sometimes just stupid.

He doesn't have any assists that are actually him creating the play. Kaprizov set him up with the perfect position to simply slide the puck across the goal mouth to Boldy for the nice finish. It was well executed, but the scoring chance was created by Kaprizov. His only other contender for best assist came from Boldy making a great play to setup the scoring chance with Johansson executing a relatively simply drop pass to JEE. Both were solid assists, but not truly created by Johansson doing something impressive. Any other player could make those plays.

His goal was a nice feed from JEE out in the middle of the net from about 15 feet out. A solid shot, but he has whiffed on 1-timer opportunities at least a handful of other times. Definitely not line 2 material. When I saw him on the ice with Foligno and Gaudreau last night, I thought they had dropped him lower for a moment, but later realized that the Wild were missing some top line players and all the lines were reimagined--I missed much of the first 2 periods.

Against Chicago, I saw NoJo run into Nick Foligno and topple to the ice. Pretty sure Foligno had not seen him coming, and seemed to looked back at him with what looked like a confused, "what are you doing"? It was pretty funny.

[Protec]

4 hours ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

He doesn't have any assists that are actually him creating the play. Kaprizov set him up with the perfect position to simply slide the puck across the goal mouth to Boldy for the nice finish. It was well executed, but the scoring chance was created by Kaprizov. His only other contender for best assist came from Boldy making a great play to setup the scoring chance with Johansson executing a relatively simply drop pass to JEE. Both were solid assists, but not truly created by Johansson doing something impressive. Any other player could make those plays.

His goal was a nice feed from JEE out in the middle of the net from about 15 feet out. A solid shot, but he has whiffed on 1-timer opportunities at least a handful of other times. Definitely not line 2 material. When I saw him on the ice with Foligno and Gaudreau last night, I thought they had dropped him lower for a moment, but later realized that the Wild were missing some top line players and all the lines were reimagined--I missed much of the first 2 periods.

Against Chicago, I saw NoJo run into Nick Foligno and topple to the ice. Pretty sure Foligno had not seen him coming, and seemed to looked back at him with what looked like a confused, "what are you doing"? It was pretty funny.

Last night he got the puck up high on the PP and waived his stick up in the air like a fake slapper that mites wouldn't fall for. Of course while standing still. Watching Caufield motor around, it's obvious NoJo is to slow and lacks the quickness to create much. He can make an easy pass or tap it into an open net but he's cooked for driving chances.