Article: Carson Lambos Can Put Himself Back On the Wild Prospect Map

[Tony Abbott]

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[Citizen Strife]

The Wild's success this year has come from opportunistic scoring and stingy, unexciting, low event hockey.  If you limit the high danger stuff, Gus and Fleury have less to deal with.

I'm not expecting miracles.  Spurgeon is too good a defensive player that any number of prospects couldn't even come close.  But the Wild can win by limiting mistakes.  I'm curious how Lambos fares against higher competition, cause this is what the Wild have to work with now.

Edited Thursday at 04:36 PM by Citizen Strife

[mnfaninnc]

When I saw Lambos, he was already playing top pairing minutes with Crotty. Hunt was playing 2nd pairing minutes with Spacek.

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He's endeared himself to Iowa head coach Brett McLean so much that he's held a top pairing spot ever since the Wild traded Daemon Hunt to land Jiricek. 

I would assume that Jiricek has taken over the top spot for Crotty on this team but that is pure assumption. 

Lambos was effective in his own end, looks like he gained strength/weight coming into the season (preseason games), can stickhandle in traffic which he did a couple of times to get out of danger and then forwarded the puck. I think you'll find him making a nice first pass and breaking out without having to just chip it up the boards. I also think he's strong enough for the N, perhaps needing to add strength again this offseason. I think he's certainly stronger than Chisholm and on par with Faber. 

I'm glad he gets an opportunity. He may be tough to send back down. I thought he was a better skater than Hunt, so some of the growing pains Hunt had in the N may not happen for Lambos. He looks like he gaps well and disintegrates opponents offensive plays. If the Wild were looking for a low event fill in, I think they've got one here. His next step forward is tutelage from Brodin. I think what you'll find is he's a much better matchup in the 1st round than playing Merrill who would struggle to keep up. 

[Imyourhuckleberry]

1 hour ago, mnfaninnc said:

I thought he was a better skater than Hunt, so some of the growing pains Hunt had in the N may not happen for Lambos.

Hunt was a year ahead in his development, but I always anticipated Lambos would pass him by. Lambos had offensive game prior to the AHL, but he was also facing other top lines for his WHL team in Winnipeg.

He wasn't drafted 1st round purely on offensive skill, it was due to his 2-way game. Glad to hear his game has been developing along with his strength, and that he seems solid on defense. The Wild may need him for a while now.

[MNCountryLife]

Our depth has to be pretty good considering most of us are guessing at who they will bring up... and we've been wrong.  Hopefully we can give a few guys the itch and they compete to stay up.

[Enforceror]

Sounds like Dermott not Lambos will get the start tonight. Possibly next game on Tuesday.

[Imyourhuckleberry]

29 minutes ago, Enforceror said:

Sounds like Dermott not Lambos will get the start tonight. Possibly next game on Tuesday.

Makes sense. They need someone on the road trip to be available in case another defenseman ends up unable to go before the game starts, but Dermott has over 300 games of NHL experience over 8 seasons, so giving him the nod was kind of expected.

NHL coaches get another glimpse of Lambos in person and can decide before the 2nd game if they want to give him some 3rd line minutes.

[Gavan]

Good article, Tony. Lambos deserves a shot and the call up says as much about Guerin hardening Jiricek as Lambos being better fit to replace Spurgeon at this time. And/both. Love Lambos getting a shot, can't wait to see him. 

[Imyourhuckleberry]

Kaprizov and Spurgeon updates:

Sounds like it could be a muscle strain of some degree for Kirill, and they want him to heal/strengthen it up before returning or it could tear and be out much longer. 

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The Athletic--“It’s still just kind of day to day,” Guerin said. “We’re just still trying to work through what he has. The thing is that we don’t want him to come back and push through. He could, but it could make something worse. We need him for the long haul. We don’t just need him for a couple games in January. We need him to get healthy and feel better, so we’re trying to do the right thing and just look at it from the long point of view.”

They also indicated Spurgeon might only be out a few weeks.

[mnfaninnc]

41 minutes ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

Sounds like it could be a muscle strain of some degree for Kirill, and they want him to heal/strengthen it up before returning or it could tear and be out much longer. 

Some have speculated it is a groin, and those things are nasty and take time to heal. Lauko has the same thing and reinjured it. My suspicion is that the Wild will give Kaprizov time to heal if they can tread water. If they go into a prolonged slump, I'd suspect Kaprizov would be back sooner rather than later. This is the difference between this season and last. Last season we were chasing points, so we had to risk it, this season we've banked points and can afford to have him heal. 

[Patrick]

If Lambos is Merrill 2.0 then let's get rid of him now. I've never seen a player make so many unpressured brain-dead plays.

[mnfaninnc]

5 hours ago, Patrick said:

If Lambos is Merrill 2.0 then let's get rid of him now. I've never seen a player make so many unpressured brain-dead plays.

Nobody is comparing Lambos to Merrill. Their styles are very different. Lambos will skate way better, probably has more pop in a bodycheck, and can make a pass outside of a chip out of the zone. He would be a significant upgrade.

[Sam]

5 hours ago, Patrick said:

If Lambos is Merrill 2.0 then let's get rid of him now. I've never seen a player make so many unpressured brain-dead plays.

It would be nearly impossible to be that bad..

[Need4speed99]

Be nice if we actually had a chance to see them... and against top competition.