Article: What Happened To the Wild's Offense?

[Luke Sims]

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[FredJohnson]

Injuries have direct and indirect effects. Almost every other non-goalie has had to play a different role or spot in the lineup and not everyone responds well to change.

[Willy the poor boy]

What Happened To the Wild's Offense?

It has a lower body injury...

[mnfaninnc]

Quote

Minnesota’s offensive slide coincides with their drop in the standings from first in the NHL to eighth.

I believe this also coincides to the injury to Kaprizov who tried playing through it for a couple of weeks in December. 

Now we are subjected to a counterpunch method where we pack it in defensively and hope the other team has a breakdown we can exploit. I would expect our offensive stats to get worse, but we can win games like we did last night just by being frustratingly frugal with giving up chances. 

 

[Patrick]

Who knew signing aging veterans based on career years was a bad idea.  Gaudreau, Hartman and Foligno were all given too much money and too much term.  Trenin too.  Their combined overpay is the reason our depth sucks.  In reality, Rossi is keeping this team afloat and our idiot GM (the same one who signed the old bums) wants to trade him! Make it make sense.

[Imyourhuckleberry]

The limited offense due to injuries and reduced effectiveness of the  defense & goaltending have some compounding effect. Great goaltending and offense early in games can help teams get easy opportunities to add goals late.

The Wild were top 3 in the league in empty net goals through 18 games with 7, or .389 per game. In the next 33 games, they've only added 6 empty net goals.

Kaprizov is still 2nd in the league in ENGs with 6, trailing only Rantanen's 7.

Injuries have hampered them on both ends. Hopefully they can get back near full health following the 4 Nations tourney.

Edited 3 hours ago by Imyourhuckleberry

[Citizen Strife]

29 minutes ago, Patrick said:

Who knew signing aging veterans based on career years was a bad idea.  Gaudreau, Hartman and Foligno were all given too much money and too much term.  Trenin too.  Their combined overpay is the reason our depth sucks.  In reality, Rossi is keeping this team afloat and our idiot GM (the same one who signed the old bums) wants to trade him! Make it make sense.

And what young studs other than Rossi, Boldy, and Faber have allowed Guerin to pay them instead?  Addison, Beckman, and Walker were failures.  Addison of such catastrophic kind that Bogo and Chisholm were cheap yet immediate improvements.  Yurov could have come here but said no for another year, but he and Buium are next up to prove something.

Ohgren is "too good for the AHL but struggling in the NHL" and Khus's PPG is sub 10%. Sorry the answers don't fall from the sky.  Kinda like that $15m hole is "so easy to fix.". Injury issues forced cap space to wither to nothing.  Hartman's injury was a very small part of that.

Guerin has had to fix Fletcher's mess and still has a lot of darts to throw if we wait it out until next year.  

Edited 3 hours ago by Citizen Strife

[RedLake]

Flordia placed Adam Bovqist on waviors. Go get him Billy he's better than NoNo and Godawful.

[Enforceror]

7 minutes ago, RedLake said:

Flordia placed Adam Bovqist on waviors. Go get him Billy he's better than NoNo and Godawful.

He's a defenseman though right?

[M_Nels]

10 minutes ago, RedLake said:

Flordia placed Adam Bovqist on waviors. Go get him Billy he's better than NoNo and Godawful.

Billy going to convert him to a forward too?

[Citizen Strife]

Also forgot to mention Jiricek looked like he belonged and chipped in offensively.  He's next man up along with Buium once some spaces open up.  It's a waiting game at this point.

[Patrick]

11 minutes ago, Citizen Strife said:

And what young studs other than Rossi, Boldy, and Faber have allowed Guerin to pay them instead?  Addison, Beckman, and Walker were failures.  Addison of such catastrophic kind that Bogo and Chisholm were cheap yet immediate improvements.  Yurov could have come here but said no for another year, but he and Buium are next up to prove something.

Ohgren is "too good for the AHL but struggling in the NHL" and Khus's PPG is sub 10%. Sorry the answers don't fall from the sky.  Kinda like that $15m hole is "so easy to fix.". Injury issues forced cap space to wither to nothing.  Hartman's injury was a very small part of that.

Guerin has had to fix Fletcher's mess and still has a lot of darts to throw if we wait it out until next year.  

These are all fair points. I'm making reference to what the Wild could have in free agency rather than signing guys after career years. No guarantee free agents pan out either but I'd rather sign a guy who has done it for several years than a guy who did it for one. Mostly I think he overpaid by a significant amount for those guys. And the term sucks.

[Burnt Toast]

If I’m a part of a coaching staff getting my players ready to go against the Wild my job just got a lot easier with KK out. “Ok guys tonight we’re focusing on Boldy, maybe Rossi/Zuc.” Now Boldy is getting more attention defensively and against better players. And  what I’m seeing with the Wild special teams is they’ve become predictable. Hynes is doing what he can to mix things up but KK is a special player that honestly can’t be replaced. Ask yourself if we were facing the Ave’s in the playoffs and all of a sudden one of their top power forwards wasn’t there? Ok scratch that example. Vegas no Stone? Dallas no Robertson? I’m taking every win for the next 6 weeks as a gift. Get them any way you can. 

[SkolWild73]

I would say injuries are to blame more than anything.  I have a question for everyone here.  If you were told prior to the season that after 51 games, Kap would have missed 14, Zuc 13, Ek 14 (so basically our first line), Brodin 20, Spurg 15, and Mids 10 games, what point total would the Wild have?  I don’t think anyone would have said 64 points.  I think with  no injuries we would have been happy with 64 points and our position in the standings.  All the negative comments on this site around this team amaze me.  Let’s hope we can navigate through this and get healthy for the last month of the season.

[Citizen Strife]

The only buyer's remorse is probably Johansson, because all the other guys were pegged as versatile 3rd/4th liners even after getting re-signed.  Johansson as Top-6 and only Top-6 is laughable.

[Enforceror]

12 minutes ago, SkolWild73 said:

I would say injuries are to blame more than anything.  I have a question for everyone here.  If you were told prior to the season that after 51 games, Kap would have missed 14, Zuc 13, Ek 14 (so basically our first line), Brodin 20, Spurg 15, and Mids 10 games, what point total would the Wild have?  I don’t think anyone would have said 64 points.  I think with  no injuries we would have been happy with 64 points and our position in the standings.  All the negative comments on this site around this team amaze me.  Let’s hope we can navigate through this and get healthy for the last month of the season.

Very fair assessment. I think most didn't even have us making the playoffs this year. Not counting chickens yet but, definitely in a better spot than most though (including myself). 

Edited 2 hours ago by Enforceror
oops

[Burnt Toast]

1 hour ago, SkolWild73 said:

I don’t think anyone would have said 64 points.

The Wild have definitely exceeded my expectations going into the season. With a really high shooting percentage and top 3 goaltending BOOM, right out of the gate. So honestly I’m having a blast this year. Where I feel let down is no visible sign of improvement on the PK. It’s a little maddening. 

[SkolWild73]

6 minutes ago, Burnt Toast said:

The Wild have definitely exceeded my expectations going into the season. With a really high shooting percentage and top 3 goaltending BOOM, right out of the gate. So honestly I’m having a blast this year. Where I feel let down is no visible sign of improvement on the PK. It’s a little maddening. 

 

[SkolWild73]

I agree with the PK and also the PP.  When I look at those two things and our home record I am even more amazed we are sitting where we are.  If we can turn two out of those three around and make the playoffs and get healthy, I would love to see what kind of noise this team can make.

[M_Nels]

2 hours ago, SkolWild73 said:

All the negative comments on this site around this team amaze me.

Stay away from Reddit if you think this site's bad. I'm on there less and less, not even fun to comment in there anymore.

[SkolWild73]

40 minutes ago, M_Nels said:

Stay away from Reddit if you think this site's bad. I'm on there less and less, not even fun to comment in there anymore.

That is why I came here.  

[Enforceror]

8 minutes ago, SkolWild73 said:

That is why I came here.  

Welcome! Glad to have you.