Article: The Wild Can't Underestimate the Value Of Centers

[Pewterschmidt]

45 minutes ago, OldDutchChip said:

But yet we are not even into the second 5 year plan! 🍻

This needs a trademark (TM)

 

[Imyourhuckleberry]

2 minutes ago, Willy the poor boy said:

A lot of his trades have worked out and maybe that says something about him that I'm not ready to concede yet at this point.

To be clear, I am including myself in the less informed. I'm not watching all of these guys regularly and I don't have good analytics on them. I've just been noticing that the results seem to be on Guerin's side more than they aren't.

It's hard for any team to overcome injuries to their top player long-term, so while Guerin isn't fielding the top team in the conference while he's down $28M in cap space(icing less than 69% of the maximum cap space available to most teams), the Wild were #1 around 1/3 of the way into this season when they were down only around $15M in cap space.

Lots of people would have been fine with 5 bad years of basement dwelling in order to build a top 5 prospect pool. Instead, Guerin has built a top 5 prospect pool while fielding a team averaging 100 points in the standings. I'm not saying the basement dwelling Chicago or Detroit way couldn't yield better long-term results, but Guerin didn't have that option given to him by his boss.

Like Guerin, I want to see what this team can do if it enters the playoffs healthy. In the 2022 playoffs, they lost to the Blues in 6 games while Kaprizov posted 7 goals and JEE had 3. The rest of the team had 6, including 1 from 20 year old Boldy and none from Fiala, who was a -5 that playoffs.

The Wild haven't been healthy in the playoffs since 2022, if they even were that year. Evason was the coach back then. The Blues scored at least 5 goals(4 before empty net goals) in each of the last 3 games of that series, so it appears that the Wild have moved to a more structured defensive team with more defensively sound players as this playoffs approaches. I want to see these guys compete in that playoff atmosphere again, and maybe they'll have a better outcome.

[OldDutchChip]

1 hour ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

Talbot was a solid goalie and I questioned that move too, but Gustavsson has been an excellent return.

Lots of people said Guerin didn't get enough for Fiala with Faber and Ohgren(the pick that turned into him). Would you trade the future of those 2 for Fiala today?

While many seemed to think they were reactionary poor decisions in the moment, long-term, those have seemed to indicate that Guerin was making moves that were solid hockey decisions, likely with good information from his staff that supported the move even though it may have looked like a modest return to those who were less informed.

Yes! bring back Fiala

[OldDutchChip]

58 minutes ago, Willy the poor boy said:

A lot of his trades have worked out and maybe that says something about him that I'm not ready to concede yet at this point. But my point is 'I took the first fair offer' should never come out of a GM's mouth. 

to add - faber working out was a flip of the coin. he did say "fair offer" and shipped out Fiala. he is very lucky that worked out for us. but it could very well be a horrible mistake. no one knew that faber was going to be good. no one. no buying that Bill had this foresight. 

[MacGyver]

6 minutes ago, OldDutchChip said:

to add - faber working out was a flip of the coin. he did say "fair offer" and shipped out Fiala. he is very lucky that worked out for us. but it could very well be a horrible mistake. no one knew that faber was going to be good. no one. no buying that Bill had this foresight. 

I think it's when Talbot wanted out he just sent him to Ottawa as they had a goalie available. That's where his quote "I took the first fair offer" came from. Oh and his other infamous quote from that trade" I don't have to do shit"!  Yeah it was a down and dirty first try deal just to get Talbot out so Billy could put the entire episode behind him. I will repeat again Billy operates on more emotion that he does logical thinking.

Heaven forbid your goalie gets a little pissed when he gets thrown under the bus by having to play the last desperate gasp game of win or go home after he sat for five games in favor of Billy's boy the Flower. I'll always look at that deal as Billy doing Talbot dirty.  

And he got lucky Gus has turned into what he is now but that was even questionable at first. Billy certainly got lucky on the Faber deal as no one could have guessed he could step on NHL ice and do what he did but he is regressing at a bad time. Fiala is having a off year but I always liked watching him and will watch a Kings game when I can. But as we know with Fiala he can go on a huge heater at anytime. If he does that going into the playoffs the Kings will be a tough out.  When Fiala was on the second line that took a lot of D pressure off Kaprizov. I'd take Fifi back. 

[Imyourhuckleberry]

5 minutes ago, MacGyver said:

Fiala is having a off year but I always liked watching him and will watch a Kings game when I can. But as we know with Fiala he can go on a huge heater at anytime. If he does that going into the playoffs the Kings will be a tough out.

I liked watching Fiala as well. He's likely topped out as a fun offensive player who is a defensive liability. The Kings have the 2nd lowest goals against, but they give up goals at a rate like the Iowa Wild when Fiala is on the ice, which is why he has the worst +/- on the team.

Faber is one of the best young defensive players in the league, and Ohgren's limited AHL time suggests that an NHL scorer and 2-way player is about to be ready right when he's needed next season.

I was underwhelmed by the return because it was such an unknown, but that trade also allowed the Wild to come out of that draft with both Yurov and Ohgren rather than just 1 of them. Considering that Ohgren was the safer choice at that time, it's possible that making that trade for another 1st round pick in that draft was essential in building a future cup contender--and the Wild didn't have cap space to sign Fiala, so would have needed to get rid of someone.

That trade happened around the beginning of the Wild's "5-year plan". I absolutely wouldn't trade Faber with one of those 1st round selections back for Fiala right now, but I'm betting the Kings would for any combination of the 3.

Fiala can be dangerous, but hasn't scored more than 1 goal in a playoffs since 2020. He has 21 playoff games and 3 goals since then.

[OldDutchChip]

13 minutes ago, MacGyver said:

I think it's when Talbot wanted out he just sent him to Ottawa as they had a goalie available. That's where his quote "I took the first fair offer" came from. Oh and his other infamous quote from that trade" I don't have to do shit"!  Yeah it was a down and dirty first try deal just to get Talbot out so Billy could put the entire episode behind him. I will repeat again Billy operates on more emotion that he does logical thinking.

Heaven forbid your goalie gets a little pissed when he gets thrown under the bus by having to play the last desperate gasp game of win or go home after he sat for five games in favor of Billy's boy the Flower. I'll always look at that deal as Billy doing Talbot dirty.  

And he got lucky Gus has turned into what he is now but that was even questionable at first. Billy certainly got lucky on the Faber deal as no one could have guessed he could step on NHL ice and do what he did but he is regressing at a bad time. Fiala is having a off year but I always liked watching him and will watch a Kings game when I can. But as we know with Fiala he can go on a huge heater at anytime. If he does that going into the playoffs the Kings will be a tough out.  When Fiala was on the second line that took a lot of D pressure off Kaprizov. I'd take Fifi back. 

that was indeed a slap in the face to Talbot when he just dumped him for MAF

and that duo - Fiala and Boldy - was fantastic 🍻

[Pewterschmidt]

1 hour ago, OldDutchChip said:

to add - faber working out was a flip of the coin. he did say "fair offer" and shipped out Fiala. he is very lucky that worked out for us. but it could very well be a horrible mistake. no one knew that faber was going to be good. no one. no buying that Bill had this foresight. 

Let’s also remember that Fiala was an 85 pt player.  Pretty valuable asset, so ogz has to become a solid nhl’r for us to say we win this trade.  Faber alone does not win the trade for an 85 pt player

[Pewterschmidt]

1 hour ago, MacGyver said:

quote "I took the first fair offer" came from. Oh and his other infamous quote from that trade" I don't have to do shit"!  Yeah it was a down and dirty first try deal just to get Talbot out so Billy could put the entire episode behind him. I will repeat again Billy operates on more emotion that he does logical thinking.

This was our first indication that bill is not the best and brightest within the GM community

[Pewterschmidt]

The front office drama/term./settlements was strike two

 apathetic old core extensions was a foul tip 

your move this offseason bill

[TheGoosesAreLooses]

Guerin hears we have a number one center that is driving play without Kap, is second on the team in points and has top 3 Corsi and Fenwick on the team. Better low ball him and ship him out immediately!

I really hope Guerin pulls his head from his ass on this one and pays Rossi. We should have extended him last year but for some reason we like to hand contracts to vets with term but have no issue playing hardball with our own prospects developed in house. Guerin said prove it and now Rossi has, consistently. Bad optics for the team to trade that kid now. More than that what message does it send the rest of our prospects? "Work hard, succeed, do everything we ask and we will refuse to pay you when the time comes."

IMO this is probably the worst move they could make this summer outside sending Kap down the road. Good thing we still will have Bogosian, Trenin, and Foligno! 

[Imyourhuckleberry]

13 minutes ago, TheGoosesAreLooses said:

Guerin said prove it and now Rossi has, consistently. Bad optics for the team to trade that kid now.

It's a huge summer for Guerin, no doubt. Either Rossi gets a good contract with the Wild or they trade him for a strong C in return. Rossi's value has jumped considerably the last 2 seasons. I probably would have tried to extend him last year as well. Getting Kaprizov extended, and upgrading the top 6 certainly seem like they would be the priorities this summer.

Possible he already has had talks with teams for the summer, knowing he didn't have the cap situation to do what he wanted this season. Hard to say what players Guerin could trade for at the moment, but hopefully the summer will turn out better than many are anticipating.

Eventually a GM frequently "getting lucky", as someone else indicated, might suggest they actually know a little something about what they're doing.

[OldDutchChip]

1 hour ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

I liked watching Fiala as well. He's likely topped out as a fun offensive player who is a defensive liability. The Kings have the 2nd lowest goals against, but they give up goals at a rate like the Iowa Wild when Fiala is on the ice, which is why he has the worst +/- on the team.

Faber is one of the best young defensive players in the league, and Ohgren's limited AHL time suggests that an NHL scorer and 2-way player is about to be ready right when he's needed next season.

I was underwhelmed by the return because it was such an unknown, but that trade also allowed the Wild to come out of that draft with both Yurov and Ohgren rather than just 1 of them. Considering that Ohgren was the safer choice at that time, it's possible that making that trade for another 1st round pick in that draft was essential in building a future cup contender--and the Wild didn't have cap space to sign Fiala, so would have needed to get rid of someone.

That trade happened around the beginning of the Wild's "5-year plan". I absolutely wouldn't trade Faber with one of those 1st round selections back for Fiala right now, but I'm betting the Kings would for any combination of the 3.

Fiala can be dangerous, but hasn't scored more than 1 goal in a playoffs since 2020. He has 21 playoff games and 3 goals since then.

name one player after Fiala left (besides Kap) that was at or above a point per game? there hasn't been ONE -  for three years only Kap has done it

when was the last time the wild had a secondary line that caused an opponent to re-think or adjust their defense strategy? When Fiala was playing, and not since. If Kap is out there - all attention goes to him - they could care less about Rossi and Boldy. Fiala gave us that threat. 

let's be a bit more objective - fiala was a great player for us and gave our offense a balance, and once he left - that void is still felt. 

faber on the other hand is a good suter replacement and can eat a lot of minutes. he won't score at the elite pace, but comes in nicely at what suter produced.

ohgren is still raw and still need time. jury is still out.

fiala was a better fit for us from the skill allocation point of view and timeline - he and kaprizov are identical in age. it would be logical to build up the core with Kaprizov on one line and Boldy and Fiala on second. You can enhance that Kaprizov line and have a very nice balance.

[OldDutchChip]

38 minutes ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

It's a huge summer for Guerin, no doubt. Either Rossi gets a good contract with the Wild or they trade him for a strong C in return. Rossi's value has jumped considerably the last 2 seasons. I probably would have tried to extend him last year as well. Getting Kaprizov extended, and upgrading the top 6 certainly seem like they would be the priorities this summer.

Possible he already has had talks with teams for the summer, knowing he didn't have the cap situation to do what he wanted this season. Hard to say what players Guerin could trade for at the moment, but hopefully the summer will turn out better than many are anticipating.

Eventually a GM frequently "getting lucky", as someone else indicated, might suggest they actually know a little something about what they're doing.

Rossi is very likely to go. Billy cannot upgrade the top 6 with muscle and be handing out LT deals to both Rossi and Kap - that is just not going to be doable and that is his plan (look at his dealings - he wants to get bigger). He hasn't extended Rossi yet and doesn't look like that is his plan.

His thought process is likely to use Rossi to get someone he can plug into Top 6 that has that physical attribute and skill (doable or not - time will tell - likely not - we know Billy). 

If the trade does go through, we are likely to loose Ohgren along the way to beef up that offer. Yurov is there to make it more digestible. 

However, Billy will likely under-think this and we instead get - Rossi will be compulsively traded for Boeser and Nyquist or Nelson extended, leaving no dollars for Kap - which would be priceless planning but very much expected 💩

[mnfaninnc]

6 hours ago, OldDutchChip said:

you mean pairing Heidt with Boldy?

No, I was talking about MaRat. We never got to see what he looked like next to some nicely skilled wingers. Heidt, I believe, is still quite a bit away.

[mnfaninnc]

6 hours ago, M_Nels said:

I think it was Russo saying the Wild brass have been high on him for awhile.

Well, even if he wasn't, I certainly was. It was a great get....just when I got Covid 😎

[mnfaninnc]

3 hours ago, MacGyver said:

I'll always look at that deal as Billy doing Talbot dirty.  

I don't think any of that was about Talbot (who later said he never wanted to leave), I think this was more about putting an agent back in his place and sending a message to every other agent out there-don't shoot off your mouth publicly. 

But let's look at Faber, Goose, and a few other moves where he's come out right. If he's that emotional, how can things keep working out for him? Every GM has good moves and bad moves, but Billy's seem to weigh more good than bad for me, regardless of how it goes down. 

If you've got some insight on things working, and you've had your eyes on some of these guys, wouldn't you also claim it was lucky? Good card players do the same thing when they had already counted what they thought you had. I'm not saying that Shooter is brilliant, but he can quickly assess talent. If he were brilliant, he'd have no problem making creative deals which had more than 3 pieces in them. He'd also be able to play the salary cap game as one of the best. 

Here's the thing about Shooter, you can't trust everything he says publicly. A lot of it is authentic and genuine, but some of it is mentioned for a public persona. I do think he likes talent evaluation and has a very good eye for it and practices it often.

[MacGyver]

As you say you can't trust everything Billy says publicly. The same goes for players. A lot of what gets said is for our consumption. So Talbot saying he wanted to stay after he got thrown off the cliff is probably just saying the right thing. I don't recall exactly but Talbots wife even Tweeted something deragatory about the situation. I thought it was Talbot telling his agent he wanted a trade and the agent went to Billy and said Cam wanted out. Then the agent then went to the media and said I told Billy what we want and now Billy needs to do something. Thus the "I don't have to do shit" comment. As well as a comment of I'm paraphrasing here "If someone does not want to be here just let me know and I'll see you are not here" Poof Talbot was gone. 

Don't like Billy and it probably won't change. It's not even so much his hockey acumen or lack of it it's more him personally. I've worked for, with and around people like Billy before. Watching him and listening to him it's almost like I know him.  They are egotistical arrogant hot heads who make it a job just to be around them on a daily basis. How long was he here before he was investigated and we lost our very well liked player personnel guy. A guy who was liked and admired by the players so much that it was reported several had to be talked down after the event. Then Billy  goes dark for a couple months before resurfacing again. Billy has a history of various levels of turbulence around him his entire career. 

Billy has what you want in a player. He lacks the people skills for his current position. 

[1Brotherbill]

It isn't that the wild need centers it is more on the lines that they need people to win faceoffs.   When everyone of the people on your roster lose more than 50% of the draws it doesn't matter if they are a center or not.  The reason why teams that win the cup have more than 4 centers play significant minutes in the playoffs is because they win faceoffs.

When you win a faceoff you have the puck for the beginning of the players shift.  You don't have to spend half of your shift trying to get the puck back.  Win the draw go on the attack.  It really is that simple.  

For some reason the Wild as an organization have forgotten that simple aspect of hockey.

[1Brotherbill]

On 3/23/2025 at 6:20 PM, Citizen Strife said:

Here we go indeed....

Just pay the guy.

I really don't think it is going to be that easy.  Would you pay him 8 million?  I'm willing to bet that is going to be the offer sheet put in front of him.  Everyone in the league is going to have that kind of money.  He is young and skilled.  I doubt a GM on a team that is close to winning the Cup is going to say we really don't want to send our 1st and 3rd away for Rossi.  Yet if they don't and miss out on that Cup they might lose their job. 

I doubt he will be in St. Paul come October and I don't think the Wild will trade him, if they do trade him they will get less than a 1st and a 3rd.  Like the article said a trade would be a like for like swap which would be less than a 1st and a 3rd. 

People say Rossi isn't worth 8 million a year.  That is old salary cap talk.  The new increasing salary cap is going to make an 8 million dollar contract look middle of the pack.  

[Need4speed99]

At this point, who cares. The billy diehards on this site will find a way to love it. They are either liepold/gm apologists or can't see the patterns over the last gms... either way I'm wrong. Nothing changes. Follow that.

[Need4speed99]

On 3/23/2025 at 9:35 PM, Roy Randa said:

If the gm trades Rossi the owner should fire him on the spot

Sadly I think liepold is just as much to blame. Fans in the stands, is all he really cares about. Now he wants fans to fork over almost 400 mil to renovate his stadium. 

 

[Citizen Strife]

7-8m is going to be 2nd Center money after the increases in cap eventually.  Even if Rossi taps out where he is, he's a player with 50-60 pts and pretty defensively sound, and a gamer.  I think the biggest thing here is Ek's health.  It could just be a bad year.  Could just be things catching up with Ek.  But being unavailable is doing no one any favors.  Rossi's been an ironman, whether you think his play is worthy of a crazy contract number.  Asking Yurov to not only do what Rossi does, but eclipse that (and hope he does that right away) is probably asking for the moon.

Edited Tuesday at 09:38 AM by Citizen Strife

[FredJohnson]

Keep Rossi.

Trade KK97 - gets hurt too much. 😂

[raithis]

On 3/24/2025 at 6:33 PM, OldDutchChip said:

leaving no dollars for Kap - which would be priceless planning but very much expected 💩

💩

You just like to complain to complain. 

Kaprizov's contract doesn't run out until 2026-27.  All of the people you named would be signed under the 2025-26 salary cap.  The cap is projected to go up around another $9M for 2026-27 and Zuccarello's contract would also be up.

Assuming we don't re-sign Zuccarello after next year, our largest contracts we'd have to worry about would be Kaprizov and Gustavsson - and we should have around $26M available for both of them if we use every bit of cap space available to us in 2025-26.  If we don't, then we have even more space available.

Yes, small chunks of that might go to an AHLer or two who makes the team in 2026-27, but there still will be a lot to work with when we are looking to extend him beyond 2025-26.  And honestly if an AHLer or two is good enough to warrant time in the NHL, then Hartman or Trenin or Foligno probably gets traded or bought out and we have even more cap space to work with.

You're complaining makes no sense whatsoever.