Article: Can Matt Boldy Buck the NHL Aging Curve and Become A Superstar?

[Robert Brent]

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[Mateo3xm]

I think he definitely has potential to get 80pts and top out at 90pts but that depends on his consistency with who he’s playing with.

[Scalptrash]

Quote

the player’s consistency is holding him back

This, 100%. He has been inconsistent and has suffered slumps his entire pro and collegiate career, it's just who he is. Therefore, he's close to peaking....unless the Wild get Leon Draisaitl to center his line. Even then he wouldn't score 50 goals, but he'd have 100 points.

[MrCheatachu]

When centering a line with Kaprizov, Ryan Hartman was a 30/30 player.  When running point on PP1, Calen-Fucking-Addison was a 29 point (3g, 26a, 18 PPP with ALL of them being apples).

Problem with Boldy is he absolutely disappears for long stretches.  Last season MoJo had a damn similar stat line in March/April as Boldy did. 

When Boldy's on he can be an absolute menace, but when he's not he's passing up grade-A chances to shoot in favor of passing out of a high danger area or whiffing on 1-timers on the PP only to see the puck squirt out of the zone.

But 6'2 and 24 year old wingers don't grow on trees, and there are plenty of examples of guys peaking after 24/25 year seasons:
 

[mnfaninnc]

Boldy went through a really hard slump this year and disappeared along with Rossi when they were needed the most. But as I recall, a lot of this was bad luck, and the XGF were far higher than the conversion. I thought this was Boldy's most consistent year in playing, but not necessarily with the results.

I think had he been on Kaprizov's line all year, and Kaprizov was healthy (along with Ek) he would have had more points. I think Kaprizov would have made certain he would have had some gimme assists and gimme tap in goals. 

And, with some of those gimmes, they probably come at a time when Boldy needs confidence. Confidence is usually the #1 thing holding players back, and provides inconsistencies. Last offseason, Boldy concentrated solely on hockey, not golf. I thought it showed. If he does that again this season, I think he'll be even better. 

But, let's take Ek as an example. Offensively, he didn't hit his stride until much later and was still improving until his injury plagued last year. I think we can see that from Boldy too. Just as we look for more from Rossi, I think the same can be true for Boldy too. 

My prediction: 80+ points this year, crossing the 30 goal mark (which he did last season if you include playoffs).

[Imyourhuckleberry]

Brock Boeser had the best season of his career, by far, at age 26. There's no reason to think that Boldy cannot have a significantly better statistical season if he has a full season playing opposite Kaprizov. Topping 40 goals is a pretty tall order for most, but reaching 50+ assists seems attainable.

Only Gaborik(42), Staal(42), and Kaprizov have reached 40+ goals for the Wild. There are a lot of years where players with 30 goals or fewer have led the Wild.

Kaprizov has hit 40+ goals 3 times and was on pace for 40 both of this other seasons where he played 55 or fewer games. Boldy and Kaprizov both tallying 5 goals in their 6 playoff games last season is very promising for the future of those 2 on the same line, if that is what Hynes decides to do.

[Dean]

Another list to tell us are future is bright yet the franchise’s entire existence has proven otherwise . Same bs as the Fletcher years and same strategy. Mediocre moral victories. Young guns that don’t get the wild over the hump but go on to help other teams win cups. 5 guys don’t make a team. Goal tending is unproven, defense core is now unproven , top 6 is average and bottom 6 is average. The gm can’t get good free agents , make a franchise defining trade or a trade that helps win a round ,  devalues assets, can’t run a front office without drama and hires a coach with a  terrible losing record in the playoffs  A team trying to win a playoff round gets a coach that can’t win a playoff round. . Kappy hasn’t singed and Rossi hasn’t been sorted out .  When and if kappy signs it’ll be one of the highest paid contracts. So we all know what future excuses will be. Future is bright but we have no money and our over the hill super star is injured all the time  . We aren’t Vegas or Florida . We won’t get a Marner or an Eichel to fill in for krill because he’s on ir . Nobody worth anything will come here . Billy is incapable of surrounding kappy with talent that’s going to get us anywhere in the playoffs 

we waited 6 years for Billy to sit on his hands and do nothing. He talks a big game then moves the goal posts. . Absolute joke of a franchise. the fact they keep using the future is bright bs year after year and people buy it is to funny. Prove it. Prove any of these fantasies 

[TCMooch]

Holy shit Dean. I thought I was depressing when it came to talking about the Wild 😝 

[1Brotherbill]

Boldy is a 50/50 guy.  Settle on a solid line and it will show.  I think the goal he scored in Vegas proved to him and the league he is legit a top forward in the league.

The graph of declining production with age is kind of skewed when you think about it.  As a player ages his production drops.  That is not a secret.  However, when the wall is met the production drops off considerably.  So if a player has of shelf life lets say 28, where he won't play as a 29 year old his last season is usually terrible.  These players cause the graph to drop as it does.  However, players have produced fantastically into there 30's often and will continue to do so in the future.   Boldy is one of those players.  

[Burnt Toast]

7 hours ago, Dean said:

Young guns

I’d say the biggest differences with past Wild team’s “window of contention” are… 

#1 Having a superstar player KK

#2 Having one of the top prospect pools over multiple years. 
#3 Having a GM that’s won 4 Stanley Cups both as a player and in management. 
That being said there’s a lot of improvement needed/developed/acquired, then throw in a pinch of good old fashioned luck and we can be in the conversation. 

[mnfaninnc]

As I was perusing the national rumors, this theme came up: Wild aren't close on a contract with Rossi. Wild aren't close on a contract with Kaprizov. 

Is this just to stir up nervousness among the fanbase? 

Maybe everyone leaves on vacation and will be back sometime in August? The message on Guerin's desk is "call me if Kirill gets back into town, or if an offersheet is put on Rossi?"

Really, though, it's just 2 pieces of business left, that can certainly be done right before training camp, can't it? 

Yeah, 2 pieces of business which might just be the 2 most important pieces for the franchise in several recent years! As TMQ used to say, "this is no time to panic, there'll be plenty of time for that later!" 

I just would have thought that 1 of these pieces would have been closer than far apart as reported. Perhaps the far apart has more to do with the decision on how much time Kaprizov will commit before he's done? 

[Pewterschmidt]

9 hours ago, Burnt Toast said:

#2 Having one of the top prospect pools over multiple years.

Ok fine.  Is this the season it’s fair to expect we start seeing prospects (Rossi is only one so far, and we’re in year 7 of the billjudd regime) contribute at the NHL level?   Or does the “top prospect” line get repeated into perpetuity?

[Pewterschmidt]

39 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

Is this just to stir up nervousness among the fanbase? 

Hockey writers need clicks (to sell ads) in summer time too.  
 

Similar to the Wild top prospect pool b.s.   click bait gonna click

[mnfaninnc]

38 minutes ago, Pewterschmidt said:

Hockey writers need clicks (to sell ads) in summer time too.  
 

Similar to the Wild top prospect pool b.s.   click bait gonna click

I guess Russo needs it coming back from he & Panther's Europe trip. Although, these sites are merely quoting him from a podcast he was a guest on.

[Burnt Toast]

38 minutes ago, Pewterschmidt said:

(Rossi is only one so far

This is the transition year I’ve been waiting for. Top picks have to hit over the next 3 years, and there’s a bunch of them. (5 first rounders.) 2027 is when I will make my evaluation on what the “plan” looks like. As far as additional prospects I include Faber and Boldly as developed and integrated into roles for the team. Also Mids has worked himself  into a top 4 D spot, a player we picked up at value. Should be an interesting year and at least some of the questions surrounding the new players will be answered. I wouldn’t want to see our drafting guys become part of a new “The Judd’s’ Hockey Show”. 

[Will D. Ness]

This is year #3 of the "This will be the Boldy breakout season" for me.  

I'm still 100% on Boldy.  The maturity and confidence are slowly moving forward.  

Yeah it feels somewhat like molasses and maybe Boldy's deliberations are a product of this new generation's coddling nature, but the talent is there.  It's slowly being revealed like some sort of burlesque tease but hey maybe 25-26 will be the moment we have all been waiting for.

If he can reach that point where he can be that (homage to Protec) North American power forward and drive a line that plays more North/South game?  Maybe we can release KK97 back into the Minnesota Wild and play a more wide open game with a couple of Russian comrades?

[SkolWild73]

I think Boldy will be just fine.  Not sure, he will ever be a 50/50 player, but a player that can hit point per game status is realistic.  Only around 30 players do that each year.  Since Boldy is just starting his age 24 season, he still has time.  There have been plenty of players that did not do it until their age 25 season or later, such as Bratt, Filip Forsberg, Nylander, Necas, Stone, Huberdeau, Reinhart, etc.

[IllicitFive]

Of course the hope is he can become a superstar. Can you imagine having a 40 g 40 a guy at 7 mil? That would be great. Wondering how this sits with others, but to me he has a similar, albeit, higher skill level, type game to Hartman. Plays much better when a bit on the edge or pissed off nature and has a "Well F it, I will do it myself" feel to his game. He has shown he is strong, can drive the puck to the net and has good to very good hands as well as pin someone or outright plaster someone to the boards. Like we saw with Hartman in the playoffs, when they drive play it leads to great chances. But also like Hartman, Boldy can be a bit over aggressive or maybe just sloppy and get bit penalty wise. Both Hartman and Boldy led the team with 24 penalties, Moose had 23. Perhaps what we saw in the playoffs with Boldy will prove to himself, that he can take over a game and push him to be more of a driver instead of waiting for the play to come to him.

As far as the Kap contract stuff, I have to imagine this is a load of nothing for now. Do we know where Kap is? I am guessing seeing family in Russia and enjoying some time off. If we get a week into training camp and the story of "they are far apart" still exists, then I will worry. I bet this is for clicks, because well, we are MN sports fans after all, and we inherently have a feeling of things going poorly or down right badly. I may be naive but I won't panic until Oct 1st, then I will go full meltdown haha.

[SkolWild73]

Off topic, but this link is for you MnfaninNC.

 

https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/minnesota-wild/latest-news/minnesota-wild-youngster-is-having-a-big-offseason

[Enforceror]

24 minutes ago, SkolWild73 said:

Off topic, but this link is for you MnfaninNC.

 

https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/minnesota-wild/latest-news/minnesota-wild-youngster-is-having-a-big-offseason

I saw that and had the same thought. Dude looks jacked. Sure hope he can make an impact this year.