Article: Wild Open Season With Dominating 5-0 Over Blues

[Thomas Williams]

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[M_Nels]

GUS WITH THE FIRST GAME SHUTOUT!!

Mojo haters in shambles! Dude had a great game and that line looked fantastic all night.

Ohgren invisible again, kid just isn't putting it together, expecting to see Yurov Saturday. Haighter looked solid in his limited ice time. Buium did well, no gamebreaking stuff but was pretty solid. Outside of the egregious turnover thought Jiri looked pretty good too. Once Brods is back hope they slide Mids down to 3rd pair with Bogo/Jiri, solid d-man but just isn't 1st/2nd pair caliber.

[Pewterschmidt]

31 minutes ago, M_Nels said:

GUS WITH THE FIRST GAME SHUTOUT!!

Mojo haters in shambles! Dude had a great game and that line looked fantastic all night.

Ohgren invisible again, kid just isn't putting it together, expecting to see Yurov Saturday. Haighter looked solid in his limited ice time. Buium did well, no gamebreaking stuff but was pretty solid. Outside of the egregious turnover thought Jiri looked pretty good too. Once Brods is back hope they slide Mids down to 3rd pair with Bogo/Jiri, solid d-man but just isn't 1st/2nd pair caliber.

I can see an every other game tryout situation for ogz and yurov.  Not sure Ogz needs to build any more confidence in Iowa.  He needs to prove to himself he’s ready to be an nhl’r , if in fact he is ready. If he proves he’s not I think bill runs out of patience and Ogz becomes part of a trade package. Looking forward to yurov next game

 Hater showed this fan enough to want to see more. Didn’t see too many hockey plays in limited TOI, but did see him refusing to be bullied and delivering some shots of his own.  That’s called ‘dawg’ and this kid just might have it in him

Edited 8 hours ago by Pewterschmidt

[Pewterschmidt]

We’re on pace to go 82-0!!!

[Imyourhuckleberry]

Great start! Nice to see multiple guys getting pucks behind Binnington.

Hopefully the Wild can find a lot more home success this season. Saturday's home ice opener should have plenty of energy as the Wild celebrate their first 25 years as a franchise. Exciting times ahead!

[Scalptrash]

3 hours ago, M_Nels said:

GUS WITH THE FIRST GAME SHUTOUT!!

Mojo haters in shambles! Dude had a great game and that line looked fantastic all night.

Ohgren invisible again, kid just isn't putting it together, expecting to see Yurov Saturday. Haighter looked solid in his limited ice time. Buium did well, no gamebreaking stuff but was pretty solid. Outside of the egregious turnover thought Jiri looked pretty good too. Once Brods is back hope they slide Mids down to 3rd pair with Bogo/Jiri, solid d-man but just isn't 1st/2nd pair caliber.

LOL, Johansson turned it over on his first two touches. Good thing he had an assist. I saw a more typical game from him.

Ohgren performed the exact same as Haight. No points and no goals allowed. A pretty typical expectation of the fourth line....especially in the first game, with two young prospects.

Buium got bullied all night and was visibly in pain. I was surprised when he came back out on his next shift after the cross check to his back. Also surprised Foligno returned. I won't be surprised at all to see either of them on the injury list.

A great start overall, keep it up. Let the young guys play until they start costing you games. It's the only way they will ever develop into NHLers.

 

[M_Nels]

6 minutes ago, Scalptrash said:

LOL, Johansson turned it over on his first two touches. Good thing he had an assist. I saw a more typical game from him.

Ohgren performed the exact same as Haight. No points and no goals allowed. A pretty typical expectation of the fourth line....especially in the first game, with two young prospects.

Buium got bullied all night and was visibly in pain. I was surprised when he came back out on his next shift after the cross check to his back. Also surprised Foligno returned. I won't be surprised at all to see either of them on the injury list.

A great start overall, keep it up. Let the young guys play until they start costing you games. It's the only way they will ever develop into NHLers.

 

Stats don’t tell the whole story scalp, eye test does. 
 

Mojo was flying all night, may be shocking but turnovers happen. KK had 2-3 himself. 
 

If you didn’t see a difference between Ohgren’s minutes and Haight’s we must’ve been watching a different game. 
 

Buium got bullied yes, he’s young and is still putting on muscle. It’ll be how he responds to the bullying. 
 

If we’re going off stats alone Bogo and Jiricek were all world defenders, both being a +3. 

[mnfaninnc]

I also thought Haight looked good and was more physical than when I saw him in Charlotte last year. I thought it was important for Hartzy to get off to a fast start, it was also important for OgZ to, but, he just wasn't very visible. To OgZ's credit, though, his value isn't necessarily on the scoresheet, it's doing the grunt work on his line, yet, he didn't do that either. 

I'm with P-coach, put in Yurov. 

One thing I think would be nice to see is if the Wild used their 3rd jersey on the road once in each central division arena this year. I think that would be something a little special, maybe conjure up the 2003 playoff luck. Maybe they should save it for playoffs on the road. If the players believe the jerseys have some luck, that's all that's needed. They are the most superstitious of all players in pro sports. 

Didn't Goose start out the '23-24 campaign with an SO against FL? IIRC, the Wild were also outplayed for long stretches where Goose saved the Wild's bacon. I hope this is not a repeat of that year.

5-0 tends to look like a Wild pounding. Yet, up 2-0, they gave up 2 PPs, and 12 shots before registering one of their own. This was hardly a Wild pounding, but more like 1 goalie on top of his game and the other goalie not. It will be interesting if this year for the Blues is a question of which Binnington will show up? 

I'm not trying to throw cold water on a nice win, but the Wild were clearly not 5 goals better than the Blues. Now let's go out and win the home opener on Saturday night!

One very nice thing was having 5 rookies in the lineup even though 1 of them was a backup 'tender. I thought Haight was the one who had adapted best to the increased speed of the game, which I found very surprising. The defense is going to quickly find out the speed to which they need to break out. Jiricek's turnover was an AHL pass that would work, he's got to level up in pace. 

On Jiricek's defense, he's at his best when he can step up and cancel out the incoming threat. The Wild don't really have another defender that plays that way. I thought that Bogosian struggled with Jiricek doing that, but I'll bet Brodin will make it look a lot easier. Stick Brodin with Jiricek for most games.

[Scalptrash]

13 minutes ago, M_Nels said:

Stats don’t tell the whole story scalp, eye test does. 
 

Mojo was flying all night, may be shocking but turnovers happen. KK had 2-3 himself. 
 

If you didn’t see a difference between Ohgren’s minutes and Haight’s we must’ve been watching a different game. 
 

Buium got bullied yes, he’s young and is still putting on muscle. It’ll be how he responds to the bullying. 
 

If we’re going off stats alone Bogo and Jiricek were all world defenders, both being a +3. 

Duh, I watched the game too. I was describing what I saw, not the stats. Your personal opinion of each player is pretty obvious when you describe how they played. I watch games objectively, not biased.

[M_Nels]

18 minutes ago, Scalptrash said:

Duh, I watched the game too. I was describing what I saw, not the stats. Your personal opinion of each player is pretty obvious when you describe how they played. I watch games objectively, not biased.

Well…I do too. I’m not a Mojo lover by any means but he did have a great game. Gotta give him credit. You think if Ohgren’s in that spot he performs as well? That line was solid all game.
 

For describing what you saw and not just stats you made sure to throw them in there talking about the 4th line even though Haight was the bright spot and clearly the better player. 

[Imyourhuckleberry]

47 minutes ago, M_Nels said:

Well…I do too. I’m not a Mojo lover by any means but he did have a great game. Gotta give him credit. You think if Ohgren’s in that spot he performs as well? That line was solid all game.
 

For describing what you saw and not just stats you made sure to throw them in there talking about the 4th line even though Haight was the bright spot and clearly the better player. 

Johansson had a fine game for a 4th line talent playing up the lineup. He did not have a special game. Pretty solid for him as he did complete a pass in the offensive zone on both of Hartman's goals. He didn't setup any easy goals, but he was part of a line that found the scoresheet multiple times, which was nice.

[Up North Guy]

3 hours ago, mnfaninnc said:

I also thought Haight looked good and was more physical than when I saw him in Charlotte last year. I thought it was important for Hartzy to get off to a fast start, it was also important for OgZ to, but, he just wasn't very visible. To OgZ's credit, though, his value isn't necessarily on the scoresheet, it's doing the grunt work on his line, yet, he didn't do that either. 

I'm with P-coach, put in Yurov. 

One thing I think would be nice to see is if the Wild used their 3rd jersey on the road once in each central division arena this year. I think that would be something a little special, maybe conjure up the 2003 playoff luck. Maybe they should save it for playoffs on the road. If the players believe the jerseys have some luck, that's all that's needed. They are the most superstitious of all players in pro sports. 

Didn't Goose start out the '23-24 campaign with an SO against FL? IIRC, the Wild were also outplayed for long stretches where Goose saved the Wild's bacon. I hope this is not a repeat of that year.

5-0 tends to look like a Wild pounding. Yet, up 2-0, they gave up 2 PPs, and 12 shots before registering one of their own. This was hardly a Wild pounding, but more like 1 goalie on top of his game and the other goalie not. It will be interesting if this year for the Blues is a question of which Binnington will show up? 

I'm not trying to throw cold water on a nice win, but the Wild were clearly not 5 goals better than the Blues. Now let's go out and win the home opener on Saturday night!

One very nice thing was having 5 rookies in the lineup even though 1 of them was a backup 'tender. I thought Haight was the one who had adapted best to the increased speed of the game, which I found very surprising. The defense is going to quickly find out the speed to which they need to break out. Jiricek's turnover was an AHL pass that would work, he's got to level up in pace. 

On Jiricek's defense, he's at his best when he can step up and cancel out the incoming threat. The Wild don't really have another defender that plays that way. I thought that Bogosian struggled with Jiricek doing that, but I'll bet Brodin will make it look a lot easier. Stick Brodin with Jiricek for most games.

I think patience will be required for Ohgren. He looked even worse last year but seemingly turned it on in Iowa (to be honest I did not see any of his AHL games). Sometimes guys tend to take a back seat when playing the NHL in their early careers. Hopefully that is the case for Ohgren and he shakes himself out of it.