Article: What Does Mats Zuccarello Bring To Save the Wild's Season?

[Tony Abbott]

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[Patrick]

If Zucc manages to defy age the top six should round into form. I would disagree that Kaprizov has excelled at carrying the puck this year. He looks slow and has been stood up and had the puck taken 1v1 by very average defenders on several occasions. Something unheard of in previous seasons.

Hopefully he was lazy in the summer and is still getting into shape. The alternative is that we have already seen his peak....yikes.

[MNCountryLife]

I'll come back to this one obvious fact.  We do not have a 2nd scoring line.  Kirill, Boldy and Ek are the only true top 6 forwards we have on the team.  Rossi is close.  So close that sometimes I include him... sometimes I don't.  Senko and Marcus are not close.  

Is Zuc a top 6 forward?  Who cares.  He is 38yo and his contract ends this year and the odds of retirement are through the roof.  Zuc is not a part of any team the Wild will have for a cup run.

We only have 4 of the 6 needed for two scoring lines.  BG's work is incomplete.  

 

[Scalptrash]

I hope he still has hands, because he won't have legs after missing training camp and all of this time. He's 38, another year older, and going to be very fragile while trying to get up to game speed. I wouldn't expect much for a while.

What's the word on our other savior, Sturm, the friendly ghost? Back spasms? He's going to be in and out the rest of his career.

[1Brotherbill]

Save the season?  I don't know about that.  But what it does is pushes a top six player further down the lineup.  So as a whole the team gets better.