Article: The Wild Still Haven't Fixed Their Fatal Flaw From the Playoffs Last Year

[Tom Schreier]

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[Imyourhuckleberry]

It's a bit confusing to argue that 76% PK is bad, but also suggest that a 25.9% PP conversion rate is bad--that power play effectiveness would be top 5 for the season. 76% PK is bad, so the inverse conversion rate for PP should be good.

Since November 1st, the Wild PK is at 82.3%, which is the 12th best rate in the league. The Wild PP has actually dipped to 19.2%, which is middle of the pack at 16th out of 32 teams when excluding October.

Obviously, the Wild would like be be above average on the Power Play, but they have already climbed out of the bottom 10 on penalty kills if you exclude the poor October start.

They could always be better, but they might not be below average now.

[MNCountryLife]

We shouldn't be looking at league averages for this.  Only 16 teams make the playoffs.  Average for the entire league isn't good enough.  We should strive to be above average of the teams that make the playoffs in both PP and PK.  I'm not sure where we land in rankings of teams that are currently in a playoff position.

A team can get a bit of puck luck as well that skews the stats.  That is why the eye test can be valuable.  The kings PK seemed to pass the eye test yet they are 21st in the league at 78%

The Wild are getting through the season by avoiding the PK problem by being very careful and not taking very many penalties.  That problem is not fixed.

The PP is better. But at 10 position I would want that ranking in the top 8 to consider it viable for the playoffs.

 

[MNCountryLife]

We have dynamic players.  I'm really not sure why we don't let them roam around more and create confusion.  We seem to have dedicated positions that make it easy for teams to zone up against us.  Kirill and Hughes love to circle the zone and create that confusion.  Let them do it.

[MNCountryLife]

Nice Article.  It is a big issue the Wild need to resolve.  I do not think it is a player personnel issue.  I think this is a design issue on both the PK and PP that is poorly implemented by the coaches.

[MNCountryLife]

[FredJohnson]

Rage Mode™️

[Patrick]

The problem with the PP won't be fixed until KK and Zucc stop chasing the perfect play. They chase highlights and forego the simple play. After a few weeks of terrible play the coaches rip them a new one (I'm assuming) and they start shooting the puck and the PP looks good again.  Not every goal needs to be a top 10 sports center highlight!

[Dis-allowed display name]

I was surprised.  This is one of those articles I click on expecting to totally disagree with and find it to have a legit premise.  

As far as last year, I thought we had very average goaltending in the playoffs if not less than average so that would help.  But yeah, the penalty kill could take it up a notch and the power play has been a bit stagnant lately.  

I have my fingers crossed that our goalies will get a couple shutouts this year to steal a win or two.

[TCMooch]

Interesting to see Robert Thomas on the trade big board over on the Athletic. I think he has a no trade clause but he is a bonafide top center for $8 million on a contract through 2031 at 26 years old.

I think the main thing preventing a deal happening would be St Louis wanted a lot in return as well as the fact they are in our division and are likely not wanting to trade within the division. This would be a HUGE get for the Wild but extremely unlikely as I don't see a deal being made unless we trade Yurov, Wallstedt, plus a bunch more of our top-top prospects/young players. Would also have to trade some salary player back as well to probably make cap hit work. Honestly I dont see a deal made in this unless we were willing to send over Boldy or Faber who are young on on extremely favorable contracts as well.

[TCMooch]

Not sure on cap space etc but maybe St. Louis would be interested in basically the rest of the Wild's top prospects and young guns so maybe a package of Yurov, Wallstedt, Jiricek, Benek, and Heidt?

[Pewterschmidt]

3 minutes ago, TCMooch said:

Not sure on cap space etc but maybe St. Louis would be interested in basically the rest of the Wild's top prospects and young guns so maybe a package of Yurov, Wallstedt, Jiricek, Benek, and Heidt?

Meatball has gone all-in with the Hughes Hail Mary™️(whether you realize/accept it or not) so makes sense to deal the remaining crumbs of our pick and prospect pool.  No sense of going mostly all-in. 
if this group doesn’t get-over this year or next Meatball knows he’ll be a special assistant to Pittsburgh’s GM in couple years, because it’s gonna be a wasteland in St. Paul

[Dis-allowed display name]

16 minutes ago, Pewterschmidt said:

Meatball has gone all-in with the Hughes Hail Mary™️(whether you realize/accept it or not) so makes sense to deal the remaining crumbs of our pick and prospect pool.  No sense of going mostly all-in. 
if this group doesn’t get-over this year or next Meatball knows he’ll be a special assistant to Pittsburgh’s GM in couple years, because it’s gonna be a wasteland in St. Paul

Reading this is like staring into the abyss because I agree with it.  I think after the Hughes deal we are a much better team, but the MN sports fan fatalism in me says it will be close but no cigar.  So BG will make a desperation trade to try to win it all.  But his history of asset management and decisions being what it is, turns out to be a whammy. 

I am occasionally wrong, but the smart money is always on betting against Minnesota pro sports GM's competency.  Showing that you can just get maximum out of him (Hughes trade, Kaprisov negotiation) without any pushback just makes it all the more frightening.

I also kinda feel like we have a decent roster that could now attract free agents because we have a solid foundation and I would want to see how guys like Yurov/Wally develop, clear out dead wood for cap space, and roll out the red carpet for free agents who see a future.

OR................you could push all the chips onto double zero and see what happens?

Edited 6 hours ago by Dis-allowed display name

[Pewterschmidt]

3 minutes ago, Dis-allowed display name said:

But his history of asset management and decisions being what it is, turns out to be a whammy. 

🚨 truth alarm 🚨 

let’s hope 43 mind melds with 97 & 12, otherwise all we’re going to get is 1.5 seasons of button hooks and blue line bobbles

[TCMooch]

1 hour ago, Pewterschmidt said:

Meatball has gone all-in with the Hughes Hail Mary™️(whether you realize/accept it or not) so makes sense to deal the remaining crumbs of our pick and prospect pool.  No sense of going mostly all-in. 
if this group doesn’t get-over this year or next Meatball knows he’ll be a special assistant to Pittsburgh’s GM in couple years, because it’s gonna be a wasteland in St. Paul

Agreed, might as well trade whatever else we have left of value for prospects if it ensures a top center or even more secondary scoring (like really good scoring i.e. 30 goals/season) outside of Boldy and Kap.

[MNCountryLife]

4 hours ago, Pewterschmidt said:

let’s hope 43 mind melds with 97 & 12, otherwise all we’re going to get is 1.5 seasons of button hooks and blue line bobbles

So what happens if they don't meld and this team falls out in the 1st round again this year and next?  Rebuild?  Free Agency?  GM change?  Coach Change?  What happens to Kirill?  What would a rebuild even look like?  

A lot of ifs start to jump off the page if things go south.

[Pewterschmidt]

6 minutes ago, MNCountryLife said:

So what happens if they don't meld and this team falls out in the 1st round again this year and next?  Rebuild?  Free Agency?  GM change?  Coach Change?  What happens to Kirill?  What would a rebuild even look like?  

A lot of ifs start to jump off the page if things go south.

Let’s not talk that way MNCL.  We’re still in the Hughes Hopium Den.  Even though he makes us smaller on the back end and at least two of the following will fill out our top 6: NoJo , Senko, a rookie C and VinHinny.

 There’s still time for Hughes to have a multiplier effect on this group (1+1=3).   If not then Hughes is the 2nd best d-man in the league the same way our prospect pool was #1.  

[MNCountryLife]

25 minutes ago, Pewterschmidt said:

Let’s not talk that way MNCL.  We’re still in the Hughes Hopium Den.  Even though he makes us smaller on the back end and at least two of the following will fill out our top 6: NoJo , Senko, a rookie C and VinHinny.

 There’s still time for Hughes to have a multiplier effect on this group (1+1=3).   If not then Hughes is the 2nd best d-man in the league the same way our prospect pool was #1.

It is an interesting "if".  I don't think it would be as bad as we think.  Likely we are watching Hughes walk away along with Bogo, Spurgeon, Senko, Zuc and Nojo.  It would leave us a ton of cap space. It's over $26M extra space and another $18M of projected cap increase.  That is $44M in cap space to play with.  Add in a 20 year old Benak, Hunt and Jiricek on low contracts and we still would have massive cap space to bring in 2 to 4 high profile players and I think we would still be an attractive location for players to move to. 

I guess my point was that even if things do go south... We still have a core of really good players.  We are not losing Ek, Kirill, Boldy, Brodin, Faber, Yurov and Mids.  I suppose a GM could go nuts... but why when you still have a solid core.  The team should have a solid future regardless of what Hughes does in 1.5 years.