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We're dinging Marco Rossi for playing well with Kaprizov, now? Isn't that what we've wanted a center to do?13 points
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To be fair, most teams are not well prepared for the loss of their top d man and their top center at the same time.11 points
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I think you are the one who proposed putting Hartman on the 2nd line in place of Nojo. Seems like a no brainer to me. Also, Trenin would do better on the 3rd with Foligno and Freddy. Nojo goes to the 4th line and either sinks or swims.9 points
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I'm not familiar with The Athletic's Sean McIndoe, who ranks the Wild just outside of the top 5, primarily because they were not a playoff team last year. The last part of his writing is what I wanted to share. Add Buium, Yurov, and a free agent addition to a Kaprizov extension, and they could become that contender they haven't been for much of their history.8 points
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Chicago should worry about Bedard wanting to move to Minnesota.8 points
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Hey guys...wanna say Rossi is just a passenger anymore?8 points
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Rossi’s getting $5.5M AAV at a minimum. Those dreaming he’s coming in at below $4 M get ready for a reality check. He’s steadily getting better and he’s getting his money. His agent will see to that. He’s a top 10 pick first round center. My guess is he’s already turned down the Wild’s low end offer. What’s puzzling is the vibe I get that BG doesn’t like the player he is. What’s not to like? He’s motivated, a hard worker, goes into the corners and is fearless in front of the net. He’s also extremely skilled, has a high hockey IQ and anticipates plays with the best of them. I promise you I’m not his agent, just an impressed fan.8 points
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It's less money than Matt Beniers just got. Less than Elias Lindholm's deal. It will almost certainly be lower than what Sam Bennett is going to get from Florida. Hell, it's barely more than Chandler Stephenson just got this summer. I think if you pay Rossi like a 2C now it pays off huge.8 points
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We wrote about Kirill Kaprizov's incredible start on Thursday. Still, when a player goes out and drops a three-point night to extend their multi-point game streak to seven... what else can you do but marvel about him all over again? Kaprizov is refusing to slow down, adding two goals and an assist in the Minnesota Wild's 5-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning. The effort bumped Kaprizov back into the NHL lead in points (21), extended his multi-point game streak to seven, and gave Minnesota their sixth win in the past seven games. We have to add an addendum to Thursday's piece concerning Kaprizov's start: "Dolla Bill Kirill" is tied with Leon Draisaitl (2021-22) and Thomas Vanek (2013-14) for the fourth-most points through 10 games in the Salary Cap Era. Only Draisaitl and Connor McDavid have had more. Look further down the list, and you'll see titans of the game like Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby looking up at Kaprizov. That boggles the mind, and Kaprizov's hot start registers as incredible, even for someone who has spent years watching Malkin and Crosby night in and night out. "I think it just proves how good he is, how special he is," Bill Guerin marveled to Hockey Wilderness following Kaprizov's three-point outing. "You don't just do that by accident, either. You see good players get off to strong starts and things like that, but... 10 games, that's a good-sized segment. So have that, not just consistency, but high-level and produce like that is amazing." No one could ever accuse Kaprizov of flying under the radar. People have considered him among the NHL's most dynamic wingers since entering the league. Still, he seems to be garnering a new level of attention league-wide this season. Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman pinpointed him as a Hart Trophy contender two weeks ago. The Athletic's Dom Luszczyszyn and Sean Gentille recently floated a trial balloon take that Kaprizov may have surpassed last season's Hart runner-up Nikita Kucherov as the league's best winger. And why not? It shouldn't be lost on anyone that Kaprizov's two-goal, one-assist game on Friday is an identical stat line to his October 24 showing at Tampa Bay. In head-to-heads, Kaprizov has a 6-2 point advantage over his countryman Kucherov. If we want to keep comparing the two superstar Russians, we can point out that Kaprizov's seventh-straight multi-point game matches Kucherov's career-high streak. The two are tied for the fourth-longest such streak of the Salary Cap Era. Stamkos, McDavid, and Vincent Lecavalier are the only players who can claim a longer one... and if Kaprizov extends his to eight games on Sunday night, that list of players goes down to one. Kaprizov's six power-play points tied him for seventh in the NHL, and he's been even better at 5-on-5 play. His 12 points at 5-on-5 sit on top of the NHL (along with Sam Reinhart), and it's gone a long way to his 14-4 scoring advantage over his opponents when he's on the ice. Only Reinhart is enjoying a higher 5-on-5 goal differential than Kaprizov's plus-10. At this point, what else can you say? Wild fans are watching the best player in franchise history at the height of his powers, and he's putting the rest of the hockey world on notice. It's been a treat to watch, and while 10 games is a good chunk of the season, we've got a lot of time left for Kaprizov to amaze us even more.7 points
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Kirill and Ek are two players with an incredible desire to win. Both are making the players around them better. Sure is fun to watch. Inspiring an entire team to be better.7 points
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I said it the other day. Rossi should get a nice extension with no special clauses to accompany the deal. I would have hated getting Laine the injury-prone, primadonna, head-case. Thank goodness his ego and attitude closed the door on GMBG. Talk about dodging a bullet. Guerin should be ashamed. Rossi turned it up a notch and has been solid. Get him extended. Forget about trading him. Cross-eyed Bill does owe Rossi a solid contract, he's earned it and proven he's valuable. He's also making Guerin look stupid so enjoy that part TMooch.7 points
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KK97 is on pace for 152 points, nearly 2 PPG pace. Rossi is a PPG player as 1C. Keep Rossi where he is and let them cook. And pay Rossi what he's worth: no trades, no offer sheets. Kap has always been good, but he's at another level this year. If size is really required, swap Ek and Rossi. Kap may not score as much, but Rossi and Boldy will make up for it...7 points
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Exactly. Again, aside from potential centers what exactly do the Wild have? Has Rossi done anything but demonstrate he will continue to improve and be the best player he can be?7 points
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7 points
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If Rossi ends up scoring 60-65 points in a second season with how little PP time he gets, you keep him and pay him and act as if Yurov isn't some second coming until he proves it like Rossi just did.7 points
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Some of what you said is somewhat true but do you remember what line he was on last year when he scored 21 goals and 40 some points as a rookie? I believe he was one of the highest scoring rookies the Wild has ever had. Another noteworthy stat was he was 2nd on the team last year in 5v5 points. You didn’t seem to know that by your comments. As a 2nd year player he’s doing fantastic. The kid has fantastic potential and he’s been showing it for a while now . On a Stanley Cup team he’s not a first line C but he hasn’t even entered the start of his prime years.7 points
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Rossi had as many 5-on-5 goals as Brock Boeser and Matt Boldy last year, it doesn't surprise me in the least that he's been productive this year.7 points
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I'm sold on him too. He's chippy, he goes into the corners, he fights for position in front of the net, has good vision...7 points
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Even if the Wild aren't totally sold on him, sign him to a 2 year bridge deal to at least get some cost certainty. Personally I'm sold on Rossi already so I feel they should offer him a 5-7 year deal right now.7 points
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Gus is deserving of at least one shut-out so far this year.7 points
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I don't think they've even hit their stride yet. Some plays look a little disjointed, lots of missed opportunities. Will be fun to watch as chemistry grows.7 points
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The Minnesota Wild's most controversial offseason move wasn't a free agent signing, a trade, or a draft pick. Even if the Wild had the resources to make such a splash, a move like the rumored Patrik Laine trade may still have taken a backseat to a simple lineup card change. John Hynes almost rode his top line of Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek, and Matt Boldy to the playoffs. Playing 375 minutes -- almost all down the stretch -- these three out-scored opponents by a 30 to 18 margin. That plus-12 goal differential was tied with the Toronto Maple Leafs' Auston Matthews - Mitch Marner - Matthew Knies line and the Vancouver Canucks' Brock Boeser - J.T. Miller - Pius Suter line for the ninth-best mark in the NHL. That line was such a cheat code that it seemed unthinkable to break it up, even for lineup balance. But Hynes did, moving Eriksson Ek and Boldy to their own line, then ultimately placing 2020 first-rounder Marco Rossi in the top spot between Kaprizov and winger Mats Zuccarello. On one hand, Rossi was a highly-touted prospect the Wild likely drafted to handle this exact role. On the other hand, the Wild never seemed to warm up to him fully. Even though he scored 21 goals as a rookie, they didn't seem to see Rossi's ceiling as a top-line center. He had a big opportunity to keep proving his worth. Rossi might be soft-spoken, but his first five games have made a huge statement. His five points have him tied with Zuccarello for third on the team, behind only Kaprizov (eight) and Boldy (six). All five of his points have come at 5-on-5, where he sits in sole possession of the team lead. Rossi entered Sunday tied for the eighth-most 5-on-5 points in the NHL. There are only two other centers ahead of him: the Vegas Golden Knights' Jack Eichel and the Florida Panthers' Sam Reinhart -- and Reinhart only plays the pivot part-time. The secret to Rossi's success? It's more of the same stuff that led to his breakout last year -- and mirrors what led to Eriksson Ek's rise as a goal-scoring presence in the NHL. He can go to the net, find the soft spots in the defense, and good things happen. Look at his shot map (courtesy of Evolving-Hockey), and you'll find that nine of his 12 shot attempts at 5-on-5 have come within 20 feet of the net. Six of them have come within 11 feet or fewer. However you want to measure it, Rossi is getting high-quality chances at 5-on-5 unlike anyone else on the team and few in the NHL. Natural Stat Trick has him tied for tenth in the NHL with nine high-danger shot attempts at 5-on-5, which matches totals from Eichel, Nikita Kucherov, and Mikko Rantanen. Evolving-Hockey has him in the team lead with 1.90 expected goals in all situations, not just 5-on-5. That's more than Kaprizov and Boldy, despite getting fewer minutes and half the power play time. That's impressive, but so is Rossi's performance as a cohesive member of the top line. So far, the trio has out-scored opponents by a 5-to-1 margin at 5-on-5, and while scoring 83% of the goals or so won't continue, their controlling 58.6% of the expected goals share should keep them firmly in the positive. They're also carrying over their success from last season when they out-scored opponents 19 to 13 at 5-on-5. Add that all up, and this top line is up 24 to 14 -- a 63.2% of the goal share that actually (and slightly) bests the Kaprizov - Eriksson Ek - Boldy line from last season (62.5%). You aren't likely to see Rossi do the Holy Nordy, did you see that?! kind of plays that Kaprizov and Boldy make, at least not yet. But he's so good at doing small things to keep plays alive, whether it's his positioning, winning board battles, or making a heads-up play to keep the puck in the offensive zone. Watch Rossi's goal against St. Louis, only don't pay attention to the end of the play. Look at everything he does before Kaprizov puts the puck on his stick. He pressures Colton Parayko and forces him to dump the puck along the boards to Nick Leddy, who promptly turns it over to Kaprizov. It takes Rossi no time to change directions and get into a shooting position, which he stays in. He hangs in a soft spot nine feet from the net, where he's untouched. Elite hockey sense is going to get you a lot of goals that look almost effortless. In some senses, this is five games, a small sample size. At the same time, the Wild drafted Rossi to be a scoring center, and he had that pedigree at juniors and the AHL. He had success with this line last season, and it's unsurprising if he made a major leap in the offseason, considering the tremendous growth he showed after the summer of 2023. We may be watching a legit Top-Line Center taking his final form right before our eyes.7 points
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Wait...did I miss something? Are we calling the Larsson elbow dirty now, because even with my homer glasses on, I don't think it was an intentional elbow. Looks to me he played the puck off the wall and his elbow caught ekker on the follow through. Really? There was a 4 minute minor on that one because of the blood with 4:03 left in a game...that you've got a 2 goal lead in. You let the scoreboard do the talking (and a goalie goal) on that one, because that double minor was a dagger to close out the game. Honestly, those two examples are not great ones that I want to see gloves on the ice. If anything, the wild are finally demonstrating some discipline. That reputation they had sure didnt help them out in the Dallas series...7 points
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Duhaime wasn't afraid to hit and I liked him just fine, but that was a better play than I ever saw from Duhaime. Lauko is an easy player to like, especially given that he can convert a play like that!7 points
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Gus Bus owns. Playing well to start the year and get's a goal. I can go to bed happy.7 points
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7 points
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Spurgeon's too busy taking shots from areas where he can get goals.7 points
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6 points
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This is impossible because we signed Hartman, Foligno and Zuccy to extensions. Or so I've been told.6 points
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Spurgeon looked solid against Toronto. I like his improvement game over game. I have optimism that he will return to his former self. Great to watch. His overtime play was fantastic. He still has speed and awareness. If he can stay in the lineup he will add a lot to our D-core this year.6 points
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Just like CS, I think being reasonably healthy is the main thing and the red flag here is that depth is not their strong suit especially at forward. I like the way the team is blocking shots and packing the middle of the ice. The red flag here, however, is that sometimes blocked shots lead to injuries. This season's version of the Wild has been to counter score quickly when someone else takes the lead. The red flag here is if this is sustainable? Last season, we had a terrible time scoring 1st. This season seems to be different in that respect, and I think it should be a stressed goal. It is always easier to play with a lead, something that adds confidence to the team and cuts down on injuries. I don't mention the stats here, nor the underlying numbers. It's not that I don't believe in them, it's just that right now, the eye test is much better. The numbers are to goofy this early to mean anything. Another flag, I'm not sure what color it is, is that our schedule to this point has been Eastern Conference heavy. To me, the Eastern Conference is probably the better conference at this time. Banking points against those teams is very good. You could say something similar about our road/home ratio too. Coming up big in that long 7 game road trip probably puts us in the playoff hunt with 5 games to go. I think it is still way too early to believe anybody's % on playoff odds. I said this a little while ago, but you cannot make the playoffs with a good October and November. However, you can miss the playoffs with these as bad months. Just like in a game, chasing teams ahead in the standings is far more exhausting than having the lead. The banked points can actually help you stay within yourself and not try to do too much, keeping you healthier. My biggest red flag, though, is what happens when Kaprizov isn't scoring 2 or more points a night? We've enjoyed 7 in a row. This, to me, is the greatest reason for our record. We need to have improvement throughout the other lines so that they can provide the vital secondary scoring. One last item. Hynes. Last night and on some previous nights, Heinzy makes some very subtle line switches through the game. Sometimes it's dictated by special teams screwing up the lines, but moving Trenin to 4th line and elevating Hartman to 3rd line worked well. So did Rossi moving late to Boldy's line. In comparing this with Evason, he didn't really do this. Hynes hasn't hit the line blender as much as Boudreau, but he has a feel that shouldn't go unnoticed. He won't get every switch right, but I do applaud him for doing it.6 points
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You can't take October away from the Minnesota Wild. John Hynes emphasized the need for a fast start for his team after coming onto the job mid-season once the Wild stumbled to a 5-10-4 record. As Banner from "Arrested Development" once infamously read... Nine games into the season, the Wild have a 6-1-2 record. They have as many points in the standings (14) as they had through 19 games under Dean Evason last year. Those points are in the bank, and if we're using the playoff cutoff from last year (98), Minnesota is already 14% of the way to the playoffs with about 90% of the season to go. But this is a sports team in Minnesota; it's the land of 10,000 Shoes To Drop. If you're a pessimist, there's no shortage of red flags for this Wild team. It might surprise you that the Wild's opponents are outshooting them at 5-on-5 this season (200 to 201). In terms of overall shot attempts, Minnesota's also well below 50% (392 to 445) and is only barely on top in terms of expected goals (16.0 to 14.5). You can get out-shot, out-attempted, and even out-chanced and still make the playoffs. The Washington Capitals did it last year, and their numbers were worse than Minnesota's. But it's tough. You need killer special teams, some mojo that doesn't run out in the regular season, or, preferably, both. And even then, your luck tends to run out come playoff time. The Wild have both things on their side right now. They've got a top-10 power play, the fifth-highest shooting percentage at 5-on-5 (11.5%), and the fourth-highest save percentage (93.5%). That works out to a PDO (shooting plus save percentages) of 105.0, the third-highest in the NHL. Teams at the extreme ends of the PDO spectrum tend to regress to the league average of 100. So what happens when things start to break the other way? The Wild might have the classic red flags of a team that will regress, but there's reason to think it might not be so bad. As always, we're dealing with some small sample sizes that produce weird results in the early part of the season. In this case, events have conspired to make Minnesota's underlying numbers look worse. Remember, the Wild went their first six games without trailing. They've trailed for only 45 minutes and 50 seconds this season, the lowest amount in the league. Only the Vegas Golden Knights have spent more time in the lead. This is where score effects come in. Teams in the lead tend to hang back and settle for defending, while the trailing team pushes to create more offense. Over a full season, when most teams spend about 1000 minutes or more leading and trailing, these effects tend to make only a minor impact. But when we're talking, say... nine games, for example... these score effects can skew things significantly. We're seeing that with the Wild right now. Let's take a look at what the Wild's 5-on-5 possession numbers are before and after adjusting for score effects, which Evolving-Hockey helpfully does: Corsi For Percentage: Unadjusted: 46.8% (25th in NHL) Adjusted: 50.2% (21st) Shots For Percentage: Unadjusted: 49.9% (18th) Adjusted: 52.6% (9th) Expected Goals Percentage: Unadjusted: 50.8% (13th) Adjusted: 53.1 (9th) Once those score effects are accounted for, Minnesota looks much more solid. The Wild pop over 50.2% at controlling shot attempts. However, they have built a reputation for dominating shot quality for over a decade. Once we account for score effects, they're doing it again, and that's very good news for the State of Hockey. Last season, nine of the top-10 teams in (score-adjusted) Expected Goals Percentage at 5-on-5 made the playoffs. Over the last 10 full 82-game seasons, 85 of the 100 teams in the top-10 of Expected Goals Percentage made the playoffs. Better yet, they've done it while missing six games from Jared Spurgeon, their best 5-on-5 player last year (57.8% xGF%). Having Spurgeon back and healthy raises the ceiling for their season. These reasons and the points the Wild have already banked are why Evolving-Hockey projects them to have a 79.9% chance of making the playoffs. There will be times when the shooting goes cold, the goaltending gets a bit leaky, and the power play slumps. Still, Minnesota (when healthy) has enough going for it to believe that it will make the playoffs.6 points
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Middleton was one of the players who needed a bounce back. The fact that he went from near worst in +/- last year with only Freddy being worse, to being tied at +5 or +6 (I think +6) tied with Kap is pretty telling. It is becoming clearer week by week that the supposed Iowa defenders are years away from meaningful action or hope of unseating the top-4. I supported the extension because the Wild needed Top-4 quality guys due to Brodin and Spurgeon aging out eventually. With Buium really the only elite level prospect, the options were to keep Middleton or pay an arm and a leg via trade or free agency. Middleton DIDN'T cost an arm and a leg, and has done pretty damn well in the first set of games. Sometimes, it's further evidence that GMs and coaches..."probably" know hockey and its players better than we do. Shock I know.6 points
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Based on last game, Im thinking Zucci might be our new enforcer.6 points
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Pay the man his money. I love how we act like we have too many centers based upon what prospects may or may not turn out. Gamethread?6 points
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Marat is showing glimpses of talent, but no way swapping him with Rossi gets the same result. While ideally Rossi isn't our fix at 1C, and probably isn't a $7m player, he's showing he creates scoring and is not just on coattails. I'd do everything I could to keep him via a mid-range bridge contract ~$5m. He's taken the feedback. Bulked up. And continues to show very high hockey IQ that was advertised.6 points
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Pre-season, Evolving-Hockey projected him at 7-years; $5.7 AAV. I'd be comfortable doing that at $7 million today. Top-six; If Yurov's the shit, move Ek back to Line 3 and do backflips.6 points
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If you're looking for one piece of 20-year-old pop culture to describe the Minnesota Wild's start to the season, it's easily Michael Scott looking stone serious into the camera and declaring, "No question about it, I am ready to get hurt again." It's October 23, just six games into the season, but you can unironically look at this team and go, The Wild are a wagon. It's not even just you buying in on this. The media is in on them. The players are in on themselves. And, frankly, until they spend a second trailing on the scoreboard, why shouldn't they be? You can point to several reasons for the Wild's strong start. Their top two lines are out-scoring opponents at an 11-to-1 clip at 5-on-5 through six games. Minnesota's power play is just that: powerful, converting at a 33.3% clip that's fourth in the NHL. But the biggest reason is the guy between the pipes: Filip Gustavsson. The "Gus Bus" is traveling at a pace not seen since 1994, and he's not just kept Minnesota in games but has allowed them to win comfortably. Five starts in, and the 26-year-old goaltender still hasn't surrendered three or more goals in a game. His last four starts have seen him hold his opponents to one goal during regulation. We know a small sample size when we see one here at Hockey Wilderness, and yes, of course, these are small sample shenanigans. There are no .950 goalies in the NHL, and definitely not in recent years, where the league save percentage has dropped below .900. Still, it makes you wonder: Is the Gus Bus back? Can the Wild trust him to lead this team back to the postseason after being perhaps the biggest reason they missed last year? Five games isn't enough to determine that, but what about 85? That's the number of starts that Gustavsson has in a Wild uniform, and in those two-plus seasons, the Swedish netminder has put up some of the best numbers in the NHL. Here are the top-10 goalies (minimum 2000 minutes) in save percentage at that time: Linus Ullmark, .927 Connor Hellebuyck, .921 Jeremy Swayman, .917 Ilya Sorokin, .917 FILIP GUSTAVSSON, .917 Igor Shesterkin, .915 Joey Daccord, .914 Jake Oettinger, .914 Semyon Varlamov, .913 Juuse Saros, .912 That's good company. Really good company. The problem is that Gustavsson's numbers have oscillated between extremes. A .931 save percentage in 2022-23 is doing some heavy lifting for him, and his save percentage from last season drags him down. Hockey coaches value consistency, and Gustavsson's season-long slump devalues an otherwise top-10 goalie performance from the past several years. So it's not surprising to see Gustavsson on a heater early in the season. He's done it before, for longer. Until he proves he can be consistent, the question will always be whether he can limit the damage when things start going wrong. That was a huge problem last season. He was prone to bad showings and meltdowns, where Gustavsson lost his composure and control of the game. We can find several examples of this. Against the Toronto Maple Leafs on October 14, he surrendered three goals in 2 minutes, 20 seconds in the third period of a game where Minnesota lost 6-4. The Wild had to overcome a 3-0 first-period deficit on November 4 against the New York Rangers after he allowed three goals in the game's first seven minutes. They dropped two crucial divisional games to the Nashville Predators, with the game turning on a brief but impactful Gustavsson meltdown. On January 25, the Predators erased a 1-0 lead heading into the third period with two goals in 35 seconds. The Wild lost 3-2. How do you top that? By allowing two goals in eight seconds on February 29, which turned a one-goal lead in the first period to the spark for a 6-1 blowout. We're not seeing that this year, even in moments where Wild fans held their breath, waiting for things to unravel. In the St. Louis Blues game, Mathieu Joseph broke the scoring open with under 10 minutes left to make it 3-1. Minnesota turned the puck over a little over a minute later, and St. Louis took a 3-on-2 back Gustavsson's way. Robert Thomas, who had 26 goals and 86 points last season, shot the puck -- but Gustavsson deflected it. Crisis averted. He put out the fire. A similar dynamic happened in his second win against the Columbus Blue Jackets. He lost the shutout with 85 seconds left to make the game 3-1, but when Kirill Marchenko took the Jackets' last shot with 36 seconds to go, Gustavsson limited the damage. Last night in Florida, Sam Bennett got on the board in the middle of the second period, but Gustavsson shut the door completely in Minnesota's 5-1 win. As is often the case with the Wild, you have to give credit to their defense. They're allowing 1.8 expected goals per hour at 5-on-5, blocking shots, and making life much easier for Gustavsson. Then again, the Wild were the best team in hockey at suppressing expected goals last season, and look what that did for the Gus Bus, then. We can get caught up in recency bias, and just as easy as it was for the 2023-24 season to sour Wild fans on Gustavsson, this hot start could easily be coloring our feelings about him now. And even if the defense keeps being this stingy, and Gustavsson stays locked in, he won't be close to a .952 goalie at the end of the season. Still, it looks like he's figured out how to stop the bleeding when things go wrong, and his overall career save percentage is far from anything to sneeze at. You (and the Wild) can absolutely get hurt again, but it feels like it's time to go all-in on the Gus Bus.6 points
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6 points
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Exactly 33 fights in the league this year. 14 teams with zero fights. Team with the most fights Philadelphia with 4. Teams with the top 4 record in their divison 8 have zero fights. Florida has 3, Calgary has 2, New Jersey has 1 and Dallas has zero. Bottom 8 teams in the league have 10 fights. Reality is the league isn't a fighting league anymore. Fighting or being extra physical doesn't get you wins or loses. Strong solid hockey gets you wins. You can be strong on the puck without fighting. That is the problem with the Wild at times. They spend a lot of time on the outside of the rink not wanting to be strong in the middle. Look at past Stanley Cup winners or even the people who play for the Stanley Cup, they all have people strong on the interior of the ice. The Wild only have a few players that know how to do that. Foglino or Middleton fighting will not make the team strong on the puck.6 points
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Here is some interesting info on age, weight, height etc that came out via the athletic. Mn Wild 2024-2025 30th in weight at 196.1 lbs 30th in height at 72.7in 9th in age at 29 30th most Canadian players with 27.3% (We have the highest amount of European players by percentage in the entire NHL) We have the 14th most first round picks on the team(teams above us are mostly all rebuilding such as Buffalo, Ana, Phi. 42.6% of all nhlers are first round picks. 46.1% of the rest are 2nd plus rounders and 11.3% are undrafted. Very interesting stuff. Kind of shows how important those first rounders are.6 points
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In that good of shape... that much of a drive to win... Answer is C. Both.6 points
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I love it. I was hoping that Gusbus would get the shut out, because the way he's been playing so far this season he deserved it. Goalie goal is a nice consolation prize though. Nothing is more fun than winning, but games like these are far more fun than 2-1 grinders. I know we're only 5% of the way through the season, and BillyG gets knocked around for bringing in guys who are good for the room rather than good on the ice, but last nights game looked like a team that was playing like a team. I was also super stoked about Lauko's shorty. Not only because he actually finished, but because Kyrou literally bounced off him. We've been talking for ages about getting some size (cough, Stramel, cough) and a true 'power' forward into MN, and Lauko seems to actually know how to play with the body he has (cough, Greenway, cough) I'm sure I'm going to be back to earth soon, but this start sure beats last year.6 points
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Post-game interview, Gus says he should be in on PP meetings now. Haha!6 points
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There's a result the Wild can build upon. Get a couple days rest, get JEE back and get another win out in Columbus.6 points
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GUS BUS SCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRESSSSSSSSSSSSS6 points
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I'm all on the "Why the fuck do people still hate Hartman" train.6 points
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Sadly I can see Guerin trading Rossi too — I hope that's not the case, but it feels like a Guerin move for sure. If he's able to find a perfect 1-for-1 trade, that's one thing, but I don't have faith that will be the case. As for the next year's cap, it's reported that the salary cap should be $92 M. The Wild essentially have 16 players signed + buyout penalties for $75.16 M: $1.67 M for Buyout Penalties (Suter + Parise) $5.95 M for 2x Goalies (Gustavsson + Wallstedt) $27.68 M for 5x Defensemen (Faber, Spurg, Brodin, Middleton, Bogosian) $39.86 M for 9x Forwards (Kap, Boldy, Ek, Zuccs, Foligno, Hartman, Trenin, Gaudreau, and Öhgren) Total: $75.16M for the currently signed 16-players That leaves around $16.84 M to sign 2x Defensemen and 4x Forwards. Hopefully the 2x defensemen spots can be signed for around league minimum — let's just say $1M / player to be safe (depending whether it's Hunt, Buium, and/or Chilsholm). That means there's around 14.84 M to sign the 4x Forwards. Making some assumptions here, but as of now that would be: Rossi (hopefully a bridge deal of around $5-6 M), Khusnutdinov for a cheaper deal ($1-2 M), Yurov for his rookie contract + bonuses (not sure what that adds up to, but maybe $1.5-2 M?), and then one more player potentially through free agency for anywhere between $4.85-$7.35M. It's not a lot, but it's not nothing as well. Obviously that's a lot of assumptions that all 16 currently signed players are sticking around, and that they would re-sign the RFA's (Rossi, Khusnutdinov, Hunt, and Chisholm) and the rookies will make it on the roster (Yurov, Buium, and Öhgren).6 points
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I wonder if people were bullshitting themselves into thinking the team would be some amazingly well oiled machine or something. Games like Columbus and Winnipeg are probably going to be the norm, since this team was designed around risk averse/smarter play rather than higher end offensive pace. What's pretty funny is they still have games where they can get 3-4 goals, or be a team that clings on for dear life for 2-1 losses and yet still get points out of it. Last year, this team loses either kind of game because Gus (and or the defensive system) didn't show up at all. If I were the Jets, I'd be pissed they threw everything at the tired Wild and only came away with 1 goal in regulation. Until midgame, the Wild were always able to find open spots and pick up pucks if the Jets made mistakes. Faber kept a lot of pucks from leaving the offensive zone. You have a team trying to navigate without two of their historically best players at doing all the little things well, under the radar. Guys like Ohgren have shown they aren't completely ready for that responsibility.6 points
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6 points