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To be fair, Buium has never played a regular season NHL game and doesn't turn 20 until December. Nobody should be expecting Makar, but if he can be somewhat average on defense and deliver above average minutes coordinating the power play, that could go a long way. Not overly important, but Buium is also pretty young for having played 2 college seasons already. Makar, for example, was a full year older when he finished his 2nd college season and debuted in the playoffs for the Avalanche(averaging 17:22 TOI in that first playoffs fresh out of college). Makar has played 6 NHL regular seasons(7 playoff seasons) and turns 27 in October. Buium will have his first NHL training camp and have time to acclimate to the system this time around. I have high expectations for Buium, but I don't expect him to meet all of them in the upcoming season. He'll almost certainly make numerous mistakes in 2025-2026, but his overall play will hopefully be at a level that the Wild can live with them as long as he's learning and growing from them, developing knowledge and habits that will reduce future mistakes. I mean, you generally don't become the most trusted defenseman in your age group, garnering the most ice time from multiple coaches while vying for NCAA titles and world junior championships if you keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

It's fine to temper expectations. No one should be saying he will be the next Makar or Hughes, but it's fine to say he has the potential to be since he does seem to play that style of game. Even Buium himself admitted that he needed to add more strength before next season so he could be a more effective player in the NHL. He at least recognizes that he was a bit overmatched in the few games he played against Vegas. Accepting that you need to adapt is a good first step. Now, we'll have to see if he follows through. To me, if more offense comes out of our defense than last year, it's a win. If he and Jiricek play well enough so that Faber isn't gassed by the end of the season and we aren't driving Spurgeon and Brodin into early retirement, great. Buium doesn't have to be Makar. He just has to be better than Merrill and give our defense an offensive aspect it's been missing. Start there, and we'll see how far he goes.

If memory serves it took Boldy until his 3rd playoffs to perform. I don't get the Rossi can't play in the playoffs premature especulation.

People keep expecting (hoping and wanting even?) Zuccarello and Spurgeon to fail so they can stop "blocking" younger guys". Fact is it took a puck to the nuts to stop Zucc last year. They still ended up top 5-7 producers for the team that can't buy offense.

I don't. From Luke Simms' article on 7/10 that proposed a Rossi - McTavish swap, Rossi's Offense / Defense projections for 25-26 were 86% / 75% . McTavish matched Rossi on the Offensive side, but his Defense rating was 11%. As I keep saying, Rossi was in the top 1/4 of the league for BOTH offense and defense last year, at age 23. Trade him, and the Wild will regret it for a long time.

I remember when Boldy got this contract, there were many that thought it was too much. It was a gamble that looks like it will pay off huge dividends. I know I might be in the minority here, but that is why I feel locking up Rossi on a long-term deal is worth the risk. If they were able to get Rossi on at 7 years and $6.5M AAV, this could be a bargain contract also in a year or two. I also do not feel it would be an untradable contract if we did decide to move on from Rossi in a couple of years if we need the money for Yurov, Ohgren, Buium and Wallstedt, unless he completely regresses. We have the space for this year and next at that term. I think it is worth the gamble. If we sign a bridge deal of 2-3 years and he keeps improving his game, then we will be stuck paying a lot more.

Comments are so rational…what happened??

They draft best available with every pick, if for nothing else than trade assets. They are still drafting small players every draft. The size argument has gotten completely blown out of proportion. Kirill and Zuccarello are the same size as Rossi and nobody says they are too small. Granted, you want your centers to be bigger than smaller, but there have been several successful centers in the NHL that are Rossi's size. You could argue that weight and strength are more important than height. A lower center of gravity is a benefit. These are not quarterbacks that can't see over their linemen!

Politics and civility are rare these days when you can hide behind a keyboard. I appreciate that the majority of the site and articles are politics free. I hope it stays that way.

I thought you were like the godfather of this here website. ODC has taken a “leave of absence” and Protec was banned for being the racist, misogynistic bigot that he is. p.s. he might be operating under the name “NoJoSux” but don’t tell anyone cuz it might be a secret.

Nice article Tony. Hoping he has at least one more good year in him. I know some feel that he has lost it and is only suited for the power play, but, offensively anyway, he is still producing decent enough at even strength. Below are his last 5 seasons even strength points per 60 and his team rank of players that played at least half the season, followed by his points per game played and rank of players playing at least half the season. 2020/21: 2.892, 2nd .833, 2nd 2021/22: 2.835, 4th 1.129 2nd 2022/23: 1.792, 5th .859, 2nd 2023/24: 1.759, 6th .913, 3rd 2024/25: 2.025, 4th .783, 3rd His even strength points per 60 was higher last year than players such as Alex DeBrincat, Nazeem Kadri, Dylan Larkin and Dylan Guenther

If I were Guerin I'd think long and hard about a 7 x 7 range. In as little as a year that could be considered a bargain with the cap expected to increase at a high rate.

With what Guerin was saying publicly about Fiala, and the fact Fiala had to take them to arbitration 2 years in a row, I doubt that Fiala felt very loved here. Regardless of other factors, Fiala's comments after getting to the kings made it clear there was no love lost between them. Put this together with the news of Guerin being accused of verbal harassment and some other misgivings in the front office tells you how he treats people that aren't his guys. You can say it was all his girlfriend but do you really think the way a player is treated has nothing to do with their next contract? Come on now.

I can provide some actual quotes (July 30th) from Marco Rossis tv-interview with Austrian TV ORF. Not really a burner but ...: "No contract yet, true, but thats the NHL business. MIN has the rights on me. You have to be patient. I leave it to my agent (Ian Pulver) and let him do his work. I hope the two can find a solution before the camp starts in September. ...Yes, I was very disappointed what happened in the PO. It was not ok what happened. I dont want to go into the details too much. But I know that I performed good, even after beeing dropped to 4th line, provided 2 goals, 1 assist. But this is stuff from months ago. I'm fully focused on the here and now and the future." Rossi trains with his personal fitness coach in his home area in Vorarlberg (western part of Austria) since middle of June and conducts an on-ice training camp for kids too. He'll be present at a second kid-camp in Graz/Austria next week.

It was a moment of weakness. It won't happen again.

As a wise person in this community stated already, the internet offers an endless cesspool of places to have these culture war slap fights. Keeping guardrails on this community so that it stays Wild/hockey related is what keeps this place special.

If Yurov and Ohgren play so well as to relegate Rossi and Zucc to the third line, that would mean they are putting up close to 60 points each and that would be amazing for the Wild and probably have them in the running for the Presidents. Cup. I hope they play that well this year. Realistically, I am assuming that they start on the third and fourth lines this year and will have to show a ton to get moved up. I still believe that Hynes will try and split the lines up a bit and go with the following to start the season. Kap, Ek, Zucc Boldy, Rossi, Tarasenko Foligno, Yurov, Hartman Ohgren, Sturm, Trenin

There have been several times when a writer decides to write an opinion piece that has a left wing bias slant. I don't mean this derogatorily, it's just a description as most would think I have a right wing bias slant. During these times, Protec has come out with his guns blazing in contrast to the authors of the piece. It can get pretty hot. From the commenter's perspective, if you're going to write a piece like that, you should expect heavy opposition (written from either bias). As a community, we still have things we just can't write about and keep the writing sane and respectful. Sometimes, our writers get really fired up about an issue which crosses the line into a hockey related thing. The piece comes out and the comments fly around with a bunch of name calling. When this site was part of Vox, occasionally, one of the writers would author an article like this and then seal the comments section. All that did was poison the next or previous article to have the discussion and meltdowns. Personally, on these topics, I find it eye opening to get everyone's perspectives. On some things, I find it odd that so many have a different opinion or value system than mine and I do not generally find that within my circles. Often times things are brought up which I've never considered and do not have an answer for. But it does make me think. If we could keep it civil, I think the conversations can be fruitful, but the risk of it going south is far too much for the site to take.

This team was 20 seconds away from missing the playoffs entirely. You still have to produce to even get there first. I'll value someone getting that done in the he regular season, cause the team has enough people who didn't.

Zuc = The Anti-Billy Guerin.

It was all to devalue him so they could resign him cheap. He still performed admirably, being tied to two oafs.

Last season Midsy had 157 blocks, and 99 hits and only played 67 games as a result of the abuse. Even playing 67 games, he was 4th on the team in time on ice (1465:35, second among D behind Faber) You dont have a guy like Midsy on your team because of the points he produces, he's out there to throw his body around, eat up minutes, and absorb some pucks. Midsy aint going to turn into an offensive power house, but he's going to always be the big guy you can pair with a little guy to prevent the other big guy from taking liberties against your little guy.

And that's why I didn't think the Wild should trade Boldy straight up for Mikko Rantanen when ODC was ranting about stuff like that. Rantanen might be worth $13M, but he'd need to be paid around that while the Wild have Boldy at $7M for the next 5 seasons!!!!! Basically, Boldy and Eriksson Ek for the price of Rantanen. Rantanen is a great player, but I'd rather have Boldy + JEE than just Rantanen. I believe Boldy is also still getting better, so could surpass Rantanen in production in those 5 years.

Until last year or two most everyone wanted to trade Boldy also... Fans get entirely to antsy. They wanted to get rid Sturm then, and now it's great to have him back on the team, and 1 or 2 months into the season they'll want to trade him for one of the Tkachuck's.

I know the hype machine is cranking high RPMs for Zeev but I get the feeling that he is legit. He looked super green in his debut but it set the table for him. He definitely isn't Calen Addison 2.0.

Id be very surprised if Rossi holds out. For starters thats not his character and a hold out would be just as bad for him as it would be the team.

Rumor has it he's been in Bellevue since the NoJo signing...

This slope is too slippery as we've have learned time and again. A good example you'd cite is tax loopholes/credits for an arena re-model which undoubtedly spirals into a blue vs red debate and the members who cannot help but get triggered come off the rails. I choose to not engage in this debate as it's not interesting to me, and there's an endless amount of this slap fighting (if you're interested) on any comment section anywhere else on the internet. this conversation always ends the same way, so let's just not start it. I'm much more interested in discussing Nojo's irrelevance or our prospect pools can't miss status.

So far bill seems to be managing this situation perfectly. Hasn't overpaid Rossi and apparently has a good sense for his market value around the league. If we can get Rossi on a reasonable, short term bridge deal that keeps him tradeable down the road, then bill is managing the asset correctly. #rarebillcompliment

Sounds to me like Guerin is taking a little break from negotiations until Kaprizov comes back to the US, and he can get that deal done. Once that's done, I would expect him to focus on a deal for Rossi, who's working hard this offseason. Russo indicated that Rossi was working with Joe Thornton to improve his faceoffs recently. While there's a small chance of a short term deal, I still think an intermediate deal(4-5 years) around $5.5M-$6.5M AAV is where they end up.

I think he'll want to get to UFA status. 4x$6 to 6.5M is my prediction.

If that's really the case, Guerin needed to be fired yesterday.

Imagine a Wild team doing what the Twins just did...I think I'd cry.

This article mostly aligns with where I'm at. Brodin has been such a key piece, I'm hopeful that he gets healthy early in the year. If they have all of the defensemen healthy, I'd like to see them play each pairing fairly equally with Spurgeon and Middleton paired frequently. Spurgeon's play and leadership likely deserves top 4 minutes, so I could see them putting Brodin with him(at least for portions of games), but Brodin seems like he is Jiricek's ideal pairing, so I keep coming back to rolling with the young 2-way players(Buium/Faber) as pairing #1, and trying to keep Middleton and Spurgeon together due to their history together. Both rookies get an experienced linemate rather than throwing them on the ice together. I could see a lot of mixing and matching this season, particularly in the first half of the year. For 3rd periods, they could choose to mix things up and limit minutes for guys they deem to be weaker with defensive play, but try to play fairly even minutes in most games, especially in the first 2 periods. Obviously, they could go Brodin/Faber and Buium/Spurgeon as well, when healthy, pairing up Middleton/Jiricek in a reduced 3rd pairing role, but does that wear out the top 2 pairings when they lean on them heavily like they have with Faber the last couple of years? And would Middleton/Jiricek have the speed and defensive acumen to be an effective pairing for all 3 periods each night? I think I'd favor the balanced approach when healthy.

In national news, Waddell opened up about his trade of Adam Fox to the Rangers. Apparently, when Waddell acquired Fox from Calgary in the Hanifan-Lindholm blockbuster, Waddell checked with Fox's camp to be assured he'd sign with the Canes. When he heard that Fox definitely would sign, he pulled the trigger. 2 weeks later, Fox went back on his commitment, and said he'd only sign with NYR, forcing Carolina to trade him to NYR for 2 2nds. Now, this is fully the Waddell side of the story. Of course, there is nothing in writing to prove this conversation ever happened. However, Waddell is still pretty sore about how it all went down. Was there a misunderstanding? That seems unlikely unless as a college player Waddell couldn't directly ask him the question. Big deal, how does this have anything to do with the Wild? Well, remember that Shooter had handshake deals with some of the players he got on bargain contracts? By fulfilling those handshake promises, the young GM was building a reputation that players could trust him. That reputation circles through NHL locker rooms. So does the reputation that if a player doesn't fit into the organization, Guerin will try to find him a spot where he does, even if it isn't for the best offer to the Wild. While this has not had an immediate affect on our UFA ability to attract, we also haven't really had any money. If things progress like I think they will with the kids, just assuming that Bogo will be the 7th D is not a good assumption. I believe that Guerin will ask Bogosian if that is a role he will accept and if not he will try to find him a place where he can play 3rd pair. Overall, and very generally speaking, Guerin has treated the vets with a lot of dignity here, and that also is a reputation builder. Remember, Bogosian was on a Lightning team that was a contender, but he wanted something better than 7th D. I think Bogo had some protection but agreed to come here. I think he's been far better than we thought he'd be.

My point is that Hynes only benched him because it was a 'win 4 games or the season is over' situation. And that won't be the case during the regular season. You can survive him making a game-losing mistake multiple times during the course of the regular season versus the best-of-7 series in the playoffs. He'll be given far more rope this upcoming season than he was given in the Vegas series. Pretty much guaranteed.

Not sure what you mean by that. They offered Rossi the 5x5 contract when his only productive season had been a 40 point season. I guess he also indicated a 1 or 2 year deal would be at less than $5M. Guerin has stated that he likes Rossi and would match any offer sheet. He's offered more money to Rossi than every forward on the roster not named Kaprizov, Boldy, or Eriksson Ek, who are all more valuable players. What Guerin hasn't said, but I believe to be true is that they'll go above $5M for a long term deal after his 60 point season, but they won't go to $7M. Guerin hasn't said much about it, but when an agent will only discuss deals above what you deem to be reasonable, you do what Guerin is doing...letting them marinate on your position and come back to you after they've had a chance to think over their options. Guerin has been negotiating this correctly.

While I agree the Rossi camp is getting a reality check on his market value, I think GM’s are waiting for bill to shoot his load on 97 contract, then interested GM’s can sharpen the pencil on Rossi offer sheet knowing the #’s on bill’s financial bind. i now believe Rossi gets an offer sheet this summer.

Buium on Power Play One. Jiricek on Power Play Two. I like that combo. Lets face it Spurgeon was a black hole when it came to running the power play. Three years with 2 goals and 14 assists. That is total, so that is 5 points per year from Spurgeon on the Power Play. It was so bad they decided to run with five forwards and that pretty much was the reason they lost the series against Vegas. Two short handed goals because the forwards had no idea how to stop a break or hold the blueline. So, going forward they should at least be better than 5 points a year from the QB on the power play. I know they are young and he will make mistakes but the lions share of the minutes will be taken by the top four defenseman. This will allow Buium and Jiricek to grow into their roles.

Zeev being anywhere close to advertised takes pressure off Faber and Spurgeon to be the only serviceable offense from the blueline. Play Buium with Spurgeon, and he'll learn defense really quick. Great byproducts all around.

We shouldn't want to trade Rossi down the road, we should want to keep him on the team, otherwise why did BG draft him at 9th knowing his size, draft someone else, especially a center. Yurov is our only other legit center prospect and he's a total question mark right now. Seven years and BG still can't address the lack of center depth. Patience and confidence is running thin with BG. Rossi shouldn't sign more than a 2 year deal.

Frank Seravalli saying what a number of us here have been saying for weeks. Edmonton losing a couple of guys last year doesn't change the fact that it's rare for offer sheets to get signed. That was a unique situation where they were really up against the cap and the St. Louis GM didn't care for the Edmonton GM, so felt inclined to take advantage of the situation. Also, the NHL does not seem to place the market for Rossi at $7M+, which is where teams would need to go in order for the Wild to consider not matching the offer.

I think one is in Moscow and the other in Austria.

He's a 4th round flyer with good skills. He probably will never make the show. But if he does and performs it is a huge win. i don't get these guys crying foul because the team took a no gamble flyer on a guy.

An article that warms the heart of Minnfaninnc.

Yurov is currently training out in Connecticut this summer

Bring in the Breadman!

I hope that opposite would not happen - Panarin convince Kaprisov to sign with Rangers

I can't take any top 10 prospect list that has Charlie Stramel on it seriously.

Surprising to me that they don't include Lambos in the Wild's top 10. I don't think there's a good reason to doubt that he should be top 10, but I think they like writing about the more recent prospects. They have a couple of undersized 4th rounders ahead of Lambos, Kiviharju and Benak. Those Wild prospects are skilled, but they are years away from possibly being positive players in the AHL, which is what Lambos is already.