Can Jack Capuano's Decades Of Experience Fix Minnesota's Penalty Kill?

16 minutes ago, Will D. Ness said:

I understand this romantic notion that playing Wallstedt with Fleury and having their lockers right next to each other is some magical Hollywood sports narrative but come on.

Well said.  

Again winning cures everything.  If Wally's game grows into a legit #1 under Fleury's tutleage this season Guerin looks smart, if not it's another example of mismanaging assets by the GM.

35 minutes ago, Pewterschmidt said:

Lauko's offensive pre-season was a mirage, but at least he's big, willing to be physical and most importantly playing for league minimum, which is what he's worth.  

yeap! why did we have to pay 4 million for Trenin if Lauko can do it for 1?

41 minutes ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

It's going to be Yurov and a free agent to be named next July.

You put those 2 with Kaprizov, Boldy, Eriksson Ek, and Rossi, with Buium and Faber at the point on power plays, and the Wild will generate a decent number of goals.

Trenin, Hartman, Foligno is a capable checking line.

Khusnutdinov, Lauko, and Gaudreau is okay, and Ohgren should develop into a capable player somewhere. They likely will not be a top 3 Western Conference team this year, but it's not impossible to imagine a better future that isn't far off.

 

It's going to be Yurov and a free agent to be named next July. Yurov can come in just like Ohgren did and may need some seasoning in AHL. That "free agent" could be someone like Brock Nelson retirement signing. So I'll wait and see (no other choice i guess), but Kaprizov though may not.  

Trenin, Hartman, Foligno is a capable checking line. I just don't see it that way. They are overwhelmed by speed and have zero skills (apart from Harty). Most of the times they are just hitting the board and the opposing player is already 20 ft away creating offense. 

Wild are likely to have the worse bottom 6 forward line in competitive hockey. They may rival hawks and sharks and ducks, but i guess that's not a big win. And we still have Fleury in goal and Gus (yeah he started hot last year too....). And our D looks and plays slow & old. Faber is going to be playing 50 mins a game to cover for all the old turds (i hate to say it but Spurge is a turd now)

11 minutes ago, OldDutchChip said:

Trenin, Hartman, Foligno is a capable checking line. I just don't see it that way. They are overwhelmed by speed and have zero skills (apart from Harty). Most of the times they are just hitting the board and the opposing player is already 20 ft away creating offense. 

Another ODC truth bomb.  This line will make hockey plays every 5-6 games and look legitimate.  The five games in between they’ll lumber around the ice crashing into the glass always three strides behind the play.  Only 4 more years watching Foligno and Trenin Wild fans

Ok, let's just say the team is well below .500. Heinzy is fired. Then what? The good coaches are coaching. We didn't stash a Bylsma in the A. When someone gets fired you get all fired up (pun intended), but nobody truly thinks about the 2nd part, who is the next hire?

There are some guys out there, but I believe they are still attached to other teams where you have to ask permission to talk to them. Maybe you go with Capuano?

18 minutes ago, Pewterschmidt said:

Another ODC truth bomb.  This line will make hockey plays every 5-6 games and look legitimate.  The five games in between they’ll lumber around the ice crashing into the glass always three strides behind the play.  Only 4 more years watching Foligno and Trenin Wild fans

This is why I expected a lineup with four balanced lines. Trenin or Foligno with Rossi and Ogie. Hartman with skill guys like Boldy who can feed behind the back passes. 

To me, Hynes' approach is not getting the most of players. The defense is still just okay this far. MN was scoring enough goals til WPG. 

Need a little larger sample size but initially, Trenin, Foligno, NoJo, Fred and MAF all look bad in the "what have you done for me lately" category.

Middleton is there with BoGo AND Spurgeon who is hurt again...

Guerin needs his guys to step up. I don't blame bigly MAF, but he and the others mentioned have big roles to play. The Wild need more. I also think it's dangerous to be a team that has nuthin after Boldy, Ek, Kaprizov and the Norwegian Hobbit, Hartzy, Faber/Brodin. If any of those pieces fall other than Zuccy or Hartman perhaps, it's trouble. My point is the depth scoring kinda ends there. 

Details are gonna matter for the Wild. So far Hynes and a nice chunk of the lineup have a lot to prove yet. 

Why dont they put a tall muscle  guy with kaprizov and Rossi , camp infront of the net bother the goalie create rebounds garbage goals off of kap and rossi shots  

I thought we stole a point last night so we're even on the season. No Spurgeon and no explanation. Broken nose for Ek, but playing in St. Louis. 2 games, 2 injuries.

I had recommended that between the last preseason game and the 1st regular season game, during a team bonding episode, that in a team ceremony, Spurgeon pass the torch to Ek. ODC wants Kaprizov (I do not think his English is good enough yet for that role + he still doesn't like interviews). Ek is the identity of this team, hard working and always getting better. Kaprizov does this too, it's just the language barrier and that is a serious matter since communication is a major role of a Kaptain.

According to Russo, not knowing what is going on with Spurgeon and the body language + reading between the lines, suggests this was not sitting him in a b2b to ease him in. Russo seems to suggest this may very well be a setback, and he recounts all the pain Spurgeon was in before surgery last season. 

I did not see Spurgeon take a huge hit on Saturday night, but sometimes the cameras miss those and in the 2nd period the game got heavy in a hurry. Seattle has a lot of big bodies. I hope Spurgeon is ok and is back in St. Louis, we could use him, but my pessimistic side says this is exactly what I was afraid of. We know that Spurgeon has not handled the puck well in the 2 games in, what if one of the fumbles caused someone to hit him in the right spot? Goose says they were Kaptainless last season. It is time to pass the torch.

But, let's just say that Spurgeon has to hit LTIR, then what? For me, if this is the case and it's a significant setback, what would Ivan Provorov look like in a Wild uniform? He is in year 6 of 6 on his contract making about $1m less than Spurgeon. That is the cap space of a callup for regular IR. Provorov is 27 and would be a resign contender. He is a lefty, but I believe he prefers his off side.

If it is a shorter stint, perhaps Hunt is the better option and we move Chisholm up in the lineup. I think a longer opportunity for Hunt sitting next to Bogosian is a decent plan. I thought Hunt needed to see more of the NHL speed and was still going to make the odd mistake. 

My main point is that we need a plan if Spurgeon is done. It's a sooner or later thing that will happen. I have no problem putting him on LTIR for the rest of his contract (he earned every penny of the deal). But let's start thinking a bit like Vegas. If Spurgeon had a setback, perhaps getting him ready for the playoffs is the best thing, even though he hasn't been as effective in the playoffs. I think as a 2nd pairing, this may suit him better. 

Thoughts from last night:

1. the whole team was slow. Probably not a good b2b situation.
2. Goose held us in the game. (As per the conversation above, this was not something that Fleury was able to do, and we played much worse)
3. While most still see Johasson as a villain, an objective look at him suggests he is playing better and more engaged. He's still #6 in a top 6 and should be lower, but I do see effort and finishing checks.
4. Key moment was when Kaprizov could not pull away from the defender for a breakaway. 
5. This team learned from their mistakes the previous night and hung in there to steal a point.
6. The late goal in the 1st reminded me of the Dallas playoff PPs. It was bad vibes. But, they still hung in there.

1 hour ago, mnfaninnc said:

Ok, let's just say the team is well below .500. Heinzy is fired. Then what? The good coaches are coaching. We didn't stash a Bylsma in the A. When someone gets fired you get all fired up (pun intended), but nobody truly thinks about the 2nd part, who is the next hire?

There are some guys out there, but I believe they are still attached to other teams where you have to ask permission to talk to them. Maybe you go with Capuano?

Billy steps up and coaches the team! 💩 

2 hours ago, OldDutchChip said:

yeap! why did we have to pay 4 million for Trenin if Lauko can do it for 1?

Lauko is at least noticeable on the ice. I thought Trenin was supposed to be fast? Lauko definitely has speed and plays aggressively.

Trenin was insurance against losing Foligno plus a Russian continuity if Kaprizov leaves. For Knudi, Yurov, transition. 

Problem is how he's used. Sticking him in the bruiser role is good. All the grizzle together is not ideal IMO. MN has a variety of talents but Hynes has them segregated. 

Hynes needs to optimize the forward lines. 

1 hour ago, Protec said:

Trenin was insurance against losing Foligno plus a Russian continuity if Kaprizov leaves. For Knudi, Yurov, transition. 

Problem is how he's used. Sticking him in the bruiser role is good. All the grizzle together is not ideal IMO. MN has a variety of talents but Hynes has them segregated. 

Hynes needs to optimize the forward lines. 

We have too many players that we are trying to hide on a lineup vs players being able to fit naturally

I’d rather have one good player for checking duty rather than plan around how to fit Foligno/Trenin slow asses

the problem is not limited to 3rd line and that dooms us….we need to tailor to MJ/Zuccy needs by having Boldy attach to one and Kap to another, or give Rossi a big body to protect him, or pair Freddy with speedy line mates so that they can rush back to cover. We also need Spurge to babysit Midds and now someone to babysit spurge (when he comes back)

i know this is a problem for every team, but wild do not learn and have a ton of people they need to hide/cover for, instead of them pulling their weight. 

and I said that in older article- it’s NOT the fault of cap buy outs, it’s much deeper issue of not understanding the needs and misallocation of resources - Not having Parise doesn’t hurt us, it’s not having the player that Parise was viewed to be (7.5 mil per year equivalent player) We can get replacement level Parise today in Öhgren or on waiver and  Merrill can be out Suter. There now cap hysteria is nullified and what’s left? Possibly the worse constructed team in NHL, yes even worse than sharks and sens. Ouch (this likely my most pessimistic take….only up from here!) 🍺 

15 hours ago, OldDutchChip said:

and I said that in older article- it’s NOT the fault of cap buy outs, it’s much deeper issue of not understanding the needs and misallocation of resources -

I just don't see it that way. I believe the plan was always to backfill from inside the organization, and rookies were going to take those spots. But, you have to ice an NHL team and while the prospects work their way towards becoming rookies, somebody's got to fill those spots. 

What was brought in were value oriented fingers in the dyke. There were a lot of them because that's all that could be afforded. We've got a few keepers, but for a contending team, let's be real honest here, half of this group won't be here. It's their job to both fill the wholes and teach the rookies how to be NHL professionals. 

I've been waiting patiently for the kids to come up since we decided to do the buyouts. Rossi's delay was unfortunate, but he's the 1st in a long line of replacement players coming in. I'll give you credit for having no sure thing as all prospects have done zip in the NHL. Even the Heidt experiment showed how far away he was from jumping 2 leagues. 

I am fairly critical of the A and how the players are being developed there, and I do not believe we have allocated enough resources to that particular area of the organization. I have no idea what they are doing with the Heartlanders. Maybe developing goalies and spare defenders? 

But, I am optimistic on the talent coming. The hope is that during the Covid/bad Russia years that Judd picked up some gems and out scouted the other franchises. We'll see. But, from where we were picking, the full 5 years is probably going to be needed on most of the picks. 

35 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

I just don't see it that way. I believe the plan was always to backfill from inside the organization, and rookies were going to take those spots. But, you have to ice an NHL team and while the prospects work their way towards becoming rookies, somebody's got to fill those spots. 

What was brought in were value oriented fingers in the dyke. There were a lot of them because that's all that could be afforded. We've got a few keepers, but for a contending team, let's be real honest here, half of this group won't be here. It's their job to both fill the wholes and teach the rookies how to be NHL professionals. 

I've been waiting patiently for the kids to come up since we decided to do the buyouts. Rossi's delay was unfortunate, but he's the 1st in a long line of replacement players coming in. I'll give you credit for having no sure thing as all prospects have done zip in the NHL. Even the Heidt experiment showed how far away he was from jumping 2 leagues. 

I am fairly critical of the A and how the players are being developed there, and I do not believe we have allocated enough resources to that particular area of the organization. I have no idea what they are doing with the Heartlanders. Maybe developing goalies and spare defenders? 

But, I am optimistic on the talent coming. The hope is that during the Covid/bad Russia years that Judd picked up some gems and out scouted the other franchises. We'll see. But, from where we were picking, the full 5 years is probably going to be needed on most of the picks. 

I just don't see it that way. I believe the plan was always to backfill from inside the organization, and rookies were going to take those spots. But, you have to ice an NHL team and while the prospects work their way towards becoming rookies, somebody's got to fill those spots. That's the plan with all the teams. It's just Wild sucked at it. overcommitted to vets, overvalued their pipeline and did not diversify their team. to save their bacon they now need c level prospects to reach b or higher level of output, and that is very hard to do. 

No one made Billy sign Harty, Zuccy, Foligno, Midds, Fleury, MJ, Trenin, Freddy.... (most of them a year before he even HAD to) And i don't consider any, besides Fleury maybe, that much valuable for their "mentorship". Ek could be that. We don't need 75% of the team being here just for the mentor aspect. They need to know how to play. 

I've been waiting patiently for the kids to come up since we decided to do the buyouts. i am not sure why buyouts matter. if Rossi or any rookie comes in and impresses, he'll find a way on the team. 

But, I am optimistic on the talent coming.  Let's stop giving our scouts a free pass, he has been here for 4 years and we should have had a gem pop up and wow us. So far his claim to fame is who exactly? Rossi? no other player impressed! NO OTHER PLAYER. unless i am mistaken....but we have Yurov, Ohgren, Wally, Lambos, Stramel....none of these players have shown anything that you can rely on and say - he's a star. NOT ONE. that's horrible. And we are ok with that? 

I dunno my friend - seems like we are sinking into irrelevancy. We'll say bye to Kap, welcome MN son (one of Brocks or both, hooray....) and look forward to another 5 year plan. cheers! 🍻

35 minutes ago, OldDutchChip said:

Let's stop giving our scouts a free pass, he has been here for 4 years and we should have had a gem pop up and wow us. So far his claim to fame is who exactly? Rossi? no other player impressed! NO OTHER PLAYER. unless i am mistaken....but we have Yurov, Ohgren, Wally, Lambos, Stramel....none of these players have shown anything that you can rely on and say - he's a star. NOT ONE. that's horrible. And we are ok with that? 

It's a little deeper than that. I'll give you Rossi was a bit of a miss when Lundell was selected after him but Rossi lit up the OHL even more so than Perfetti and Mercer didn't exactly have stellar stats in the QMJHL and that was about it for decent C's taken in that draft with our position.

2021 we drafted for the highest rated prospect goalie that is projected to be a cornerstone of the franchise for a long time. The next best player after that is Johnston for Dallas (and he's looking like a stud) you can argue 2nd round was a miss with Peart over Knies but the only other player to even play a 100 games is a D man Moser for ARI

2022 we drafted Yurov and Ohgren in the 1st and Haight in the 2nd (who looked good in preseason. No other player selected after Yurov has played more than 35 games

2023 was Stramel and not looking like a homerun right now but the most games played by a player selected after him is 3

2024 was Zeev which is looking like a homerun but again only 1 player after him as even played an NHL game and it's 1

Point is you can't always expect a prospect to "pop and wow us" when the picks outside of the top 1-5 for other teams haven't exactly popped and wowed anyone either.

13 minutes ago, M_Nels said:

It's a little deeper than that. I'll give you Rossi was a bit of a miss when Lundell was selected after him but Rossi lit up the OHL even more so than Perfetti and Mercer didn't exactly have stellar stats in the QMJHL and that was about it for decent C's taken in that draft with our position.

2021 we drafted for the highest rated prospect goalie that is projected to be a cornerstone of the franchise for a long time. The next best player after that is Johnston for Dallas (and he's looking like a stud) you can argue 2nd round was a miss with Peart over Knies but the only other player to even play a 100 games is a D man Moser for ARI

2022 we drafted Yurov and Ohgren in the 1st and Haight in the 2nd (who looked good in preseason. No other player selected after Yurov has played more than 35 games

2023 was Stramel and not looking like a homerun right now but the most games played by a player selected after him is 3

2024 was Zeev which is looking like a homerun but again only 1 player after him as even played an NHL game and it's 1

Point is you can't always expect a prospect to "pop and wow us" when the picks outside of the top 1-5 for other teams haven't exactly popped and wowed anyone either.

 

Point is you can't always expect a prospect to "pop and wow us" when the picks outside of the top 1-5 for other teams haven't exactly popped and wowed anyone either. i think you have to have an expectation from your scout of nearly 5 years to produce a gem or two. otherwise he is just meeting expectation and we all know that in today's world - it's not good enough. i was expecting one of his picks to be playing and excelling now. it hasn't happened yet, but we keep hearing we are close. what about using some of these fantastic prospects (while they still have value) in a package to pry a proven player to pair with Kap now? before he leaves! nothing like that has been done. we let them "season" until they are over done. that is also on the scout to have an honest talk with Billy and say - we have this Stramel kid who is a bust, so before anyone knows - let's ship him out or let's maximize on Rossi's potential now after him getting 21 goals and use him to pry away someone. I don't know if Billy and Judd never played chess but might be good to learn a move or two. 

7 minutes ago, OldDutchChip said:

i think you have to have an expectation from your scout of nearly 5 years to produce a gem or two. otherwise he is just meeting expectation and we all know that in today's world - it's not good enough. i was expecting one of his picks to be playing and excelling now.

No doubt but outside of 1-5 no other scouts have produced a gem or two that is playing and excelling in the last 4 drafts and the majority of them haven't even played 50 games and that's going back to 2021. Chalk that up to the "competitive rebuild" and not a tank if you want. 

As far as trading prospects for a player is another discussion and one that I don't necessarily disagree with.

10 minutes ago, M_Nels said:

No doubt but outside of 1-5 no other scouts have produced a gem or two that is playing and excelling in the last 4 drafts and the majority of them haven't even played 50 games and that's going back to 2021. Chalk that up to the "competitive rebuild" and not a tank if you want. 

As far as trading prospects for a player is another discussion and one that I don't necessarily disagree with.

good points!

i just expected a bit more realized potential with our hyped prospects at this point. instead it's more "wait and see" or adjustments to those hefty projections (yurov may not be the next kaprizov or vlady? is he closer to Marat then to Kaprizov? who knows!)

and i get it! it's marketing, it's giving people hope, it's clicks and views, but it's also misleading. so i'm trying to stay level headed and wait on anointing a prospect the next big thing until they deserve it. none have yet. 

Wild make me happy and Beat Blues today 😜

4 hours ago, mnfaninnc said:

value oriented fingers in the dyke.

The best kin…oh never mind

4 hours ago, mnfaninnc said:

It's their job to both fill the wholes

Preparation H is good on the whole - A Powers

4 hours ago, OldDutchChip said:

 i am not sure why buyouts matter. if Rossi or any rookie comes in and impresses, he'll find a way on the team. 

Buyouts matter because we didn't have the money for anyone but aging vets and career AHLers. 14.7million is 17% of the cap. You're delusional expecting a team to be a contender with a disadvantage like that. Show me the last cup winner who only signed enough players to hit the cap floor? There's your answer why the buyouts matter.

I agree with you that our resource allocation hasn't been the best in that time. I felt like we have overpaid certain vets and have questionable hesitancy signing some of our up and comers. I don't think our drafting has been an issue outside Stramel and Billy G's fingerprints are all over that one. The issue was the drafting from 2016-2018 we had a single player that wasn't a forth liner and he refused to sign here (McBain). The dewey bros and Kunin were the only others that played NHL games.

Now we see the 2020 draft beginning to show up; Rossi, Khus, and Hunt. Let me also note that we have not had a pick inside the top 10 since Rossi and that Rossi put up 40pts in his first full season after losing an entire year of development. That is remarkable as a rookie @ 22 years old. Even guys like Drai(21) and Barkov(20) only had 50 and 36 points in their first full season. Drai had 38 games before that and Barkov had 54. You know who else had total points in the forties in their rookie season?  Stamkos, Wendel Clark, Larkin, Wheeler, Robertson, Cogliano, Zetterburg, Lundell, Drury, Eberle, Debrusk. No player other than generational talents come in and put up 60pts. You don't snag those at pick 19. I think it is important to have some perspective before calling out the job Judd has done so far.

1 hour ago, TheGoosesAreLooses said:

Buyouts matter because we didn't have the money for anyone but aging vets and career AHLers. 14.7million is 17% of the cap. You're delusional expecting a team to be a contender with a disadvantage like that. Show me the last cup winner who only signed enough players to hit the cap floor? There's your answer why the buyouts matter.

I agree with you that our resource allocation hasn't been the best in that time. I felt like we have overpaid certain vets and have questionable hesitancy signing some of our up and comers. I don't think our drafting has been an issue outside Stramel and Billy G's fingerprints are all over that one. The issue was the drafting from 2016-2018 we had a single player that wasn't a forth liner and he refused to sign here (McBain). The dewey bros and Kunin were the only others that played NHL games.

Now we see the 2020 draft beginning to show up; Rossi, Khus, and Hunt. Let me also note that we have not had a pick inside the top 10 since Rossi and that Rossi put up 40pts in his first full season after losing an entire year of development. That is remarkable as a rookie @ 22 years old. Even guys like Drai(21) and Barkov(20) only had 50 and 36 points in their first full season. Drai had 38 games before that and Barkov had 54. You know who else had total points in the forties in their rookie season?  Stamkos, Wendel Clark, Larkin, Wheeler, Robertson, Cogliano, Zetterburg, Lundell, Drury, Eberle, Debrusk. No player other than generational talents come in and put up 60pts. You don't snag those at pick 19. I think it is important to have some perspective before calling out the job Judd has done so far.

Buyouts matter because we didn't have the money for anyone but aging vets and career AHLers. i think we could have traded out someone, waived, or maybe not sign out super-signee Trenin if anyone of our prospects was kicking ass. but they are not. so buyout or not - that is not the point. its actually a preferred way in the buy out scenario - to get a prospect to push his way in on the cheap. 

14.7million is 17% of the cap. You're delusional expecting a team to be a contender with a disadvantage like that.  you may not have understood or read my post in its entirety. i said that it matters if the player that is bought out has the same dollar value to his play. in case of parise and suter they did not. their play was equivalent to that of a fourth liner or 3rd pair d. that is an issue of misuse of funds. that is what i argued. we could have kept parise and suter and we were in the same, if not worse situation, and that would be because they SUCK. we were paying for junk. but if that junk was still not on our team, we wouldn't have that as an excuse right? this was done to save face for the management team to point to cap penalties and avoid answering question of why is your 15 million investment playing like they owe YOU money? that's the underlying issue. 

re drafting - the stat comparison game is always fun but at some point you have to compare it to the game on the ice. we can draw parallel to draisaitl, barkov, zetterberg...why not orr, gordie and hull too? but maybe be honest here - is Rossi, Marat, Stramel, or any of the prospects that Judd brought on really deserves to be in the same conversation? Maybe Drury and Eberle. I'll give you those two - that is a good comp when you put both #s and play (i know i know - old fashion eye test) 🍻

28 minutes ago, OldDutchChip said:

re drafting - the stat comparison game is always fun but at some point you have to compare it to the game on the ice. we can draw parallel to draisaitl, barkov, zetterberg

My point here stands. You're trying to draw what a player will become from your old "eye test". I'm not saying Rossi is another Drai or Wendel Clark, what I am putting in perspective is how good a rookie 40 pt season is and maybe it is a bit premature to say anything regarding Judd's drafting when we haven't seen a huge sample size yet. I get that is part of your complaint but i also understand there are very few guys that step into the league and have instant success at 18-20.

25 minutes ago, TheGoosesAreLooses said:

My point here stands. You're trying to draw what a player will become from your old "eye test". I'm not saying Rossi is another Drai or Wendel Clark, what I am putting in perspective is how good a rookie 40 pt season is and maybe it is a bit premature to say anything regarding Judd's drafting when we haven't seen a huge sample size yet. I get that is part of your complaint but i also understand there are very few guys that step into the league and have instant success at 18-20.

There’s really no right or wrong answer on what one expects from a scout or views him a success or a failure….that’s up to the owner

for me, I want to see a star or someone that exceeded expectations delivered in 4+ years on the job, otherwise it really is just ok 🍺