Minnesota Wild 2012 Season Grades: Marco Scandella

Marco Scandella is probably the highest rated defensive prospect on the club not named Jonas Brodin. As such, this was supposed to be the season where Scandella came up, improved upon his previous call-ups and became the future defenseman around whom the Wild would build a blue-line. It started out really well for Scandella, but then the wheels came off the bus, he went back to Houston to find his game, improved his play and came back after the Wild went into a tailspin. Then Scandella was injured like virtually everyone else on the roster. Not a great year for the youngster, but he's still the kind of guy around whom Mike Yeo will build a defense.

Nathan - -22. MINUS 22! That's simply appalling. Sure, it's not entire his fault, and he did start out playing really well. Hell, at times he was the best defenseman on the ice, but when his game started to slip, the Wild did as well and Scandella was sent back to Houston. This was supposed to be a season where Scandella found his game and became part of the future. He still has that ability and came back playing well, then of course he got hurt.

Grade: C-

Grade: C-

Jesse - Not to use a poor cliche, but Scandella's season was one hell of an emotional rollercoaster. He came out of the gate flying. He was skating well, seeing the play, and making the transition to the NHL. Then the wheels REALLY fell off. His game fell apart as he tried to do way too much. Scandella made a trip back to Houston to help re-focus his game. When he returned, he was pretty lackluster for most of the 2nd half. His game started to warm up towards the end of the season, so there's hope for next year. Unfortunately for the grading, too much of his season was blah.

Grade: D+

JS - This wasn't quite the breakout year we were hoping to get from Scandella. Being sent back to Houston in January was a heck of blow to him, seeing as his spot on the lineup looked to be 100% secure. He's still young, no need to panic, but this season should be viewed as a blip in his development. That's not to say he was completely bad, but 12 points and -22 is really not what we had in mind. His last goal was on December 8th. The Wild need more from a guy expected to chip in offensively. We don't need him to be Brent Burns, we need him to be a better Marco Scandella.

Grade: C-