Upon further review: A second look at a bad Minnesota Wild season preview

With the approach of the season, you will see a multitude of season previews flying at you from every site covering the game, this one included (watch for it the week of 9/26). With as many times as we have done this, it should come as no surprise that more often than not, the previews are exceptionally wrong come the end of the season. It is an exercise in futility, and yet we do it anyway, because the readers like them.

However, sometimes a season preview is just so frustratingly bad that it has to be considered for discussion. The fact that the preview comes from our friends over at Puck Daddy gave me pause before writing this, but some things were simply so inaccurate that they cannot slip past without mention. I write this with all due respect to the writers, to Greg Wyshynski, and to the Puck Daddy blog itself, one of my favorite daily reads.

It quickly goes off the rails, though, with this line:

The league's worst blue line? Cam Barker plays for the Oilers. THAT is the worst blue line in the league.The worst blue line in the league? I would really enjoy the justification for that claim. I don't like Brent Burns being gone any more than the next guy, and Burns is a world class talent and will be missed on the ice, but the league's worst blue line because of the departure of one player? I'm not buying it.

One of the youngest blue lines, maybe. Not a source for offense? Sure. But the worst blue line in the entire league? A group that returns five regulars from last season? A defensive corps that couldn't have been that bad since the Wild finished 28th in the league in scoring, and yet finished 20th in the league in the standings. The defense obviously did something right.

If we are talking the loss of a puck moving defenseman, let's be clear on one thing. Brent Burns struggled in that area. He is a great defenseman, but leading the rush was not his strongest area. Big, rangy, great offensive nose, All-Star of a defenseman. But puck moving? No.

We could bog down in this all day. We'll move on.

Barring injury, this isn't a place for an emphasized should. Heatley and Setoguchi are improvements over their formers. The loss of Bruno in the room will be tough, but Setoguchi is faster, younger, and quite frankly, better. Havlat... well... cutting out a cancer is never a bad idea.

Save for Theodore and Madden... good riddance. And both of them have been more than replaced.

Let me leave this to someone else.

Cal Clutterbuck isn't a second line winger, even on the Minnesota Wild. Now, granted, he is a fill in second line winger, but he is best served on the third line, in a checking role and adding a bit of offense where he can. He reached 19 goals on the third line last season. Is one more than that completely out of the question?

Question added at Noon: When did Cal Clutterbuck play in Finland? Other than during the Premier Series last year, that would be never. (Thanks to those who brought that up, I forgot to.)

Wild fans love them some Cal Clutterbuck, but his role is to shutdown and intimidate. His offense is icing on the cake.

Moving on. Again.

At this point, Harrison moves on to talk about Nicklas Backstrom. Yes. Nicklas. With a C. In net for the Wild. Good thing, too, because with the offensive talent the Wild have added, it will be nice to add Nicklas' 65 points coming from the backstop position this season.

Nope. They aren't better at all. They off loaded a cement block from the blueline, a souvenir puck dispenser at forward, a personality cancer, and added two goal scoring forwards with a history of 30+ goal seasons. Oh, that's right, they lost Burns. Season over.

The Sharks are shoe ins for the Cup, now. Engrave it. Don't even play the games.

But wait! The section after that gives us a full detail of how Jared Spurgeon is going to have a breakout year. So... he's going to have a breakout year, insinuating he is going to have a fairly good season, but no way he can fill the role of Burns. Right?

Please just go read THIS and we'll move on.

We aren't. At all. But thank you for your concern.

Because Nick Schultz, Matt Cullen, and Kyle Brodziak are no longer on the team.

Goal prevention will be a problem for this group, as Nicklas Backstrom has never had such underwhelming shutdown support in front of him.Again... five of six starting defensemen are returning. Only one is gone. The shutdown guys are still here. The offensive guy left. That has nothing to do with shutdown anything. Yowza.

And the coup de gras:

Easy money.

We'll see where the Wild end up. Could be in dead last, but I'm not buying the justifications.

If you made it all the way down here, congrats. 1500 word is a lot to digest. The short version of this post is this - don't let a Canucks writer preview the Wild anywhere but on a Canucks blog. More importantly, don't let someone who doesn't pay any attention to the team write the preview. Or, at very least, give them access to a roster and a copy of the StarTribune to get the lines and players correct.

You do good work, Harrison. This... wasn't it.